Follow-up on languages thread

[JennyD]

After years of nudging my American-born Chinese DH, not to mention my Chinese-born ILs, to speak to the children in Cantonese, I have finally come to the conclusion that if my children are going to learn a foreign language, I am going to have to teach them myself. MIL tries but constantly slips into English, FIL won't even try, and DH feels it's too constraining, too tiring, and in the final analysis he just doesn't think it's worth it. He is a devoted father and teaches them so many other things, but Cantonese just isn't going to be one of them.

 

So, onward! My DS5 has been asking to learn a foreign language so he "can speak to people who don't speak English," which seems like a perfectly reasonable request, and presumably this is something we should be doing anyway. Alas, I am not much help here -- I used to live in Japan and speak Japanese reasonably well (or at least I used to) and I read French, but I am definitely not truly fluent in either of these languages. I am also not especially keen on Japanese as a first language choice, as it's both (1) really hard; and (2) not all that useful, IME.

 

Mandarin Chinese is probably the best choice, since at least MIL can speak it, FIL can read it (Cantonese and Mandarin share a written language), and it's not at all implausible that we'll at least visit China some day. But how to proceed? A tutor? A class? A purchased curriculum? How do I sort through the hype and figure out what's really worthwhile? If I want to outsource this, there are literally dozens of classes and schools here (NYC) that offer children's language classes, all of them claiming to offer the One True Path to fluency, and nearly all of them costing an arm and a leg. Home study programs are much cheaper, of course, but how best to choose between them? Is tutoring useful at this age or is that more appropriate for an older child?

 

Any suggestions more than appreciated!

[Whereneverever]

Do you speak any Mandarin? I think it's easier to teach a language that you are familiar with, but if are dedicated it's doable.

[JennyD]

Do you speak any Mandarin?

 

Nope, nary a word. I can read some characters, thanks to all those years of Japanese, but beyond that I got nothing.

 

As I mentioned in passing above, I can read French, but not really speak it.

 

I am not at all averse to outsourcing this, and we can afford to do that a bit, but it's so difficult to figure out which classes or lessons are actually worth the $$$ without trying them first.

Edited July 7, 2010 by JennyD

[Laura Corin]

With Mandarin I definitely recommend at least starting with a native speaker: it's important to get the tones right, however, your MIL can help with that. There are some materials at chinasprout.com that you could look at and perhaps persuade your MIL to start your children off with.

 

Laura

[Whereneverever]

With Mandarin I definitely recommend at least starting with a native speaker: it's important to get the tones right, however, your MIL can help with that. There are some materials at chinasprout.com that you could look at and perhaps persuade your MIL to start your children off with.

 

Laura

 

That's a good idea- would your MIL be more comfortable if she had a program to work from instead of just trying to talk to them?

[JennyD]

That IS a good idea. An excellent idea, actually! I think MIL would be delighted to do something 'educational' with them, now that I think about it.

 

I suspect that part of the issue is that she's a bit insecure about her own tones/accuracy, despite being one of those amazing language people -- her native language is actually Fukienese, but she also knows Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog, and her English is remarkably unaccented for someone who immigrated as an adult. But giving her some sort of concrete program to do with the children would likely ameliorate part of her worry that she is teaching them incorrectly.

 

I'd still have to amplify this somehow, but the idea of having a native speaker (whether MIL or someone else) implement a program I choose is really an inspired idea. Thanks!