March updates

Bilingual in Chinese and English

3/2/2014

The more I write about this topic and answer readers' question, the more I realize how important and critical it is to learn Chinese well in the first decade of the child's life, if the parents want to devote serious attention to this.  I estimate that my 10 year old daughter can probably get a 3-4 in Chinese AP test now and should reach a solid 4 in another year or so.  My understanding is that a 5 in Chinese AP is equivalent to two years of college level Chinese in the US.  To me, the dedication we devote to their Chinese is equivalent to the dedication one friend devote to their 11 year old daughter who is now level 9 in gymnastic or tiger mother Amy Chua having her daughter play 3 hours of piano a day, including during vacation (at least that's what I remembered reading).  At the end of the day (and there are only 24 hours a days no matter what), parents have to ask themselves, "what does my child enjoy doing and what would I prefer my child be able to do at age 25 and beyond?"  For my family, the answer is clear.  Since my daughters do not have very strong affinity for sport or music (they do enjoy their guitar and tennis class), we chose to devote more of our attention to their Chinese for the first decade of their life.

3/6/14

Something interesting happened that I did not expect.  It is COOL these days to know Chinese.  I remember the craze for Japanese language course (6-8 credits a semester?)  in college during the 1990s.  My older daughter was reading Twilight in Chinese on her Kindle at school and fellow students and a teacher were amazed and asking her things left and right.  I think it is great that she can read these American novels in Chinese, such that she is culturally "connected" to her American peers while linguistically "connected" to Taiwan/China at the same time.

3/10/14

OMG!  We did such a great job creating a Chinese immersion environment for our daughters that Charlotte, my soon to be middle schooler daughter, is not schooled in American pop culture and has a bit of tough time making friends at her new school.  And it is at this age when friends become important.  In my defense, I did in the past try to get her to watch American pre-teen sitcom and learn about/watch team sport such as football, but she wasn't interested.  Since knowing is half of the battle, now that she knows, she is enjoying watching "Good luck, Charlie" reruns on Netflix.  We are going to get her up to speed in no time!  Things should get better the closer it gets to high school, when students segregate themselves into different crowd based on interest or academics.

3/11/14

Charlotte is done reading the first book of the "Twilight" series in Chinese.  It took her almost three weeks, with school works and things.  It also took her some time to get used to reading the translated English names.  The next book she plans to read is the Chinese edition of "My Sister's Keeper".  The subject maybe a bit tough for her age.  We'll see how it goes.

3/14/14

Links on a Chinese summer program in Taiwan

NTNU Chinese Summer Camp

3/25/14

Charlotte is now working on the third book of the "Twilight" series.  She wants to read the Chinese edition of "My Sister's Keeper" afterwards.  I have the Chinese edition of "Mocking Jay", the third book of Hunger Game, ready for her.  I am going to try to get a copy of the Chinese edition of "Divergent" for her also.

Prologue

Chinese Version 中文版

I hope this blog will help and inspire parents who are trying to raise bilingual and bi-literate children in Chinese and English in the US.  

The information contained here is geared mostly to families where at least one parent speaks Chinese fluently at home.  I shall refer their children as children of Chinese heritage (CCH).  As most of you parents are very much aware, it is extremely difficult even for families with TWO native speaker parents to raise their children to speak Chinese even semi-fluently still by late teens, regardless of intelligence, resource, or will.  Their Chinese reading and writing skill are more often than not even more lacking or almost nonexistent.

Obviously, success in Chinese education is in the eyes of the beholder. My definition of success in Chinese education is as follows.  By the time the children enroll in college, they can STILL do the following:

1) Listening: understand colloquial conversation and mass media at ~ 5th-6th grade level. This likely include most TV shows, soap opera, and basic news reporting.

2) Speaking: converse in Chinese fluently and comfortably for extended period of time on activities of daily living and grade school subjects, adding only occasional or some English words or phrases, especially if they technical terms.  I think good fluency and correct syntax/expression are more important than truly authentic accent.  

3) Reading: read comic books in Chinese fluently and at ~5th grade competently WITHOUT phonetics.  I believe this would encompass romance/kung fu novels AND novels like Chinese edition of Harry Porter, which is grade school material in English or Chinese.

4) Writing: know how to write Chinese characters with the right stroke sequence even without having learned the character before and be able to do simple writings at 3-4th grade level. 

I believe this level of command in Chinese would be equivalent to about 4-5th grade level in predominantly Chinese speaking countries or territories and will allow the next generation to be able to teach their own children the basics in Chinese also.

Obviously, these are extremely high standards in the US, achieved by few families and children.  Over the past 20 years or so in the US, I have, unfortunately, yet to personally know a single person born and raised in the US who has achieved this.  But then I don't live in California or southern California for that matter.  Obviously, I am not referring to children who received a few years of schooling in Chinese speaking countries.  

I have visited a few websites whose authors offer advices on bilingual parenting in Chinese and English in the US.  However, I have yet to find one whose author appears to be having success on this path or has succeeded to some extent.  At this point, my daughters are almost 8 and 11 and I am proud to say that we have had success so far (keeping my fingers crossed).  It is my hope that, through this blog, I can learn from families who have successfully navigated this path before, connect with other families on this path, explore commonalities that contribute to each family's success, and, finally, offer these knowledge to other families trying to get on this path. 

  

I want to emphasize that I am NOT a scholar in bilingual education, just a parent intent on successfully navigating this path.

If you are a parent passionate about raising your children in such bilingual manner, please visit my Facebook group page: www.facebook.com/groups/ChineseAndEnglish4kids/