One Chinese learning resource 僑委會中文教材 and Chinese AP test

A friend pointed this out as a Chinese study resource: 僑委會中文教材

http://media.huayuworld.org/interact/ebook/default/.  I don't think all the links on the web page work but most seem to.

Check out Chinese AP oriented readings on the higher level section.

http://media.huayuworld.org/interact/ebook/default/hard.html

I think the materials there are probably harder than the actual AP Chinese Cultural and Language Exam.  http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/teachers_corner/37221.html

For what I can tell, AP materials from 僑委會中文教材 are probably more like 5-6th grade level in Taiwan.  I looked over the AP materials from College Board and it seems to be more like 4-5th grade material.  I read somewhere that getting a 5 on the Chinese AP test is like two years of college Chinese classes in the US.  Does anyone know if that's true or not?

MTV

Can you say 周杰倫 Jay Chou and S.H.E.?!!  I thank them and other Chinese pop singers for bringing my girls so much joy, fun, and relevance to their Chinese learning.

Extracurricular readings 課外讀物

Here are some of the books we have available for my daughters to read for enjoyment.

My InuYasha 犬夜叉 collection.  I only have the first half of the cartoon episodes in Chinese; so, the girls don't know what happens afterwards.  Charlotte really enjoyed reading these to find out what happens next.  Georgia, on the other hand, just skipped to the very last volume!  She probably will come back to the others when she is a little older (7 only now).  

  

I have several chapter books on cartoon movies by Hayo Miyazaki, such as Totoro 龍貓。

These are series of science and travel-history-geography comic books.  They love these.  

Most of these are traditional Chinese stories and the girls don't like these as much.  Arsene Lupin 亞森羅平 was a bit too scary for Charlotte last year.

Here are a few others, including some children's reference books.

Current studying materials

Charlotte is using fourth-grade second-semester Chinese Language Art textbook from Taiwan while Georgia is using second-grade second-semester Chinese Language Art textbook.  I ask that they be able to read the main text fluently and then be able to copy select chapter text.

Here is a picture of third-grade second-semester and fifth-grade first-semester textbooks.

Here is a picture of the third chapter in the fifth-grade textbook.  Charlotte will hopefully get to it this fall.

Chinese summer camp in Taiwan 國語日報華語研習營

My girls will be going back to Taiwan for 6 weeks this summer to stay with their grandparents. 

Georgia will attend a month of public school.  As she skipped a grade here, she will fall back to second grade in Taiwan.  Charlotte is in fifth grade here.  Last year, she attended about about 5 weeks of fourth grade public school in Taiwan (second semester) and it was a bit rough for her.  We thought of having her fall back to fourth grade this June but eventually decided to try out three weeks of Chinese summer camp in Taipei instead.  It seems pretty intense from 9:10AM to 4:50PM, with five classes in Chinese and two cultural classes.  They give you placement test ahead of time.  I hope it will be more suitable for her at this stage.  Her Chinese reading level is likely at first semester of fourth grade and writing, first semester of third grade.  We hope she will be able to advance to 6th grade level over the next 6 years.

If you have been to this camp, please let us know how you liked it.  Thanks!

www.mdnkids.com/events/20140205-SummerChinese.


Here are some other summer language camps that I found:

http://www.ljjhps.tp.edu.tw/chinese_language_camp%202014.html

http://mlc.sce.pccu.edu.tw/summer-camp/

http://academic.ntue.edu.tw/files/14-1007-3105,r74-1.php

Saturday Chinese school

We did try Saturday Chinese school for a year or so a few years back.  It was a good social gathering for our daughters, though the students pretty much all speak English to each other, of which most of you parents are aware.  Since our daughters' Chinese are significantly more advanced and we like to take naps on weekend afternoons (and therefore not available to volunteer or stick around), we decided to have them do something else with that time.

Fun project on Frozen (冰雪奇緣)

If you have a young daughter in the US, I bet she has seen Disney's "Frozen" in the theater. Here is a shortened version of "Do you want to build a snowman" in Chinese that my girls did together for fun the other day.  Please forgive some of the pronunciation on the fast passages.  This was just for fun.  I think projects like this makes learning Chinese more relevant.