How to Improve Writing & Speaking Chinese
This is part of our linguistic series. You can read the other post on: Memory and Language Development, how to use observation to improve linguistic capabilities in child and use questions to stimulate thinking and writing.
This post focuses on the different ways that you can help your children apply speaking and writing Chinese in their lives and why that is important.
Continuous practice to improve speaking and writing capabilities
It may seem as if we’re belabouring the obvious, but one of the most important aspects to help your children speak or read Chinese is consistent practice. Malcolm Gladwell claims that it requires at least 10,000 hours of practice in order to become an expert at a topic, and while one may disagree by saying that the quality of that practice matters more than the quantity, putting in the work is still essential.
If you can speak Chinese, speak it to your children and encourage them to speak it back. Even if it requires you to have an “artificial” feeling practice time of 15 minutes a day of only speaking Chinese, do it. If your child is having difficulty speaking back to you, you will likely need to boost their vocabulary.
Depending on your household’s Chinese ability, you may need to hire tutors, mother’s helpers, or convince family to come for the specific purpose of conversing in Chinese with your children. (You may need to do this even if your Chinese is excellent.) Whether the time is a session to learn new vocabulary, a play-based free time, or a formal lesson, that’s up to you. There are pros and cons for each of these choices, so it depends largely on how much time and effort you can expend.
The same goes for writing Chinese – you may engage your children to actually write the characters or you may have a game of expressing cogent and well-expressed ideas with them. We’ve gone into more detail in one of our previous pieces about how writing promotes thinking, explaining why writing Chinese is an important skill. With all that theory on its benefits, the key here is nonetheless practice.
For writing characters, your children will need to either practice writing characters alone, or in the context of phrases and sentences, or try out any of our writing focused activities on the Games & Activities. For writing essays or longer forms of writing, consider using prompts, pen pals, drawing comics, or any other methods to encourage writing longer thoughts down. The more they practice writing in this manner, the more they will improve.
Going beyond everyday conversation to provide a specialized or expanded vocabulary
Although you may spend 95% of the time speaking to your children in Chinese, if you only discuss daily living activities, your children will not have a very wide vocabulary (unless your daily conversation is incredibly broad and varied). Consequently, your child’s writing is a direct reflection of their speaking lexicon. After all, it stands to reason that if they do not know the word when speaking, they will not know it for writing.
When you take an honest look at what you talk about with your children during the course of a day, it is very basic. The rudiments of communication are covered – such as bodily functions and needs, foods, school, family, and perhaps, feelings. Of course, these are important terms to know and use. However, they are not enough.
It is this knowledge gap that is the biggest hindrance to Chinese fluency in your children.
Intention and effort are needed to introduce specialized and expanded vocabulary
Give children the opportunity to formally say / debate / discuss topics in Chinese
Achieving Chinese fluency and fluidity in an anglophone society for our children requires an inordinate amount of effort.
For some of us, we simply do not have the time or inclination to do so.
This article is not meant to add to your worries and guilt.
However, if you find that this level of Chinese is what you want for your children and you are willing to do the work, we hope this piece provided some additional ideas.
LANGUAGE LEARNING TIPS
Creating journals is a fun activity that children love to do!
Help your child get involved with Chinese by crafting creative and interactive journals filled with vocabulary, images, tips, and tricks.
Label things is also a fun way for your child to practice Chinese. Label things that you have in your home that are commonly used, such as your refrigerator, doors, furniture and when your child needs to access these items, ask them to read the label out loud.
我們會經常為大家探討漢字和語文的課題。
要是你有特別的相關課題希望我們探討，歡迎您告訴我們。
We discuss Chinese language and culture related topics on a regular basis.
If you would like us to discuss certain topics about Chinese, please let us know.
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Sagebooks Hongkong promotes independent reading and life-long learning by nurturing the child’s confidence, autonomy and self-teaching abilities. Since 2006. Find out more About Us.
© 2020 Sagebooks Hongkong. All rights reserved.
Sagebooks Hongkong promotes independent reading and life-long learning by nurturing the child’s confidence, autonomy and self-teaching abilities. Since 2006. Find out more About Us.
© 2020 Sagebooks Hongkong. All rights reserved.
Sagebooks Hongkong promotes independent reading and life-long learning by nurturing the child’s confidence, autonomy and self-teaching abilities. Since 2006. Find out more About Us.
© 2020 Sagebooks Hongkong. All rights reserved.