Month: May 2016

Q & A

人生 Daily thoughts

Q: 想請問 xxxxx 和 其他有類似背景的媽媽，小時候花了很多功夫學好中文，會不會因為中文的優勢，而在大學選系時考量語文類為主修呢？有時我也會想， 如果孩子的天生專長不是語文類的話， 要不要花那麼多時間學習語文呢? 還是要把心力放在他的專長上? 畢竟 孩子越大 時間越有限，怎麼分配是難題。Oliver Tu, 請問你有思考過這個問題嗎？ 謝謝!

 

A: 這些問題我都有思考過，也在我這裡的英文部落格分享過。

小孩子  在美國學好中文跟其學其他專長不太一樣。不同之處就是帶小孩的家長（父或母）會中文對要學好中文的小孩是極重要的，不像學習其他的專長（比如鋼琴），父母不會，影響較少。所以如中文沒傳承好到下一代，就差不多是斷了，除非後代有再搬去說中文的國度ㄧ段時間。

學中文在整體上是會有一點點的優勢，對也要看他的專長的領域和居住的環境。比如，我在北卡算鄉下的城市裡行醫，中文對我在職業上一點都沒有幫助，反而以前學的ㄧ些西文用處較大。當然，如你所言，也要考慮機會成本，為了學好中文而沒學到的其他專長。如果要大學前中文學到還不錯的水準(能看金庸小說，基本的報紙，大概頂多國ㄧ程度？），以我的估計，大約三分之二的中文教學需在國ㄧ前就完成。所以，機會成本大致上是其他的才藝，而不至於長期影響學業上的成就。比如，如果小孩數理有天份，不至於因學好中文而埋沒了其天份，頂多是不能去Carnegie Mellon Hall 表演鋼琴 （or something like that)。

所以，我習慣問其他家長，你希望你的小孩子在20歲到30歲時，中文好，還是鋼琴好，希望以如此的問題來幫助家長思考。答案就要看每位家長的優先選擇，無對錯之言。我們兩位小留學生夫妻是學“傳統”的樂器，也就是鋼琴或小提琴。這樣的美國人生，我們都走過，也跟大部分人ㄧ樣，填完大學申請書後，樂器就少碰了。以現今的的學習及成長競爭環境而言，栽下如此龐大的投資來學ㄧ手的好鋼琴或小提琴，在算進機會成本之後，不見得比較划算。與其我們的美國女兒花如此多的時間來學這些樂器，我覺得他們把中文學好比較重要。所以我們讓他們學吉他，較好學多，唱歌表演也可用上，是比較社交型的樂器，也會有較不同的人生體驗 。

以我的長期觀察及調查，如此學好中文的華裔小孩（沒幾個….)，在國中前，百分之66到75%的時間是在中文的小環境長大，大致上家長和小孩的生活圈是其他第一代的家庭，但也要注重中文教學。當然，在如此環境下長大的小孩，也只有少數人會成功，這就要看父母的優先了。（180天的～8AM – 3PM美語學校只佔總共時間的~25%。）

其實，中文本身沒大家說的這麼難學，成千萬的亞洲小孩都學的好，是以大部分小孩的天份都能學的來，是接觸時間的問題而已。要學好中文在“直接“或”正式”教學上的時間是還可以接受的，在國中前，大約是ㄧ天ㄧ個小時，以後就可減少許多，因為基礎已經建立好了（應當有讀倪匡或瓊瑤的程度）。然而，國中前的難處是在周遭都是美語的大環境中，長期創造中文的小環境(Chinese Language Ecosystem or CLE)，來啟發孩子學中文的興趣及意願，加上培養中文交談和閱讀的習慣。而要創造和與孩子浸在中文的小環境，就要花不少的心思和投資，才是此追求的難處，令“天下”父母親怯步。

希望以上有完整回答妳的問題。

 

Chinese Accelerated Reader

人生 Daily thoughts

Thanks to Guavarama, who organized group book purchase from Taiwan, we recently received the book collection from  東方出版社‘s 世界少年文學精選.  This is a collection of 119 classic books of the western world, rewritten in traditional Chinese specifically for children (probably abridged in some way), with zhuyin assistance, with renowned titles such as Romeo and Juliet, Secret Garden, Moby Dick, Lassie Come-Home, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Three Musketeers, and the likes.  This series has been around for 20+ years and is intended for 8-9 year old children in Taiwan.

My now 10 year old younger dd, “Georgia” has read the first three and is now almost finished reading Lassie.  It takes her about 2-3 hours to read each book and will probably take me 1.5 to 2 hours to do the same.  It would be great if I have the time to read these books myself so that I can ask her appropriate questions to check her comprehension.  Yes, I can read the Chinese excerpts from Wikipedia or similar website but it will still take me some time to.

It dawns upon me that it would be great if there is Accelerated Reader type of questions for these books.  There are pros and cons to these books.

Pros:

  1. Western classic stories.  These will not go out of style in the foreseeable future.  Our American born children are familiar with many of these stories, which makes Scaffold Reading Experience (SRE) easier.
  2. These books have zhuyin, which makes it much easier to read.  I am not concerned about children relying only on zhuyin to read.  When the children reads more and more while continuing to take Chinese lessons, they will rely in zhuyin less and less.  In my experience, when the child can read ~ 800 characters a minutes with zhuyin on the side, s/he can read books of the same level without zhuyin at about half of the speed.
  3. There are a wide variety of books in this series, suitable for readers of different maturity levels.  Some are more for elementary school students while others are suitable for teenagers.  Some of the English version of these books in unabridged version are mandatory readings for middle school and high school students.

Cons:

  1.  It is not available in simplified characters, much less with pinyin.
  2. There are far fewer usage of classic Chinese expressions and idioms, as these are western literature.  Chinese classic stories, even abridged versions written for children, are great for those.  So, I do encourage children to read those as well.

 

With these in mind, I decide to explore commissioning Jessica, a free lance writer in Taiwan whom I had worked with on other projects, to create authentic Chinese questions banks (not translated from unabridged English edition) for some of these books.  At this stage, these questions would simply assess whether the reader has basic understanding of the plot.

At this point, Jessica borrowed the books from the public library and came up with three sample questions for “Lassie Come-Home” or “名犬萊西”.  To come up with 15 questions for this book, she quoted me ~ US$50.  She wrote three sample questions for met at his point.

 

靈犬萊西

1.  書中的主角萊西是屬於哪一種狗?

a) 狼犬

b) 牧羊犬

c) 貴賓狗

d) 牛頭犬

*Ans: page 13

2.  書中的老公爵等了多久採買到了萊西?

a) ㄧ年又三個月

b) 兩年

c) 三年

d) 三年半

*Ans: page 29

3.  萊西第二次逃回的家時，是誰把他帶回老公爵的家？

a) 漢斯

b) 山姆

c) 喬

d) 山姆和喬

Ans: page 48

I think it would be great if the community of traditional Chinese learners and their families can help fund such a project.  I think weekend Chinese schools would be very interested in such a project as well.  I can then look into putting these questions online.  With a proper FREE website, students to create their own account and the computer will score the questions for them.  We can look into creating similarly authentic question banks for abridged version of Chinese classics and easier translated works such as the Magic Tree House series.  These won’t be outdated either.  Who knows, we can also put up questions for 金庸‘s kunfu novels, which my elder dd, almost 13, is reading.  There are some online questions already, such as these two links: A & B.

Do you think this is a worthy project to fund?

Addendum:  I think this can be very helpful for weekend Chinese school students.  One way to minimize cost is to get interested native level immigrant parents and teachers (who are likely also parents) nearby to help out with question generation.  A number of parents in my FB group, many in California, an I have the same set of books.  We can approach nearby weekend Chinese schools to see if there are parents and teachers who would be interested in each borrowing a few books from us and then generating 15 questions for each book.  Divide and conquer.  The whole set can be done in no time.  Interested Chinese schools can then just buy a set or two of these books for the school library and students can check the books out.

Chinese-English biliteracy: the narrow road

人生 Daily thoughts, Uncategorized ,

第二，三代的華裔小孩要中英語雙語和“雙文”實在是件艱難的事。如果要大學前中文學到還不錯的水準(能看金庸小說，基本的報紙，大概頂多國ㄧ程度？），以我的估計，大約三分之二的中文教學需在國ㄧ前就完成。先注重中文，再來補英文 ，至於多寡就依人而定。當然，英文落後會影響其他學科，但孩子小時，可以拉的回來。

大女兒在三年級時英文是爛的要命，中文也還得加強，所以就在家自學～ㄧ年半，兩項都大有進步，後來就轉回私立學校。這幾年學基測驗（TerraNova)，英文從88百分位（5年級）升到去年的95百分位（六年級）和今年的98百分位（7年級），而其他科目也逐漸升到今年的96-98百分位。總之，她有照預期的在中學時漸漸拉上來，而在中文方面也在看金庸小說了（今天又自己再次看瓊瑤的“六個夢”），也在學業及才藝社交方面大致上都是自理，令我們做父母親的欣慰。

至於小女小三歲又跳ㄧ年級念，挑戰更大，尚在努力當中，還在有時會讓我抓狂的過渡期，（我）還需要忍耐ㄧ兩年！

這些都讓我想起馬太福音7:13-14: ”你們要進窄門．因為引到滅亡、那門是寬的、路是大的、進去的人也多。引到永生、那門是窄的、路是小的、找著的人也少。“

這條路有夠難走。

Achieving Chinese-English bilingualism and biliteracy for a child is no easy task.  Well, let me rephrase that: achieving Chinese-English bilingualism and biliteracy for a child is a very difficult task.  I am reminded that just about every single day.

As I have written in previous posts, in my opinion, one just about have to let English slide in the beginning.  To achieve Chinese ILR level reading level ~ 4 by early teens, I estimates that roughly 2/3 of the Chinese instructions and learning have to be front loaded and compressed into pre-middle school years.  Then, around the time when Chinese reading proficiency is at least minimally proficient (at least able to read comics for leisure), start catching up in English, with the goal of reaching age/intelligence matched level sometimes in middle school.  If the child can read Harry Potter or the likes in English before they can read interesting books in Chinese, that can be recipe for trouble, in terms of Chinese literacy, as the child can quickly loose interest in Chinese reading.

On the flip side, the lack of English proficiency can affect other subjects, which may put tremendous stress on the children and the parents, particularly when the children attends all-English school, like mine.  As the children were still young at that age, I was not overly concerned about the other subjects, though math word problems, which have a strong language component, can present quite a challenge.  It had been my hope that with catching up in English and adequate math practice, the child will outgrow that phase.

As mentioned in prior posts, the English proficiency of my elder daughter “Charlotte” was terrible when she was attending third grade in the small private school she attended (more “limited” public school options in more rural NC).  Though it was so by my design, I just about couldn’t take it then, particularly when I supervised her homework time.  And her Chinese was still not strong enough.  So, I pulled both of my daughters out mid-school year and have them homeschooled for about 20 months.  Charlotte’s Chinese and English both improved much through homeschooling.  She then returned to another private school starting 5th grade.

Like most students in NC, Charlotte is required to take a national standardized achievement test every year, which is TerraNova for her current school.  Her language composite score was 88 percentile (5th grade), 95 percentile (6th grade), and 98 percentile (7th grade) over the past three years.  I did work with her some more on her English up till ~ first half of her 6th grade, after which I determined that “she’s got it!” and let her fly solo.  In short, she has caught up during middle school, as we had hoped for.  We are pleased with her progress and hope that she keeps up her good work.

As for my younger “Georgia”, she have had the dual challenges of learning Chinese well and skipping a grade.  I think she would have qualified to be enrolled in HAG public school program if we had one.  Since we live in a small and relatively rural county, we don’t have one such program; so, I resorted to letting her skip a grade when she returned to private school.  Her English has improved quite a bit over the past two and half years but remains a challenge in 5th grade, which is starting to affect her other subjects more.  As she will be starting middle school in the fall, we will be working on her English over the summer, upon her return from 6 weeks of stay in Taiwan, where she will attend a month of public school in the 4th grade.  It will be back to homeschool mode for much of the rest of the summer.  I think this will be her last summer of attending school in Taiwan for the month of June.  Next summer, I think she will just spend a couple of weeks in Taiwan having fun, instead of attending a month of 5th grade.  The other time, we will devote to catching up in English to the level of her grade peers, who are at times two years older than she is.  We hope that  she doesn’t have too much on her plate.

All of these just reminds me of Mathew 7:13: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”  

Limitation of Chinese pedagogy in anglophone society

人生 Daily thoughts

A few recent posts and comments got me thinking once again about the limitation of the typical Chinese pedagogy in anglophone society, whether it be weekend Chinese school, home instruction, or immersion school.  I, of course, always have to refer to Foreign Service Institutes’s list of the approximate time one needs to learn a specific language as an English speaker to reach ILR level 3 in speaking and reading.  Basically, Mandarin Chinese takes about 4 times as long to learn as category 1 languages, which include Spanish, French, and Italian.

This, along with other observations of mine, generates a number of implications for children born/raised in anglophone society:

  1. An immersion school model that works for Spanish/French will not work well for Chinese, given the 4x factor.  Anglophone elementary students typically have good proficiency in basic English language by the end of third grade such that they can learn non-ELA (English Language Art) subjects such as fourth grade science and social studies without stumbling on the English language itself.  Though I am no expert in immersion school models, I doubt that current Chinese immersion school models can achieve equivalent result for Chinese for non-heritage students.  My suspicion is that, by the end of elementary or middle school in Chinese immersion schools, the most that almost all non-heritage students can achieve is ILR level 1 or 2, matched for age.  Heritage students who have substantial exposure to and enrichment in Chinese at home or non-heritage students who receive much additional Chinese enrichment often through the sheer will of their parents are a different story, of course.  For these groups, they are in effect going for the 4x factor.
  2. To achieve a minimum of ILR level 3 in Chinese speaking and reading proficiency, one has to devote substantial effort early on due to the 4x factor, particularly between the age of 4 to 8.  By the end of third grade, the basic foundation would need to be laid already, achieving ~ end of second grade reading level in Taiwan or ~ middle of second grade level in mainland China.  I would say that about 50% of the work would need to have been done by the end of third grade.  Otherwise, it is difficult to proceed without lowering in ILR proficiency level.  The main difficulty past third grade is, of course, the inability of the child to read interesting Chinese books without at least ILR level 3 reading proficiency (matched for age, of course).  There are few who can overcome the magic of Harry Potter and the likes.  And you all know the rest of the story.
  3. Weekend Chinese school curriculum are generally evenly distributed from K to 12th grade and are not FRONT LOADED in the first few years.  Therefore, students strictly following such curriculum will typically achieve only ILR level 1 and 2 proficiency in reading by the end of 12th grade.

But, it is certainly not the end of the world.  There are a number of ways to reach higher Chinese proficiency in college and beyond, for those who elect to do so.  Not to mention other skills one hopefully acquire by not devoting such time and effort in Chinese.  For me, the question that I pose to other parents is pretty simple: “Do you prefer that your child have good Chinese proficiency vs. good piano or violin proficiency (or other skill sets you may prefer) by 20-30 years old?”  There is certainly no right answer, just your answer.