EdTalk | The “three little pigs” approach to laying foundations of Mandarin learning
- Once upon a time, there were hasty parents who used the wrong methods to teach their children. Instead, it is a patient approach that builds confidence
This article is dedicated to mummies and daddies out there who have just had a baby in the last, let’s say, 24 months. Other than congratulating you on having survived your first years of parenthood, if you have plans for your child to learn Mandarin as a second language in the future, this article might help you make a life-changing decision for you and your baby.
The solution is simple. You need to give your child ample opportunity to listen to Mandarin, the same amount of listening that you give in helping them utter their first word in their native tongue. Although human interaction is preferable to digital means, ample songs and stories will help the child’s Mandarin development in the long run.
The reason I need to emphasise this is because I have seen too many families fall into the same trap, using the wrong methods at the wrong time to teach their child Mandarin. The poor child ends up struggling to learn while loathing it as one of the most boring subjects.
Some parents hold off from letting their child learn Mandarin, afraid that they may get “confused” learning multiple languages. By the time they realise their child is struggling with it at school, they expect their competency level to increase at an exponential rate within a short time.
As a rough timeline, under normal circumstances, babies, when fully immersed in their mother tongue daily for 12-18 months, may then start to utter their first words.
However, when it comes to Mandarin as second language, parents may ask why their child isn’t yet speaking to them in Mandarin – when the parents themselves sometimes don’t even speak it – when they have only been learning it for less than a year, with a maximum of five hours’ learning time a week – less than 5 per cent of the time they are exposed to their mother tongue. The maths is simple: how much you put in, and how much you get out.
