An Interview with my Daughter

What do you like about Chinese school?

The break time, when we get a break from listening to the teacher all the time and walk around and play a bit. I also like seeing my friends there.

What do you not like about Chinese school?

I can't understand what the teacher says most of the time. I also don't like that I have to go to Chinese school when I may want to do something else at the time.

What do you like about learning the Chinese language?

If I go to China, I will be able to talk to my relatives. Even here in the US, I will be able to understand when people around me talking in Chinese.
It's also good to learn another language, especially one my Mom and Dad speak.
When I meet new friends here, some of them would ask me to speak something in Chinese (or Japanese, when they mistook me as a Japanese), I would be able to say something for them.

What do you not like about learning the Chinese language?

It just takes a lot of time.

What is a typical class in your Chinese school like?

We start with a new lesson. The teacher reads for us first. She then tells us to read it ourselves. She may ask some students to recite it individually.
Then she gives us a sheet of paper with new words we are learning for this class. We learn the words by their structures. She may also explain the meaning of the words but I can't understand that.
We then do some exercises and read other parts of the textbook.
Finally, we get our homework.

How do the students talk to the teacher?

Usually the teacher asks questions. This is actually pretty often. Students would raise their hands to answer. Some students raise hands more often than others.
Sometimes the teacher would ask me to answer the question even when I didn't raise my hand. I would just stay quiet and she would move on. This happens to other students too.
Sometimes I know the answer but I still say nothing because I don't feel comfortable. The teacher moves on so fast.

How many students are in your class?

About 20, and most of them can understand the teacher well and answer questions.

Do you talk to each other in Chinese?

Not usually, even those who are good in Chinese don't talk to each other in Chinese.

What do you think about the textbooks?

They are okay, but not really interesting. Nothing I really like, nothing I don't like.

Do you like to read the text aloud?

Yeah, I like to do that at home. But in school I don't like to do that alone. I am not comfortable about my pronunciation. Or sometimes I haven't had the text memorized.

What kind of things would you like to have more in your textbook?

More things close to what I talk and do every day; stuff I would like to talk about, like food, movies, TV, etc.
More activity-like exercises, not just reading;

What do you like about homework?

I like it when it has a lot of different kinds of exercises.

What do you not like about homework?

I don't like having to memorize text. I don't like having to write a sentence on my own using different words, or copy the same words 9 times.

How many new words do you usually learn each week?

About 10. Most of them I would forget soon after.

What's the most difficult thing about learning new words?

Usually the meaning. I can get the pronunciation and structure from the class but I don't understand it when the teacher explains their meaning.

Do you like to read Chinese books?

No. Mainly because I don't know most of the words. It's hard to understand.

Do you like to talk to people in Chinese?

No. I don't know what to say. We never learned how to start a conversation. I also don't know many words.

If we learn how to have a conversation in Chinese, would you like to talk to people in Chinese?

Maybe.

Are you glad that you don't have to go to Chinese school when we start homeschooling?

Yeah. I am always glad when the Chinese school is not in session anyway.

How do you feel about this homeschooling?

I feel it will be better. I will be able to understand more when the instruction is in English. I will be more comfortable in saying what I don't understand.

So, Why Are We Doing This?

To start it off, some background information:

My daughter was born in the USA and is now eight years old. She had visited China only once last year, for three weeks. Both her parents were born in China but have lived in the USA for close to 20 years. Although her parents do speak Chinese to each other at home most of the time, she grew up speaking English exclusively. In fact, she was in daycare before her second birthday and has been "immersed" in English ever since. She is now a third-grader in our local public school.

Up till now, she had been going to our local Chinese School for two and half years, passing through the school's preschool, PinYin, and first-grade language classes. She is now in the second-grade language class.

She had never liked the Chinese school. This is not surprising since if you poll the kids in school you probably will get over 90% of them saying they dislike or even hate the school. They are there simply because their parents made them to. In the earlier years, we were able to bribe her into going with incentives that she got to see her best friend (who is no longer living in our neighborhood) and that she could also do dancing class there, etc.

But since the end of last year, she started to use the H-word, as in "I hate Chinese School".

The most significant difficulty she is encountering in school, according to herself, is that she could no longer follow the class instructions, which are entirely in Chinese. Her Chinese language level is just not good enough for the class. So she had to sit in the class for two hours staring at a teacher and not understanding anything she says. If she had learned any Chinese at all now, she says, it is all from doing homework at home with her Mom's help. So, in essence, we have already been homeschooling her with the school merely playing the role of providing weekly study materials in the form of homework assignments.

As most of the kids today, my daughter has a busy schedule for evenings and weekends. As she grows older, it is and will be getting worse. Her soccer and swimming, for example, now has practices or games three times a week when in season. She is also learning piano regularly and participating in other activities when available. Therefore, spending two hours in Chinese school every Sunday afternoon becomes a pretty big investment in her time. When the benefit could not justify the cost, we have to seek alternatives.

Equally important is her attitude. It's not going to be a big leap from "I hate Chinese school" to "I hate Chinese" (the language, of course). Right now, she is still geniurely interested in learning the language, something we need to nurture and protect.

Hello World

Finally, we decided to teach my daughter the Chinese language at home instead of sending her to the Denver Chinese School every Sunday. Me and my daughter are starting this blog together to record this experiment and adventure.