My Son & Chinese

This year since my babysitter has gone back to work, I am not able to attend Chinese classes. :-( I'm disappointed because this will only prolong the process of learning the language and increasing my proficiency. Anyway, I'm doing my best to keep up what I have learnt so far and slowly add new words and phrases along the way. It really helps that I am teaching my son what I have learnt because we can speak it to each other and I have some way to practice...even if it isn't ideal. He is 2 1/2 years old.

It's so great to see him pick up Chinese while he is learning English. I try and use Chinese and English words when teaching him different things so that he learns right from the start that different languages exist and we can easily use and learn each language. I really hope to help him grow up with the idea that being bilingual is a completely normal and great part of life.

I have a set of books for him to read in Chinese that are all on simple topics suitable for children and I had the most wonderful experience a few weeks ago when I saw him pick up one of the books and tell himself the story in Chinese!!!! He can't read but he had completely (almost perfectly) memorised the story in Mandarin. It was so rewarding to see some results from my effort to teach him. Because he is so young, he just picks up the words as though he was learning English words and it is completely normal to him. I can even ask him simple sentences like 这是谁？ (who is this?) and he understands and answers me! It's really exciting. :-)

I discovered 'international schools' the other day. Ok, maybe it has taken me awhile but anyway, I finally discovered them and would totally love to teach at one and send my son to one. One particular school I looked at in China has 2 teachers for every class, one Chinese and one Western, so that everything is done bilingually and multiculturally. I would love to give my son this wonderful opportunity to learn about Chinese culture and learn the language while he is young. My husband will finish his teaching degree in a couple of years so we are considering applying for teaching jobs then and heading over and with us teaching at an international school, it makes the perfect opportunity for our son to attend and for us all to really increase our knowledge and proficiency in the language. I don't know whether this will happen but I am so glad I discovered this option and I hope we will get the opportunity to make the most of it.