You may have noticed more and more homeschooling posts in your social media and in parenting magazines lately. It’s even showing up on entertainment TV channels as celebrities have their own children homeschooled for reasons ranging from privacy and time convenience and it’s no secret that the quality of education can be great since the child is receiving 1-1 attention as opposed to traditional classroom learning. The good news is that it’s becoming more normalized regardless of you have celebrity status or not. It’s not always easy though, as you can see from these celebrity quotes regarding homeschooling their little ones.
Bridgerton producer, Shonda Rhimes tweeted, “Been homeschooling a 6-year old and 8-year old for one hour and 11 minutes. Teachers deserve to make a billion dollars a year. Or a week.”
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge chined in the discussion during a BBC interview revealing that they hadn’t told their children George, 6, Charlotte, 4, and Louis, almost 2, that they were actually on Easter holiday. Kate said, “Don’t tell the children but we’ve actually kept it [homeschooling] going through the holidays, I feel very mean… but it is amazing how much you can cram into that one day, that’s for sure.”,
Even with busy schedules and stressful mornings, celebrities are finding time to be directly hands on with their children’s education. This has inspired other parents to give it a go. Furthermore, an increasing amount of evidence suggests that students who get their education at home excel in future endeavors. What’s not to love about that? Yet not everyone has the time or means to stay at home and educate their children in all subjects, which is understandable and nearly unrealistic for the majority of parents in this modern age. That doesn’t mean that you can’t choose just one subject to focus on at home, however! This means that the possibility of your child learning a second language at home is the perfect place to start. You too can join in an homeschool your child.
An added benefit about homeschooling is that every year, the number of curricula, books, tools, supplements, and resources appears to grow. We understand that homeschoolers are always seeking for the best value for their time and money, so we’d like to share five of our favorite methods for teaching Chinese at home, even if your calendar is jam-packed.
Parents can help students define their interests and utilize their interests to drive and lead learning experiences in interest-based learning. Designing learning experiences around interests has the goal of encouraging intrinsic desire to learn and inspiring a love of language learning.
Situational curiosity can help students learn more effectively by boosting their attention and engagement. If that spark of curiosity grows into a personal passion, the student is more inclined to return to the content and dig further into the subject.
For very young learners do this by inserting toys into the conversation. Give your child’s favorite toy their own voice and personality and have them engage in language learning as well. For older children employ more age appropriate tactics. Have them translate easy lyrics from their favorite musical artist or give instruction in Chinese for how to perform a certain technique in a sport they enjoy.
The possibilities are endless when it comes to their personal interests and involving language. Get creative!
When a proficient speaker uses a second language entirely with their learner, both in teaching and in everyday conversation, this is known as language immersion. Language immersion helps children learn their original language, and it’s also effective for learning a second language.
When one parent in the household knows the second language fluently, this method works best. In many bilingual households, one parent agrees to communicate only in English to the child, while the other speaks only the second language. This method enables the youngster to study two languages at the same time.
Not everyone has a second language available at home, however.
In this case, you’ll need to put on your creative cap and create an immersive environment. Perhaps have your child reply in Chinese to questions you asked in their native language. Make a day of it or practice specifically during a period of the day when everyone is together such as breakfast or dinner time. It’s a very affective method and requires very limited knowledge on the parent’s part. Practicing at home is generally more comfortable for language learners starting out since speaking a second language in public can be intimidating for shy children. But more on that later.
The next point is also useful for an immersive exercise.
Language programs, movies, music, and games may all be used to introduce your youngster to Chinese. You may also want to explore one of numerous language study applications to your smartphone or tablet. These applications make learning a new language enjoyable and engaging for young learners.
Choose a Chinese film with English subtitles the next time you host a family movie night. Even if your child is too young to understand the subtitles, they may still watch and listen to the action of the movie.
Changing the audio track on their favorite movies to the language they are studying is another simple method to introduce your child to Chinese. Your child may catch up on the language while they watch and listen to the Chinese conversation since they already know what’s going on in the movie (they often repeat it word for word, right?).
In addition to your homeschooling materials, you may hire a tutor to teach your child Chinese. See if you can locate an effective and cheap tutor in your region by contacting local schools and universities, fellow homeschoolers, and community boards. If you can’t locate any local choices, look into online tools like eChineseLearning. Online solutions are frequently more competitive, convenient, and suited to the specific needs of students.
Travel to different areas of the world if at all feasible, so that your child is steeped in the other language (and culture) on a regular basis. It’s understandable that this is not a possibility for every family, but if it is, consider it. Even taking a trip to a nearby Chinatown would be a great experience! This might take a few tries since many children are shy outside of the home or around strangers. With exposure, encouragement, and routine practicing speaking Chinese outside of the home will become second nature. Even though this is considered outside of the home it is useful experience. Active learning that originates from lessons within the home environment should be taken outside of the learners comfort zone to encourage growth and practical application.
If physically going someplace isn’t an option then spark that creativity once again. Have a pretend session where you are in China. Make it complete by decorating your chosen area, prepare or buy a Chinese inspired meal, and have friends, teachers, or volunteers Skype, Zoom, or Facetime with your child. Make-believe never sounded so fun.
If you partake in an imaginary travel experience to immerse your child in a homeschool language exercise please document and share it. We’d love to be included.
“Self-Guided Chinese Learning for Kids: Consonants Video”
“The Best Ways to Encourage Children to Learn Chinese”
”How Children Can Overcome the Difficulties of Learning Pinyin?”
