Chinese School Fun!
November 03, 2012
Can Chinese school be fun? Yes, it can be despite Mandarin being one of the hardest languages to learn ( especially advanced levels of reading and writing). One of our best decisions on our open ended world tour these last seven years has been to do "worldschooling" which combines homeschool travel with dips into local foreign schools for language and cultural immersion.
We loved it in Spain and learning Mandarin in Asia here in Penang with the wonderful, kind, very large Chinese community here has been so enriching for us all. Despite, Mozart being the only Caucasian, she has fit in nicely and made lots of supportive friends. We admire the focus on education that is part of Chinese culture.
It is the end of the school year now and these are photos from the large year book from this very large Mandarin school. We left early last year and came back late this year, but feel it has been an extremely effective and positive way to learn Mandarin and understand the culture.
We are about to head into China so will get even more Mandarin and since she is already very strong in Mandarin and use to an all-Mandarin environment, immersing there with non-English speaking locals and a school, should help her advance even deeper to make the most out of this trip. The timing couldn't be better to make a huge jump in deeper fluency.
We'll return to tropical Asia for Christmas and begin a new year at our Chinese school in January to continue to focus more on her written Mandarin which is the hardest and most time consuming part. Some say it is like memorizing 400, 000 pictoral words.
Mozart is a very social kid and has really enjoyed her many friends here and loves the social life, reading all the books in the huge library and many competitions. She is proud to have won the elocution contest last year, sung a solo, choosen to give a speech for Earth Day earlier this year and has waited months for the big singing competition.
We are thrilled that she made it to the top 5 to compete in the final singing competion on this coming Monday and will sing a Mandarin Pop song. She loves to sing, perform and write songs in three languages and has enjoyed being in the large choir here.
Yes, learning Mandarin can be a lot of fun when you have a little help from your friends! It took us a few classes to get it right, but we find this school to be a very fun place for our tween to immerse in Mandarin and Chinese culture with a lot of sweet, bright, wholesome kids.
MORE ABOUT LEARNING MANDARIN IN ASIA AND CHINESE SCHOOL
ONLY AMERICAN GIRL IN ASIAN MANDARIN SCHOOL
MANDARIN CHINESE - LEARNING AT HOME AND ABROAD
CHINESE SCHOOL IN ASIA - 11 YEAR OLD LEARNING PHYSICS ETC
GLOBAL CITIZEN = SPNANISH AND MANDARIN IMMERSION
AMERICAN STUDENT CHINESE VIEW
DO YOU HAVE TO BE RICH LIKE SURI CRUISE TO WORLD SCHOOL
HOW TO RAISE A MULTILINGUAL CHILD
TUTORING IN ASIA
CURRICULUM VITAE FOR A GIFTED CHILD WORLD SCHOOLING
CHINESE TEA CEREMONY AT MANDARIN SCHOOL
HOW TO AND WHY RAISE A GLOBAL KID
Any questions? Have you ever studied abroad in a local foreign school? Would you like to?
Can Chinese school be fun? Yes, it can be despite Mandarin being one of the hardest languages to learn ( especially advanced levels of reading and writing). One of our best decisions on our open ended world tour these last seven years has been to do "worldschooling" which combines homeschool travel with dips into local foreign schools for language and cultural immersion.
We loved it in Spain and learning Mandarin in Asia here in Penang with the wonderful, kind, very large Chinese community here has been so enriching for us all. Despite, Mozart being the only Caucasian, she has fit in nicely and made lots of supportive friends. We admire the focus on education that is part of Chinese culture.
It is the end of the school year now and these are photos from the large year book from this very large Mandarin school. We left early last year and came back late this year, but feel it has been an extremely effective and positive way to learn Mandarin and understand the culture.
We are about to head into China so will get even more Mandarin and since she is already very strong in Mandarin and use to an all-Mandarin environment, immersing there with non-English speaking locals and a school, should help her advance even deeper to make the most out of this trip. The timing couldn't be better to make a huge jump in deeper fluency.
We'll return to tropical Asia for Christmas and begin a new year at our Chinese school in January to continue to focus more on her written Mandarin which is the hardest and most time consuming part. Some say it is like memorizing 400, 000 pictoral words.
Mozart is a very social kid and has really enjoyed her many friends here and loves the social life, reading all the books in the huge library and many competitions. She is proud to have won the elocution contest last year, sung a solo, choosen to give a speech for Earth Day earlier this year and has waited months for the big singing competition.
We are thrilled that she made it to the top 5 to compete in the final singing competion on this coming Monday and will sing a Mandarin Pop song. She loves to sing, perform and write songs in three languages and has enjoyed being in the large choir here.
Yes, learning Mandarin can be a lot of fun when you have a little help from your friends! It took us a few classes to get it right, but we find this school to be a very fun place for our tween to immerse in Mandarin and Chinese culture with a lot of sweet, bright, wholesome kids.
MORE ABOUT LEARNING MANDARIN IN ASIA AND CHINESE SCHOOL
ONLY AMERICAN GIRL IN ASIAN MANDARIN SCHOOL
MANDARIN CHINESE - LEARNING AT HOME AND ABROAD
CHINESE SCHOOL IN ASIA - 11 YEAR OLD LEARNING PHYSICS ETC
GLOBAL CITIZEN = SPNANISH AND MANDARIN IMMERSION
AMERICAN STUDENT CHINESE VIEW
DO YOU HAVE TO BE RICH LIKE SURI CRUISE TO WORLD SCHOOL
HOW TO RAISE A MULTILINGUAL CHILD
TUTORING IN ASIA
CURRICULUM VITAE FOR A GIFTED CHILD WORLD SCHOOLING
CHINESE TEA CEREMONY AT MANDARIN SCHOOL
HOW TO AND WHY RAISE A GLOBAL KID
Any questions? Have you ever studied abroad in a local foreign school? Would you like to?
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Oh my goodness, she looks so tiny standing next to the older kids. Glad she is doing so well learning Mandarin-I can't even imagine doing this.
Posted by: kathy | November 03, 2012 at 05:48 PM
Sorry it took me a bit to get to this comment Kathy. She is really tiny for her age and then she is much younger, so always the tiniest even amongst Asians or Spaniards who don't tend to be tall nationalities.
She is still only a kid's size 7 and under 60 lbs, but she has been on a growth spurt of late and we tend to grow late in my family. ( I was always the smallest until 10th grade).
Posted by: Jeanne @soultravelers3 | December 29, 2012 at 07:22 AM
Hello :)
It's very exciting following your travels over what is years now.
We are off on our own adventure later this year and I am interested in the enrollment process of getting into a school in Asia. Has that been hard?
We live in Australia and my kids are 7 & 9 and currently homeschool.
Amber. x
Posted by: Amber | March 19, 2013 at 01:18 AM
Happy to hear you have been following the blog for a while and are soon off on your own adventure Amber!
Sorry to say, but it IS difficult to go to schools in Malaysia if you are on a tourist visa. ( It was easy in Spain).
I explained the problems in the first link and post:
http://www.soultravelers3.com/2011/01/only-american-girl-in-an-all-mandarin-school-chinese-immersion-in-language-culture-through-school.html
If you own a home here or are on a work visa, then it is easy. I am not sure what it is like for the international schools as we wanted a Chinese school for the language immersion.
It will be difficult for all the public schools in Malaysia for your kids age. At 10 ( during the year they will turn 11) you can put them in secondary schools ...which is what we did.
Good luck!
Posted by: Jeanne @soultravelers3 | March 19, 2013 at 08:56 PM