Chinese progress for the kids...

My children have been taking a two-hour Mandarin Chinese class on Sundays since we returned to Washington. I originally just hoped they would gain some "familiarity" with Mandarin- I didn't really expect them to learn a lot. But I sit in class next to my daughter every week, and I started to notice that all the kids- not just mine- seem to retain very little from week to week.

Now, I'm no kindergarten teacher, but I think L's teacher has a lot of good tactics- she uses repetition, games, individual questions, pair work, etc. I'm sure there is something more she could do to appeal to these kids, but overall, I think she does a decent job. And yet, none of them seem to remember anything, even the kids with Chinese parents (the class is probably 1/3 kids with non-Chinese speaking parents, 2/3 kids with Chinese parents, some of whom seem to speak to them at home in Chinese and some that don't.).

This whole thing about kids learning languages so quickly is starting to seem questionable.

So I've been thinking about it. One possible reason is that these kids don't HAVE to learn Chinese. There is no urgency or necessity- now throw them into a Chinese-only school, like we did with the kids in the DR, and I suspect they would learn more quickly.

But the other thing is that we were only paying attention to Mandarin once a week. They needed more repetition, and they needed help attaching meaning to the characters. We knew it, but we just couldn't find the time.

Two weeks ago, I reached my threshold. The kids were just sitting in class, tuning out the teachers, learning nothing. I realized if we didn't change something, we would have wasted three (including commute) precious hours every weekend for a whole school year.

I looked at my dream of them learning to speak Chinese during this tour - it's not going to be easy. It's not easy for Chinese children to learn their language- it takes long hours of writing characters over and over again and I don't know what else. For us, too, it's going to take time and it's going to take commitment. So, we decided to try our best to start reviewing Chinese during the week. And lo and behold, it worked!

We made Pleco flashcards for each lesson and helped the kids memorize some characters and sentences last week. They were excited to use the Ipad. We practiced speaking at random times. And today, my daughter READ from her book- pairing characters together on her own to make questions and sentences, something she hasn't done since we started this class.  It was the coolest thing! And after we finished spinning around the table in celebration, she said- I want to do more Chinese homework! I want to do it every day!

Now I'm not naive enough to think THAT desire will last, but I am hopeful that their progress will lead to more progress which will lead to being able to have conversations in China! My long-term vision is that one day, they will be fluent in Chinese, and they will shock native Chinese speakers, and they will say, thanks Mom, for pushing us learn Chinese as kids.

We'll see, though.

Momtographie, Week one

I have a new respect for portrait photographers. Yesterday I dressed my girl up in her cute blue Hanna dress. I was so excited to take photos of her in the room my mom has fixed up for the kids at her house. It's all red, white, and blue- too cute. But I must have taken a thousand crummy/blurry photos and only a few ok ones. Whenever she wasn't posing for me, the photos were horrific! How do they capture those cute shots when the kids aren't looking..mine are always awful. Anyway I hope to learn a little more by the time the the course is done.

This week we were asked to look at light and a bunch of other aspects, but did not learn anything technical. Since I have no daylight time to take pics, I looked forward all week to visiting my mom and pop's house where they have lots of light and pretty furnishings. Here are a few I liked.

I took this one right before the "official" photo shoot. I like it, too. 

Jefferson Memorial visit

As I mentioned last time, I enrolled in an online photography class, and our teacher encourages us to share our photos on a blog, if we have one. As if I needed encouragement! Yesterday, we had a break in the cold weather- nearly 60 degrees!- so I jumped at the chance to take the kids on an outing and practice my new photography skills. I've been wanting to visit the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, so off we went.

I was very pleased at the images I captured, using manual mode the whole time! When a shot turned out too dark/blurry/light, I knew what to do to adjust it! I am so excited about this new hobby.

So, you'll be seeing a lot of photos around here...

Getting even busier!

Time is flying! Ever since the New Year began, I've been feeling like our time here is almost up. I've been making (tentative) departure plans, thinking about weekends away after I (hopefully) pass my test, and cramming as much Chinese as possible into my brain. But if I thought it was hard before, it's about to get harder. Last week, we finished our college Chinese textbooks and graduated to the FSI-created job-related and other textbooks. We went from about 100 vocabulary words a week to what is looking like 300 a week. Now, I'll be honest- I can't learn every one of those words. I am pretty good at learning their sound/meaning, but the characters take a LOT of work. I try to choose which are more important, and I hope that by seeing them over and over again, I'll learn them passively (it's not really working). So, I will be spending even more time in the lab, working with Rapid Rote to memorize those characters.

As if I wasn't busy enough, I just signed up for a month trial of CrossFit (let's not talk about that right now, what was I thinking?), as well as a photography class!! I recently took a 4 hour in-person "Momtographie" photography class, and it was excellent (the next one is Feb. 23!). We just bought a new DSLR, and for a while now, I've been wanting to take better photos, but didn't know how. The creator of Momtographie, Beryl Ayn Young, is a terrific teacher who focuses on helping moms take better photos of their kids. I love her business model and approach- it fits me. So I couldn't resist signing up for her 6 week online course, in which she will expand on the topics covered during the 4 hour class. I want to arrive in China and really know how to capture the things I see!

In other news, it's the Chinese New Year and we had a fabulous celebration at FSI yesterday. I made my debut as a Chinese elf. My parents were so proud....

We are off to check out some other festivities! 祝大家春节快乐! (wishing everyone a Happy New Year!)