Thanks. DS. Being the father of a little girl, naturally I think she is a treasure. Her chinese name apparently means Family Treasure in one interpretation
.
I am trying, but it's a struggle since few people around here including Mrs N really understand the issues of bilingual households and the difficulties of becoming a native speaker of a foreign language in a foreign country.
Australia has a lot of people who are bilingual, but mostly they are insufficiently able at their family's language, and often not up to native speaker in English either, depending on their age of arrival. I read a few studies, drew a few conclusions and appear to have been correct, at least so far, and with a sample of one.
Native speaker in 3 languages is the goal, but I will settle for English. Putonghua and Cantonese can fend for themselves. Don't tell Mrs N I said that.
And Maths ability would be really cool. That way she has both Mrs N's language and hopefully my maths/science. She seems to like maths, and can do it in both languages (yeah, its the same, it was supposed to be funny....). I should say arithmetic. They haven't covered multiplication or division yet at school, only addition and subtraction, and she can handle most of that without her fingers, using some tricks I have taught her. Going to start on the brainetics tricks later to help her out. (google it, then pirate the stuff. Hyped up tricks, but still, anything to make it easier.)
Learning to read Chinese is supposed to enhance memory and maths ability, not sure why the latter.
She does enjoy all the standard kiddy science projects and I am putting together a small lab, so show her some stuff there for fun. Grows tadpoles, watches bugs eat, feeds the turtles, grows plants from seeds. helps with cooking, etc. KNows a fair bit about the planets and how day and night are made, pretty cool for a young'un. Used a globe and a laser light, and she got it. Having daddy in different countries skyping her in different time zones probably helped. Geography fair, can point at Oz, China, UK, Germany, africa madagaskar (movie interests) and a few other places where visiting students come from. Knows the compass. I am following what is supposed to be the standard stuff for NSW school curriculum, but I suspect that mostly they are dreaming that most kids can do it to the level they say they want, but mostly we have it covered, except the reading (which she can do but won't do alone) and the writing, which she doesnt like doing. I suspect that's mostly because I think she doesn't like not being able to write well enough to describe what she can think of. Hence the Dr Seuss observation in previous post.
Working on reading and writing, but she isn't enjoying it unless we do it together. Not that I mind, but I want her to enjoy it for herself. It seems she thinks of reading as a group activity. I tend to think of it as solo. She does read Chinese by herself, but due to the complex nature, only reads signs, not stories yet. I am writing some reading "books" of about 8 pages, using (trying to use
) Dr Seuss's principles, and they are working to make it more interesting, but there are only so many hours in a day.
On the other hand she tells and draws complex stories about all sorts of things and easily differentiates between fantasy and reality, but prefers the latter. I think she is dissappointed that fairies aren't real. Mrs N going around zapping mosquitoes saying they are fairies tickled her fancy though. She can draw nearly as well as I can, but that's not exactly a stretch, even for a kid.