I grew up listening to Chinese in the home, but never was fluent enough to actually use the language. It wasn’t until my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that I was given the opportunity to live in Taiwan and be immersed in the language. A few years after my mission, I returned to live in Taiwan again and became an English tutor, teaching kids from 5 years old to adults. It was during this time that I gained experience in teaching a language, and found that a lot of teaching materials lacked real scenarios and dialogues that brought the language to life. I spent many hours supplementing my student’s lessons with personally crafted lessons and found effective ways to get them to speak more.
I have great hopes for my own children to be able to speak Chinese, but living in the United States and dealing with my own weaknesses in Chinese, I’ve found it difficult to just teach my children Chinese. I had an idea to teach them in a more structured way – with a lesson booklet and workbook, but all the materials I found were geared towards older children who could read and write. A lot of the booklets were focused around a classroom type environment, so some of the vocabulary and scenarios just aren’t applicable to my pre-K child. That’s when I got the idea to create my own lessons for my children and anyone who could benefit from it. I wanted the Chinese to be easy and manageable, but most of all, applicable.
The lesson materials I have created are most accessible to those with some experience in Chinese, but with special attention to the included audio, a beginner could benefit from these lessons as well.
Enjoy!
This is a video where you can learn more about me and my background. I created this video for the 2019 Rootstech Film Festival and won the Grand Prize and People’s Choice Award.
Tiny Chinese Homeschool 