Speaking more than one language is a wonderful gift that many parents would like to give their children. Being bilingual (or multilingual) has many well documented intellectual, personal and social benefits.
Mandarin Chinese is an excellent choice for children growing up in Australia. As a major world, business and community language, fluency in Mandarin Chinese offers increased career opportunities and is also personally enriching.
Chinese for Families aims to be a centre of excellence in teaching Chinese as a second language to children growing up in Australia. Our carefully planned program has been developed over ten years and allows students to make clear upward progression over the long term. We are constantly refining and further developing our program and methodology to better meet our students’ needs.
As with their mother tongue, children acquire language firstly by listening. Our Beginners and Continuers classes are run 95% in Mandarin. Children with no prior exposure to Chinese can follow and engage with the lesson because our skilled teachers use many techniques to aid comprehension. All our courses follow the Better Chinese primary curriculum series. Story based and engaging, this provides a sound curriculum structure which supports students’ language development over the long term.
Children are also gently exposed to the written language right from the first lesson in an open ended and engaging way. As with learning to read in their mother tongue, children develop literacy skills at their own pace.
Our students come from a range of backgrounds but all students in our Beginners to Intermediate classes are learning Chinese as a second language. In 2018 we are delighted to offer our first specialist mother tongue class for children who speak Chinese in their home environment.
All our teachers have teaching qualifications and are trained and mentored in our methodology. We also run specific professional development sessions for ongoing sharing of ideas and skill development.
We highly value the role that parents and other family members play in children’s learning. Parents and caregivers accompany children to our playgroup and are also welcome to attend Beginners and Continuers classes with their children. Parents may observe Intermediate lessons if they wish. We are always open parent questions and concerns.
Becoming proficient in Chinese is a long term process. Children start acquiring the Chinese language from the very first lesson at Chinese for Families by hearing and responding. As time goes on they also start developing simple spoken skills and character recognition.
By the end of our eight year program, students have developed a very sound language foundation which sets them up for success in secondary school Chinese and reaching genuine proficiency in young adulthood. In this blog one parent describes her eleven year old daughter’s ability to use Chinese in China.
In addition, many of our Intermediate students have successfully sat for a number of internationally recognised proficiency tests.
