Thanks Wentong. I plan to do more suggested investments. I'll follow @papa-pepper. by the way, I'm trying to teach my kids mandarin chinese. Not sure if it will be possible unless we just drop them in asia at a local school.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
Having your children learn Chinese is very worthwhile. However, there are several factors which will affect your children's success.
(1) their ages: teenagers tend to be quite resistant
(2) their and your opinions of Hong Kong, Taiwan and China
(2) contact with Chinese speakers (parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins)
(3) the environment (who speaks what in their neighborhood and among their friends). Afterschool programs tend to be very ineffective, especially if kids are forced to listen to an old fogey while all their friends are out having fun.
You can get some good ideas by reading books written by Xiao-lei Wang published at Multilingual Matters. If the link is broken, just go to http://www.multilingual-matters.com/ and search for "Xiao-lei Wang"
While living in Taiwan for 40 years, I successfully raised my oldest daughter entirely in French (despite my inlaws' frequent complaints that I wasn't teaching her an inferior language and predictions of confusion and failure to learn English).
A parents' newsletter and other books by Multilingual Matters gave me lots of valuable help and encouragement, so I don't hesitate to recommend books by XL Wang.
BTW, my daughter is now raising her son entirely in French as well (her English, which she learned by herself without any help from me, is not absolutely perfect, but fully fluent).
Please don't hesitate to contact me if you need some more help or suggestions :-)