Introducing Chinese to Kids

Here are some quick tips...

1. Introduce simple songs in Mandarin using CDs (or sing yourself, if your Chinese is good)
2. DVDs! Look for native speaker material.
3. Start with short projects that use related words such as counting from one to ten, days of the week, and time of day. All of these three projects are based on numbers.

Avoid...

1. If your child's textbook from Saturday Chinese class is not simple and easy for you to learn from, scrap the book (and, perhaps, the class). It is better to get kids together and watch cartoons in Chinese than to let them drown in a class that makes no sense (does this sound like I felt my time in Saturday language class was miserable and useless? Yeah, sorry, Mom...)
2. Stay away from traditional teachers who focus on rote memorization.

Children can soak up native speaker level accents at a young age, so our focus is on providing great listening practice and creating a love of learning languages that will last a lifetime. Vocabulary and grammar can come later!