Language learning for children too young for classes

July 10, 2023 4:32 PM

Our four-year-old son speaks a little Mandarin, but only a little. We're considering taking him to Taiwan for a few weeks to practice and learn Mandarin. Have you done something like this? What has worked for you?

My wife's parents, who live with us for part of the year, are Taiwanese, and the three of them speak to each other in a mixture of English, Mandarin and Taiwanese. I speak only English. We live in Vancouver BC.

Our four-year-old son has picked up a little Mandarin, but only a very little. We'd like to help him improve his Mandarin. When he's older, we'd like to sign him up for classes, but he's not ready for classes yet (even classes that are aimed at his age group). So we'd like if possible in the meantime to teach him "by immersion". Our jobs are in Canada, but for the next year or so we can work remotely, and so we're considering taking an extended trip to Taiwan.

Here are some things we're considering:

(1) Enrolling our son into a Mandarin-speaking daycare in Taiwan.

(2) (If we can afford it), employing a Mandarin speaking nanny, or one-on-one language teacher.

(3) Enrolling our son in a Mandarin language camp, perhaps something like this.

Please help us think through our options! Have you tried anything like this? What worked and what didn't?

Thank you in advance for your answers.

posted by HoraceH to Education (4 answers total)

A friend had a similar situation and enrolled their bilingual kid in an expensive bilingual mandarin/english preschool in our major US city. Said child was mercilessly teased by the other toddlers for not being Chinese enough (visually-eyes too round, hair not black) and speaking with an accent. Most kids were first-generation US with mainland parents. Kid came home from school crying every day and refused to speak mandarin at home when the family had been bilingual at home. The kid still hates mandarin and used it less after the preschool experience.

I don't want to totally generalize from mainland Chinese parents to programs in Taiwan, but based on my friend's experience I'd consider an international school or other multicultural program or the nanny option versus dumping your kid into mainstream classes.
posted by Narrow Harbor at 5:24 PM on July 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

A language camp would likely be the most effective, however you could also consider kids camps/courses that are offered in Mandarin, but on another topic.

One our kids enjoyed was a stop-motion animation course (using Lego) offered by Sigel Labs. They offer other courses as well around robotics, and coding.

It wasn't cheap either (not sure how it compares to other courses), but our kids enjoyed it and they saw it as a fun activity, rather than something they didn't want to attend.

Depending on his Mandarin ability, you may also want to check what level of English support might be available as part of any program, so that he isn't completely lost if he doesn't follow the Mandarin instruction.

Still, you may want to temper your expectations about what could be achieved in a few weeks.
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 9:46 PM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]

This might be obvious, but watch Mandarin-dubbed shows. Disney+ makes all the different language tracks available. All the Ghibli films have also been dubbed in Mandarin.
posted by airmail at 7:40 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you for your replies, everyone!
posted by HoraceH at 9:19 AM on July 13, 2023 [1 favorite]