A brief discussion of Chinese education for young children in New Oriental

A brief discussion of Chinese education for young children in New Oriental. Author: Yu Hua (preschool teacher at New Oriental Art School) The kindergarten of New Oriental Art School has been open for more than two years, enrolling 2….

A brief discussion on Chinese education for young children in New Oriental. Author: Yu Hua (preschool teacher at New Oriental Art School) The kindergarten of New Oriental Art School has been open for more than two years. It recruits preschool children aged 2.5-5 years old and uses pure Chinese teaching, which has achieved good results. Parents and young teachers often ask me about my experience in Chinese education for young children. I have been engaged in early childhood education for more than 20 years, and have also worked in Chinese schools in the United States for many years. I don’t have much experience in early childhood Chinese education, but only have some superficial understanding. I am very willing to share it with you here to jointly solve the problems our children encounter when learning Chinese. Whether in kindergarten or Chinese school, the children I teach are all between 3 and 5 years old. Children of this age love to play the most and are most cognitive. How can we help them learn knowledge while playing and maintain their interest in learning Chinese? Through years of teaching exploration, I have summarized the following points: First, strive to create a pure Chinese environment. The most important thing when learning a language is the environment. As we all know, the main way for overseas Chinese teenagers to learn Chinese is to go to weekend Chinese schools. Chinese schools once a week only last for a maximum of two hours, which is obviously not enough. In order to create a pure Chinese teaching environment for children from an early age, we have opened a Chinese kindergarten in the New Oriental Art School, using Chinese teaching entirely. Secondly, choose teaching materials. A set of teaching materials should be selected that is suitable for these children. This set of teaching materials must be specific about things and daily expressions related to their daily lives. We chose the "Ma Liping Preschool Textbook", which is specially written for overseas Chinese children and is currently widely used by Chinese schools across the United States. Basically, in two years, you can learn dozens of children's songs in this set of textbooks, recognize and write two to three hundred words, know the meaning of these words, and be able to use these words to make sentences. Third, teaching forms and methods. In New Oriental Kindergarten, I teach children one Chinese character every day and one children's song every week. Stimulate your child's memory by reading songs aloud over and over again, or sing them musically to increase their interest. In terms of reading and writing, younger children are required to be able to read, and older children are required to be able to write. The main task is to make word cards, explain the meaning and strokes of the words, and lead each student to practice writing new words on the blackboard. In the process of character recognition, children will have an understanding of the writing strokes of Chinese characters. For these children, the first fifty words are easy to learn, but the later words become more difficult and easy to forget. Only by constantly repeating the process of "memory - strengthening - forgetting - re-memorizing - re-strengthening" can we finally achieve the goal of being able to read and write Chinese. Here, I would also like to say that New Oriental Kindergarten attaches great importance to the all-round development of children and teaches mathematics while teaching Chinese. Mathematics education is not just about teaching children how to count and add and subtract. It also includes learning lines, shapes, and colors; being able to recognize clocks and calendars; being able to distinguish sizes, quantities, up and down, front and back, distance and other directions. What's more important is to learn to observe things and know the changes and patterns of their development. Basically, the mathematical abilities of children who graduate from New Oriental Kindergarten can reach the first grade level of American elementary schools. The above is my personal simple experience and superficial understanding in teaching Chinese to young children. I hope it can bring some help to everyone in their children’s Chinese education.