Like many typical Singaporean kids, L does not have enough exposure to the Chinese language as we seldom speak the language. This is probably one main reason why the Chinese enrichment centres are booming in their business here. It doesn't help that we also read more English books than Chinese ones to him. Furthermore, L didn't have a Chinese teacher for a few months back in K2, so he was very far behind others in his Chinese proficiency.
To supplement L's Chinese language learning, I bought a Chinese comic book on the Monkey God and read it with him. I also signed him up for weekly Chinese enrichment classes. I'm glad the enrichment lessons have been interesting enough to engage him, and the centre adopts a multi-modal approach to learning language. In this particular lesson, the children were given a worksheet to fill in adjectives to describe their eyes, ears, popcorn etc. The teachers showed a video of the popcorn making process, and they were also given some popcorns to bring home. L happily showed me his popcorn treat and ate them on the way home.
To supplement L's Chinese language learning, I bought a Chinese comic book on the Monkey God and read it with him. I also signed him up for weekly Chinese enrichment classes. I'm glad the enrichment lessons have been interesting enough to engage him, and the centre adopts a multi-modal approach to learning language. In this particular lesson, the children were given a worksheet to fill in adjectives to describe their eyes, ears, popcorn etc. The teachers showed a video of the popcorn making process, and they were also given some popcorns to bring home. L happily showed me his popcorn treat and ate them on the way home.
However, after L completed this piece of homework, I realised he didn't retain the learning from that interesting lesson! He couldn't remember the meaning of the words and how to use them appropriately. I am quite sure it wasn't a failure of the lesson. Instead, it could be because he only looked at this piece of work one week later.
So, my teacher-instincts prompted me to do this...
So, my teacher-instincts prompted me to do this...
We made popcorns!
I know that popcorn making is easy and I've seen my mom do this when I was younger. But somehow, I have never made popcorns with my own kids. L's eyes brightened up when I told him that we would make popcorns that day. This boy is a snack-junkie, and he loves popcorns, so this impromptu idea might work on him. My only condition to L was that he had to do most of the cooking himself. He agreed immediately because IT WAS POPCORNS that we were talking about! L read the recipe, followed the procedures systematically, measured the ingredients carefully and did most of the cooking.
Throughout the process, I repeated the phrases from his worksheet and got him to use the Chinese words that he was supposed to learn. Like, when I asked him to describe the popcorn kernels, he had to say 黄黄的玉米。And when the popcorn kernels were popping in the pot, he had to describe the sound by saying 噼啪噼啪的声音。 I also sneaked in some Math concepts.
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| Slow and steady in measuring out the honey |
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| Look at THAT face! Wonder what he was thinking about. |
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| Popcorns almost done! |
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| Enjoying the fruit of his labour |
Learning a language is like this, isn't it? Use it more, and it will stay on longer. Doing it himself also helped him relate the experience with the sentences on his worksheet again, and he managed to correct his mistakes on the worksheet.
You can get that original recipe we followed for this popcorn making process here. We tweaked the recipe a little to include more honey and less salt as we prefer a sweeter version. Believe me when I say this is really super duper easy to make, and you get a pot of buttery, crunchy popcorns within 10 mins!
