Listen to Wang Shuang Shuang - "Attach great importance...to writing..."

Esteemed Chinese language educator Wang ShuangShuang is about to give a webinar through CLERC about her methods for success. She is the author of a popular textbook series Mastering Chinese Language and Culture that was later adopted by the Hanban Institute.

In the description of the webinar, she has summarized her top 3 goals for success:

1. At the lower grades: concentrating on fostering interest and love for Chinese through rhyming texts, engaging interactive activities, and vivid colorful illustrations.
2. From middle grades up: to challenge and satisfy with the profound Chinese culture the thirst and curiosity of students at this age to discover and learn new knowledge.
3. Attach great importance from the very beginning to writing and teach different genres of writing at different stages as a means to consolidate transform the language students learned into language proficiency.

Now that my child is in 4th grade, I would say that I echo this summation. But I am far from expert, as compared to a mother and experienced teacher like Wang Laoshi. But I was gratified to read this. I would say that that has been my gut instinct, trying to match what I experienced while growing up in America with what I see are the developmental changes in my child.

I also want to echo the advice we got from our K Mandarin Immersion teacher a while ago - and that was the importance of "attaching" to the writing. I didn't fully know how it would play out when my child was only 5 years old, but now I see it. Because she is adequately "attached" to the writing, then it is not a huge burden for her at age 9. She can speedily write sentences and look up characters on Pleco with the handwriting function. She knows how hard it is to become literate in Chinese vs. English. She embraces the hard work.

I also want to give a shout-out to Wang XiaoNing, founder of ChinaSprout.com. She communicated the value of "vivid colorful illustrations" in beautifully inspiring storybooks for children. And so it is that we have been avid customers of her wonderfully curated books. She has amazing taste! Don't let it pass you by.

And lastly, I do want to clarify that I am still a fan of the Jinan University Zhong Wen series for young children, and especially for those of us in non-Chinese speaking or half-Chinese speaking households. This series provides more written guidance for syntax and grammar than Wang Laoshi's series. But I also have her series for when my child will be in middle school years and wanting that level of subject matter engagement for history, philosophy, geography, and even some science.