Chinese Teaching Methods

Holiday camp........

Joining a holiday camp is a must nowadays. Instead of letting our little dragon rest a bit (sleeping out till noon, fattening herself like a ravenous piglet who had been on hungerstrike recently, catching up on her reading lecture and mindlessly watching TV), we've sent her to a one-week holiday camp.

Nah, not camp....it's more of a course.

A non-profit organisation with the sole aim of improving cultural relationships between Chinese Malaysians and China had organized an educational workshop for kiddo's (and eventual profits from the proceedings will benefit local charity).

The course itself : Synopsis :

There is an infamous teacher in China who proclaims that he (and ofcourse his private school = $$$...can u hear the cashregister ringing?) can teach children to recognize 9000 Chinese characters in the space of a few months,......so as a teaser for the Chinese Malaysian audience, the organizers have invited 2 teachers from this particular school to conduct a 1-week seminar in Kuala Lumpur.

Ofcourse, I'm not asking you to believe that the teachers were going to teach our daughter thousands of characters in a week's time. That would be a bit too much, wouldn't it? The one week course would encompass a selection of popular Chinese proverbs....taught in a fun manner.

The methods entailed would be 'singing rhymes, dancing'......not using any writing tools or sitting down to memorize like a donkey. Classes began at 9am in the morning and would finish by 5pm...6 days long. Thus a gruelling 6-days holiday camp was in store for our little gal.

And ofcourse, Jess, was involved with it too......being part of the organizing committee, she was involved with all the behind-the-scenes duties before and during the workshop. Which to be honest was quite a feat as she had to organize this course from scratch.

And me? I'm a 'banana'....barely have a clue what the thing was about...so my duties were restricted to being a designated 'driver', transporting the 'family' and fellow students up and down.

Well, a minimum enrolment of 30 students would make it break-even, but due to the late notice and a few non-willing authorities, a total of 16 students signed up. Luckily a generous maecenas, in the form of Datin Seri Maggie C., opened up her purse and made this thing proceed as planned. So much the better for us then :p

Both Jess and me, didn't really have a clue of what was going on inside the classroom as we were a bit pre-occupied with our daily duties during that week....but it was strange to see the kids singing, jumping, shouting....it's not what we (being teachers ourselves) associate with 'learning', improving one's knowledge.

In the end the week passed by in a blink of an eye, and the last day entailed graduation, each participant receiving a laminated certificate and a performance for the parents.

We are wondering what methods the Chinese teachers used to instill all those Chinese proverbs into their minds? Just by singing, shouting, rhyming? Looked more like a child version of the Haka Warrior Chant to me. But the kids appeared to have memorized it without a sweat, and more importantly.......they love it.

I'd reckon that Jess and me should have an earnest talk.......that we should change our teaching methods.........'singing, shouting, running around'...what in a name....but as a precaution, we'd better buy some earplugs and stock up on pills against headache.