The learning process, with the child, initiating, the processes, works the best! Translated…
Even though we’d, just moved back to Taiwan from the Netherlands, after the winter break, my eight-year-old daughter is headed off to second grade, we’d worried that she might not catch up to the level of understanding of the Chinese language courses. Sometimes, I’d, told her time and time again, but she still had troubles, remembering what she was supposed to be learning, and, no matter how I originally had the patience, it’d gotten, spent up, and it’d broken us both, to the point, that we’d, hated, one another.
On this day, the sun is warm, we brought out the stools, sat in the gardens, as I taught her the lessons.
As she’d learned a new character, she’d, practice writing it in chalk on the concrete, and she’d also, had to, make a word, or make sentences of the words she’d learned. As I’dd finished teaching her, came her turn, to teach the lessons to her, younger brother, and my son would ask the questions from time to time, and gotten, side-tracked every now and then too, and finally, my daughter got a taste, of why I felt so angered, when she’d, lost her, concentration. Then, she’d, taken the practice writing books to work on it, when she’d come across characters she couldn’t quite write out, I’d allowed her to “go take a peek” at her textbooks, to find the characters, to memorize them, and to come back to the workbook, to write it out again on her own, she’d gone to and from, to and, from, not only she’d, memorized the characters, she’d also, moved around, bent down, squatted, and, she’d also, gained the exercises she was in need of then.
lessons on the pavement…
The chalk writings, I’m not in a hurry to erase them, every time she’d walked past, she’d, reviewed it, and she got to also play hopscotch with it, as she’d recited the words right, she’d, hopped forward a space.
The environmental stimuli from the outdoors, it’d, given them the creativity to make up the terms. The children couldn’t concentrate for long-term, as the mail carrier came to deliver the mails, they’d, waved; as the white butterflies came by, they’d, gone and chase them around a bit. In the end, I’d, set up the camping mats, and, lie, flat onto the yard, see if there are, the hawks, the eagles, flying overboard? For the entire afternoon, we all stayed out, drawing, and reading.
Compared to sitting still, at the desks, changing the environment, it’d, benefitted us all. As she’d forgotten certain characters, she’d had to go and look it up on her own; while I’d felt, that as I was, about, to lose control, I’d, lowered my head down to pull up the weeds, and, turned my anger into the motivations, to whack out the weeds. As my daughter finished her learning sessions, my lawn was, without, a single, weed, we’d killed many birds, with, just, one stone. And, my daughter got addicted to working as a teaching assistant, and we’d even, started filming the teaching sessions, using Chinese and Dutch to explain the Chinese characters, she’d hoped to teach her friends back in the Netherlands Chinese now, we had made four videos so far!
To make learning fun, and more relaxed, I’m, willing, to slow my own pace down, to accompany the children, to constantly find more interesting ways, to help them learn better, and I’m, too grateful, for them, sharing this fun time together with me.
And this showed how when learning is, initiated by the child, it would have the, best results, like how this mother experimented, first, she’d, forced her children to learn, it’d not worked out, and then, she’d, allowed her own daughter to initiate her own learning processes, through exploration, and the child realized, that she can play and learn at the same time, and became, more, enthusiastic in, learning Chinese.