We can observe an interesting phenomenon: Chinese mothers worry about teaching their children authentic English, while overseas mothers also worry about teaching their children authentic Chinese. Sinobus Online Learning is the perfect solution for these needs, as this online one-on-one Chinese course is essential for overseas Chinese families. Chinese occupies an increasingly important position in the world, and online courses concentrate Chinese language learning resources, saving time and energy.
Bilingualism is conducive to children's cognitive development
Studies have shown that bilingual children have significant advantages in many areas compared to children who only speak one language, including better resistance to interference and concentration. This is because bilingual children's brains have two language systems that need to be activated, and they need to switch between them frequently, resulting in more attention. In addition, bilingual children perform better in planning and solving complex problems and are often more creative.
Connecting our culture and emotions
In addition to cognitive benefits, we cannot overlook the connection between culture and emotions. As most of us are first-generation immigrants, we hope that our next generation will understand the environment and culture in which we were born and have emotional connections with our families in China. Therefore, if we still hope to maintain this connection, Chinese language learning must not be neglected.
The US government now values Chinese language policy
The United States has identified Chinese as a strategic language that directly affects its national interests. Mandarin is a relatively difficult language to master. It takes a lot of time and resources to train a zero-based beginner to a high-level user. Therefore, in this situation, Chinese people have a significant advantage. Mastering Chinese can open up many more possibilities for the future, particularly in employment. Let's take a look at US national interests and language policies.
Every year, the US Department of Education has a STARTALK project, which encourages children in grades 7 to 12 to learn foreign languages from a young age.
Language transfer
For Chinese children, if their parents only speak Chinese at home, Chinese is their strong language before they go to school. However, after attending school, they will find that some vocabulary cannot be expressed in Chinese. Since these words are learned in an English environment, they gradually begin to switch to English, and the frequency of this conversion increases. Next, we see that many children simply do not speak Chinese because they think it is faster, more convenient, and more direct to express themselves in English.
Therefore, we can see in many Chinese children that Chinese has gradually become a weaker language and may even disappear.
Can only speak daily conversation
As children come into contact with the outside world, they will find that English is a relatively easier language to learn and use. In contrast, Chinese is not as easy, and they are limited in vocabulary. Therefore, it is common for Chinese children to only be able to speak daily conversations, which means their Chinese cannot go beyond their homes. This makes it impossible to reach a high level of proficiency.
Difficulty recognizing characters, slow reading speed
Learning Chinese characters in Chinese classes can be frustrating for many Chinese children. This is mainly due to the low number of characters they recognize, resulting in ineffective Chinese reading, especially when compared to English reading, which is easier. Because Chinese characters are not the same as English, a word has many meanings in different contexts, and children need to learn one character at a time for a long time to understand its meaning. Without enough knowledge of characters, effective Chinese reading is impossible.
Resistance to learning Chinese
In addition, Chinese children learning Chinese face another problem: they may feel forced to learn Chinese and develop resistance psychologically. Many Chinese children say they hated going to Chinese school when they were young because other children could go out and play, go to parties, and play soccer. In contrast, they had to attend Chinese school for three hours.
