Chinese schoolchildren: Language Acquisition

bubobubo
June 21, 2008, 02:32 PM posted in General Discussion

Can anyone give me a description of a Chinese kids first years at school? Especially, how do they actually learn the language?

Sorry for the shortish post, 但是我困死了。

 

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mayor_bombolini
June 22, 2008, 12:15 AM

bubobubo:

Are you smarter than a first grader (in China).

Here's a passage from a 1st grade reader (I retyped it so hopefully no errors):

我多想去看看:

妈妈告诉我,

沿着弯弯的小路,

就能走出大山。

遥远的北京城,

有一座天安门,

广场上升旗仪式非常壮观。

我对妈妈说,

我多想去看看,

我多想去看看。

I was joking around that I could probably start first grade in China.  My Chinese colleague doubted me.  He explained that first graders can often read 1,500 characters.

He gave me some early school material, and I was seriously humbled.

In the first grade his daughter was clearly writing the following characters (I'm holding her scratch sheet in my current avatar.  If and when I figure out how to embed a photo I'll post it).

篮奶算重坏最别得悲

伤落秋练许司轮发现

表唱粮良闹钟情师

朋友好跑细房海组物

讲草药死背都家努病

渴音赶话常新笔件路总

国面挖川阳错。

Sad to say I had to look a few of these up in the dictionary.

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wolson
June 25, 2008, 02:26 PM

I am definitely not smarter than a 1st grader!

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auntie68
June 22, 2008, 03:29 AM

Hello bubobubo. If you're curious to know what a Stunt Toddler in Singapore learned in his first six months of pre-school: 

1. He can recognize maybe 40 characters:

  • colours;
  • numbers from 1 - 10 (and combinations thereof);
  • days of the week (well, 星期 in combination with the numbers; that's easy!);
  • the Chinese characters for the strokes (eg. 横竖撇捺钩点), plus combinations thereof (eg. "横钩“ which I hadn't even known);
  • the names of the shapes (Eg. 椭圆形, which I definitely didn't know); and
  • a few random characters here and there.
2. He can't write any characters -- he finds it difficult to control a pen well enough to write, in any language -- but he loves to use his finger to trace the extra-large characters in the readers my Mum got him, in the correct stroke order. He also does that with characters he doesn't know, even though he doesn't have a clue what they mean, or how to read them.
 
3. He loves to scan a chunk of advanced Chinese text to hunt down the very few characters he knows. We did this with a preface; I only found four "一"s, he got 5. Soon I'm going to start teaching him radicals so that we can look for them too.
@bubobubo, Stunt Toddler is attending a hideously expensive "bilingual" pre-school which takes in tots from the age of 30 months. I think they're doing a fantastic job. They have two teachers -- both bilingual -- in the class at all times, plus a long-suffering teacher's assistant.
His Chinese progress slowed down because he missed nearly half his school days in the last two months of that first semester, due to illness.
And he's also been on school hols for nearly 1 month -- back to school on Monday, phew! -- which has driven me nearly nuts trying to give him the Mandarin exposure that he seems so hungry for.
You need to know that the standards of school Mandarin are very low in Singapore; it is only taught as a second language. We don't think this pre-school is "overkill" because when he starts primary school, nearly all of his classmates will come from households where some Mandarin is spoken, but this is not the case in our family, where we speak a little bit of Cantonese and I am the only adult in the entire family who can read Chinese characters.
What he is doing in his Chinese classes seems to be so intense and advanced, compared with the baby stuff they are doing in English. He has a problem now with the English teacher because he gets bored in school; at home he is typing simple e-mails, reading just about everything, and counting in 1's, 2's and 10s. I only hope that his dependence on typing doesn't retard his learning to write... But it's fun to watch him surf (he's a MousePad Master) and work on his YouTube playlists.

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mayor_bombolini
June 22, 2008, 03:34 AM

changye,

In the US there is a game show named "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader", where they ask adult contestants questions from 1st through 5th Grade material.  At times the questions can be challenging.

I'm finding the 1st grade material in China to be readable but I need to look up a few words every other page (I'm really an Ellie on the cusp of Intermediate by CPOD definition).  So I'm slightly above 1st Grade level now (I wasn't at the time I was given the book). 

My assessment is that Chinese 1st Graders, if they are indeed reading these readers know at least 1,200 characters and they very likely know how to write most of the characters.

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bubobubo
June 22, 2008, 11:03 AM

Wow, I'm probably a proficient as a first-grader with a slight learning disability...seriously humbling.

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changye
June 22, 2008, 02:45 AM

Hi bubobubo and billm,

Thank you very much for the nice thread and the informative post. I must confess that I was a little shocked to see the first sentence 我多想去看看 of the Chinese poem. I’ve never seen the usage “多想” in any of my Chinese textbooks, and I myself have never used it so far. Of course I can’t write such a brilliant poem in Mandarin. I’m willing to admit that Chinese first graders are definitely smarter than me!

Chinese students spend much time and energy trying to master their "mother tongue". There is a tremendous number of Chinese study books (even) for elementary school pupils, such as 古诗,成语,谚语,歇后语,古典故事, at a bookstore in China. If you have the same amount of knowledge about 汉语 as average Chinese pupils, I guarantee that you are entitled to be called “a super advanced learner”!

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marcelbdt
June 22, 2008, 02:29 PM

It's probably easier to learn characters when you are very young, but it is impressive and almost unbelievable that some of them can read 1500 characters in first grade!! Of course, it is not so clear what it means to "know" a character, but I assume that at least it means that they can recognise them, and know one possible pronounciation.

On the other hand - when they finish school, Chinese students  don't seem to have that huge a basis of characters.  This is discussed for instance here:

http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

I was especially impressed by scene pictured on that page of  three Peking university Chinese PhD students that could not remember the character 嚏 , which is ranked as early as character number  3897 in my frequency list.  Hey, even I make an effort to learn characters I find on my way if they are around the 3000 mark, that's not that far beyond.

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bubobubo
June 22, 2008, 03:49 PM

Being a teacher myself, what I'm more interested in are the actual methods applied and didactic concepts. Could anyone tell me more about that? Perhaps native speakers could share their childhood experiences in that respect?

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mayor_bombolini
June 25, 2008, 09:03 AM

bubobubo,

Good luck on your Chinese experience. 

Since no native speakers have chimed in on your question, I'll tell you what I know.  I am not a teacher, but I have seen how much the Chinese student studies.

It seems there is a lot of rote memorization.  Many late evenings studying.  With one or at most 2 children, most parents seem to be very active in the student's studies.

My observations are from the urban environment.  It may be very different in the rural areas (I don't know).  My observation is that people coming from the rural areas are relatively under educated, but I've only met laborers (farmers coming to the city for money), so it may not be a fair assessment.

Recommend you see John Pasden's site: Link

 

 

 

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RJ
June 25, 2008, 09:16 AM

this question has been asked before also with almost no response from any native speakers. Could it be they dont understand our interest in such things? They tend to focus on the present. I always have trouble getting answers to hypothetical questions also. It seems to me there is little interest in what could be, but more focus on what is.A different way of thinking? I always had trouble even making clear what I mean by a "what if" hypothetical question in China. Circumstantial? My imagination?

pulosm- you are very perceptive. What are your thoughts on this?

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henning
June 22, 2008, 12:01 PM

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