Miss Chu’s first Mandarin Show and Tell

This week, Miss Chu posts a video of her very first Chinese Show and Tell at school!

So far, Miss Chu is coping reasonably well with her Primary One Mother Tongue (Mandarin) classes, even though it is certainly not her favourite subject! She now has weekly tingxie to contend with – that dreaded longstanding pillar of Chinese language education. (“Tingxie” literally means “listen, write” and refers to a dictation/spelling test). But for her (as with many people), speaking out is the hardest part of learning a new language. And despite the majority of Singaporeans being Chinese, the working language here is English, so there are very few instances in everyday life where one is forced to speak Mandarin. As such, we’re finding that it’s not at all easy for Miss Chu to find “natural” opportunities to practice speaking the language. “Show and Tell” is an integral part of the English and Mother Tongue subjects at school, and is formally assessed every semester (and many parents send their preschoolers to speech and drama classes to prep them).

Miss Chu’s show and tell is a very short, simple self-introduction, but considering she could barely string a sentence together when we got here, we’re proud of her for overcoming her anxieties and just getting on with it! Anyway, she’s miles better than I was at her age, so I’m happy ?.

Next week she’s got English show and tell – so we can all relax for that one!