Violet started her zoo phonics lessons today. As the zoo phonics is at Tampines Mart, and we saw that Berries language school is over there too, so I arranged Dash to attend a trial class with Berries. The K1 Berries class is about the same timing as Violet’s Zoo phonics class.
Violet’s first Zoo phonics lesson
In terms of music, Violet is an expert, so she did very well at Bloom music school. She participated actively and was like one of the very good students. But over here at zoo phonics, she was like struggling! My hubby went in with Violet for the first lesson. He told me she needed to do pasting and coloring over there, and she was very clumsy, and lost, as we had not tried her on that. Sigh, so now, she was like one of the worst student…haha. Her attention span was not long, so she wondered off herself, while the others were sitting down listening to story. I must start doing art work with her from now. I hope she can catch up with her classmates soon. Most of them can speak very well liao, unlike Violet, still in her baby language. This is my purpose of sending her to zoo phonics, to learn to speak more words.
Dash’s trial lesson at Berries Language School
Dash attended the trial lesson at Berries Langauge School. I went in with him for the first half hour of the lesson. What impressed me were the way the children speak. They can speak chinese language rather well. Not like at Hans langauge school, the children there are still very much ang moh, and speak chinese language in incomplete sentences. Anyway, next thing that impressed me was a girl reading a book to the teacher. The students are supposed to practise reading a story from the book at home and to read to the teachers during next lesson, and I heard the girl reading to the teacher rather fluently. The story has about 1-3 sentences in one page, and the girl could read them out (of course lar, her parents did practise with her).
When the lesson started, the teacher pasted the flash cards (words she was going to introduce) on the board, and told the children about “da sao chu (spring cleaning)”. Then she took out mini dustpan, broom, mop, vacumm cleaner etc that need to be use for “da sao chu” to show the pupils (I wonder how they can get those things! all so cute!). Then she asked the students to use them to start helping the teachers to clean the classroom. After that, she reinforced on the words and sentences on the board, asked the students to read, and played “who read the fastest” game with them. The student who could read the word fastest could get the flashcard. The children were all very active and happy throughout the half an hour lesson. I left after half an hour, as more or less, I saw what I wanted to see. I love the lesson! Finally, learning Chinese is fun! I could see that Berries has better sets of materials, and teaching methods. Also, there are two teachers in the classroom with the students. Honestly, I am pretty impress with the school, no wonder the cuties foreigners in the advertisements can recite the poems and tang shi.
I have finally found the Chinese school that I am looking for! So of course, Dash is a student of Berries language school now. Right now, he still have about 4 more lessons with Hans language and will stop. Anyway, Dash loves the lesson too, and told me he wants to go for the next lesson. For those who are interested to try out the lesson at Berries language school, it is currently at a promotion price of $15 for a trial lesson. http://www.berriesworld.com/0promo_1.php So do give it a try!
