Chinese learning language
One day I asked my three-year-old son a question when pointing at a character H from one of his favourite books, “what’s this character, dear?” My little one took a quick look and spoke very confidently,” It’s a J, mommy”. I’m a bit of worried at that time and I understand it comes from peer pressure. Some of my friends, no matter where they are either in Australia or China, started teaching kids Chinese or English from the age of 2-3. Others explore various ways to teach kids music, mathematics from the very young ages or even buy Chinese primary school teaching books in order to “win at the starting line”.
It’s not surprising when I see this news (as below) that China is introducing English learning courses from US to kids aged from 3-12. The reason of its popularity is obvious, that is, parents either cannot afford or are not willing to send kids to study overseas and the online plus offline model provided meets this need with acceptable price.
What is the right approach to teach my kid is always the topic we discuss and debate at home or even with friends. One of the differences between Australia and China is that in China we emphasize the memory and results, for example, how many words you need to remember or even write by the age of 3. We surely care about the learning approach, but the results that those approaches lead to really count.
However, it’s a different story in Australia.
Teachers respect the natural language learning development of kids and encourage the culture of learning/teaching through play. I found that my little one is reluctant to learn characters or words but remembers every word that he’s interested, such as Lego, cars, fire engines, ambulance, kangaroo, giraffe etc. that he may overheard from us or his friends. Another example, I was once amazed by him with many plant names that I may even not heard about just because he loves the shape of those plants in the childcare. In other words, interest or experience is the origin of learning.
I personally prefer this natural approach and I feel my kid enjoys this happy learning process as well. The implication to me as a marketer is that Australian education provider could consider an innovative education model rather than spoon-feeding approach to enter the existing red ocean in China. Like us, some of the Chinese parents have been doubtful in the existing model and I reckon that is part of the reason why they send the kids to study abroad.
