Ryan was pestering over the weekend to get his tuition teacher to come over and help him with his Chinese Spelling ('ting seah' or direct translation: 'listen then write'). Actually, I'm not correctly saying this as there is no such thing as Chinese spelling since it is character learning. Basically, it really means listening to the character and writing it out again. I didn't want to call in the teacher this round. And I also felt that Ryan is too reliant on the tuition teacher.
I decided to try out PLECO. I talked about this application earlier. I was playing the demo version which didn't get me that far. Here is what I thought. It is cheaper than having an electronic dictionary and will definitely teach my kid to be more independent. So, why not? Then, it got me the next question. Should I buy the basic version which is for Chinese beginners, or the 'professional' version which caters for intermediate students? The catch is that I can't upgrade from basic to professional later but to buy add-ons by add-ons which may turn out more expensive. The cost for basic is US39.99 and professional is US69.99. I'm thinking that my son could be progressing to intermediate quite soon ... so what the heck.. just get the professional version. After all, shopping for a dress might cost me more than that. I decided not to get the OCR add on -- the one that you can hover the phone/iPad over the character and it will search for a match. Cool add-pn but more for 'syiok sendiri'. I feel. The package comes with handwriting which is good enough. Handwriting means you can draw the character on the iPad and a match will appear. Then you can get the meaning and even have the application pronounce the character for you. I just felt that OCR is just good to have but not necessary.
So, I tried it out with my son for his revision on 'ting seah'. I used the Flashcard function to save all the characters for his exam so that he can practice over and again. I was also able to check whether his strokes are correct. And then, emphasizing the meaning of the characters. Cool! Ryan was excited with this new 'toy' and he actually learned quite well from it.
Money well spent! And then, my husband had to say that we could have jail broken the iPad before I got the application. Grrrrr....
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4 comments:
Hihi..alwiz read but never comments..like ur blog..really good guidance for all esp mum...will like to ask is PLECO mainly chinese dictionary..how it help in ur son "ting seah". My elder currently in Boa Bei (3x weekly). Quite happy as frm a banana boy now recognize lot words..but they didnt emphasize on writing..he now 3n half..worried that he cant cope..thinking of couching him myself but me too another half banana mum...hope u share more info on how to teach ur son chinese using PLECo..Thanks
Just curious though, where do you send your kids to for their Chinese Speech and Drama classes?
Hi. I grown up in a really different kind of background i might say. I was in SRJKC for 3 years until my mum changed me to a private school. I shifted to a new area and went to a cluster school there. I went to comostots DU too. To be honest, i don't think you will have to worry about your kids not learning chinese well in chinese school in year 1 or year 2. I was a banana until i got into year 1. though i only survived 3 years but things was great there (except for the homework). I don't think there is a need to switch them to malay school (if you ever think of it), it will be too relax for them. I have to admit that I was very happy in private school but things got too relaxed and I got so lazy.
However, my younger brother did not survive SRJKC for more than 2 years. Hahaha. He was a totally banana and the worst thing was he hates chinese for no reason. We was discussing about it, planing to send him to a malay school but he kinda resist learning malay because his malay teacher beats him a lot. So, my mum ended pulling him out and sent him to an international school.
Anyway, if you still want to send your kids to cosmotots, you can actually join when they grow older. This is because as you go to higher class in cosmotots, you will just have to send your kids there twice a week and then when they go to highest level, it is only once a week. Fees gets cheaper as your kids level too. (This was my time, 2006, no idea if they are still using the same thing)
Thanks for the encouragement. It's truly a struggle for me and my kids are soooo banana! Sigh!
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