In the United States, weekend schools are a common way for Chinese communities to learn Chinese. How do Chinese American children learn Chinese? Are their Chinese and English expressions equally excellent? To answer these questions, I interviewed many Chinese Americans living in the United States and explored their ways and means of learning Chinese.
In the United States, there are various ways for Chinese children to learn Chinese, and the most common way is to go to local Chinese schools, also known as "weekend schools," which provide systematic Chinese teaching on weekends. According to the National Association of Chinese Schools, there are currently over 400 members of the association, located in nearly 50 states in the United States, with a student population of over 100000. Deng Qiao, who lives at Amherst High School in the United States, told me that, like most of his Asian friends, he studied Chinese for ten years on weekends at school, spending two and a half hours a week. He started learning pinyin, learned new words and texts in class, transcribed and memorized them after class, and participated in stage tests. The school will also regularly hold speech competitions, evening parties and other activities to stimulate students' interest in learning Chinese. Deng Qiao said, "Learning Chinese is similar to learning English for Chinese people." He added, "The teachers are all Chinese, some are interesting, while others are boring. There are only two or three hours of classes per week, and how well students learn mainly depends on how they study outside of class."
My grandparents live in Beijing, and every summer, Deng Qiao returns to China to reunite with them and learn Chinese. He firmly believes that the time spent in China is of great significance for his Chinese language learning. "Immersed in a pure Chinese environment, learning speed is the fastest. Walking on the streets of Beijing, people communicate with me in Chinese, which is very helpful for my listening training. At home, I have to talk in Chinese because my grandparents don't understand English, which effectively improves my oral expression ability," Deng Qiao said. He said that compared to other young Chinese friends, his Chinese language skills are outstanding. "In high school, many friends only know some basic Chinese, and their pronunciation is not accurate, with flat and raised tongue sounds not clearly distinguished. Parents communicate in Chinese, while they answer in English. Most people only have the ability to listen, speak, and read, but are not good at writing," Deng Qiao explained. Nowadays, there are more and more Chinese schools in the United States, and many non Asian faces are appearing in the classroom. Weekend schools have become a popular choice for young people in the United States to learn Chinese.
Chinese American girl Fan Jia serves as an example to demonstrate the exemplary behavior of Chinese parents. "I have never taken a Chinese class before," said Fan Jia, a Chinese American girl fluent in the Cantonese accent. Fan Jia's ancestral home is Guangdong, and she grew up in San Francisco, USA. According to her, most of the Chinese in San Francisco are from Guangdong or Hong Kong, so speaking Cantonese is a necessary skill for communicating with local Chinese. Even if ordering at a Chinese restaurant, one must use Cantonese because the boss is probably from Guangdong. Interestingly, Fan Jia does not speak Cantonese at home. "Our family has always had a bilingual environment since childhood.
My mother and I speak Mandarin, and my father and I speak English, which can be quite chaotic at times," Fan Jia said with a smile. But she understood that her parents' intentions were purposeful. In daily life, from shopping to school, Cantonese is ubiquitous and has naturally become Fan Jia's mother tongue, so there is no need to say it at home. On the contrary, there are fewer opportunities to use English and Mandarin, and they need to be strengthened. "My mother believes that learning Chinese is very important, so she insists on speaking Chinese to me. Sometimes, after chatting with friends and returning home, she ignores me when I speak English or Cantonese to her mother." Fan Jia said, in order to create an environment for learning Chinese in the family, her mother bought many Chinese books to cultivate Fan Jia's interest in Chinese, while helping her learn Chinese characters and teaching her how to use dictionaries.
The process of learning a language is very interesting. When I was a child, my mother would read me several Chinese storybooks every day before going to bed. Despite these stories appearing repeatedly, I have heard too much and can already memorize them. One night, my mother was not at home. When she came back, she was pleasantly surprised to find me alone holding a book and reading word by word - although it was not real reading, it was just based on the pronunciation in my memory. It seems that this is how I learned to recognize Chinese characters. Fan Jia smiled and recalled that when it comes to the methods for Chinese children to learn Chinese well, she believes that parents are the most important enlightenment teachers. She is very grateful to her mother for creating an atmosphere for her to learn Chinese, which has cultivated her interest in Chinese. She still retains the habit of reading Chinese books, perhaps thanks to her mother's help. When she was a child, her mother did not force her to read those obscure and difficult to understand ancient or modern literary classics, but instead allowed her to read simple, plot rich storybooks, and even martial arts novels. She said that when she read novels, it felt like she was completely immersed in the book, and naturally developed a strong interest in the language in the book. When encountering unfamiliar words, she also satisfies her curiosity by looking them up in a dictionary and asking for clarification. She has always believed that integrating education into entertainment is the best learning method, especially in language learning. Linguists believe that children can learn three or four languages in a multilingual environment. It has been proven that by the age of 3, children who are exposed to a language to about 50% of their age can reach similar levels as their peers whose mother tongue is that language. Meanwhile, children will not experience language confusion, delayed language development, or cognitive impairment due to exposure to multiple languages. Therefore, Chinese parents can try to create a bilingual environment at home, serving as Chinese teachers for their children, allowing them to learn Chinese and understand their cultural background while learning English well and completing daily communication easily. Regarding the issue of taking Chinese as an elective in school, Fan Jia suggests learning Chinese as a foreign language.
In addition to attending weekend schools and Confucius Institutes, Chinese children can also choose to learn Chinese courses at school, treating Chinese as a foreign language for learning. In most high schools in the United States, foreign language courses such as French, Spanish, and German are common, while Chinese language courses are gradually becoming popular. According to statistics from the Foreign Language Teaching Council of the United States, as early as 2000, about 5000 primary and secondary school students chose to learn Chinese, but now this number has exceeded 50000. A survey by the Washington Center for Applied Languages showed that at least 30000 high schools in the United States offer foreign language courses, and the proportion of schools offering Chinese language courses increased from 1% in 1997 to 4% in 2008. According to The New York Times, 15 years ago, about 300 primary and secondary schools offered Chinese language courses, but now this number has exceeded 1600.
Liu Yanshi, who lives in Vermont, has been taking Chinese courses since middle school and has been studying for 5 years. He said that the local Chinese school is too far from home, and the climate in the Northeast of the United States is cold, so he is unwilling to take Chinese classes on rare weekends despite the severe cold. "I have to attend 5 days of classes a week, and if I have to spend the weekend studying, I'm afraid my enthusiasm won't be very high. Some of my Chinese friends, although they went to weekend school according to their parents' requirements, are all focused on the football field," Liu Yanshi joked. He stated that in high schools in the United States, students are required to learn a foreign language, and most students (including Chinese Americans) usually choose to learn a European language, while he chooses to "avoid the heavy and choose the light" and chooses Chinese. He believes that taking Chinese as an elective in school has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that there is a relatively long period of time each week for systematic Chinese learning, and I am motivated to learn Chinese from a higher starting point, usually achieving better grades than classmates of other races. The shortcoming is that one must start learning from the basics and cannot choose courses that suit oneself like in weekend schools. In addition, Chinese language teachers in middle schools are very scarce, so each class has a fixed teacher and cannot switch classes like on weekends. Choose the teacher you like. I think there are two main problems with Chinese language teaching in American high schools at present. Firstly, there is a lack of high-quality Chinese language textbooks. From primary school to high school, there are few textbooks that are not systematic, and the transition between textbooks used in middle school and high school is not clear, and the content has not kept up with the changes of the times. Secondly, there is a lack of excellent Chinese language teachers. Chinese language teachers from China have rich teaching experience in China, but they do not have a good understanding of the situation in American classrooms "Enough, the uneven level of English proficiency inevitably affects the quality of teaching." Liu Yanshi said.
Despite this, Liu Yanshi still firmly pursues learning Chinese. "When I was a child, I didn't understand Chinese. When I saw my Chinese peers interacting in Chinese around me, I felt very disappointed. To be serious, I didn't know who I was at that time. As a Chinese American, this identity was not easy, nor was it simple. If you were smart enough, you could easily switch identities between Chinese Americans and Americans, but if you didn't put in some effort, you might get lost in between the two." Deng Qiao said that he had considered giving up Chinese and learning other languages, but ultimately chose to persevere. "Even if you are not satisfied with your skin color and want to become white, you still need to face your cultural identity. When others know you are Chinese, they will ask you some questions about Chinese culture. If a white person says' hello 'to you with a strong American accent, and you can only respond to this word, it would be awkward, wouldn't it?"
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