Today is the first day of the warm final exam.
Because of the live broadcast plus the writing, I arrived home a little late. Before she could ask her how she was doing with her Chinese exams today, she hurried to the revision of math and English.
Perhaps because near the end of the term, my chicken baby soul, which has been "double subtracted" for a whole semester, has shown some signs of "resurgence" since New Year's Day.
Before, Nuan Nuan could easily read books and draw pictures every night, but in the past two weeks, every night I had pressed the knowledge points, done exercises, memorized words...
In fact, according to her usual learning effect, I think the exam should be no problem. In the final review stage, we mainly sort out the knowledge points learned this semester, and check the shortcomings and fill in the gaps through the corresponding exercises. In addition, repeated practice is carried out where it is usually easy to make mistakes, and these "chronic diseases" are solved in a targeted manner.
Warm Grandma said that I usually don't have a chicken baby, and temporarily hold the Buddha's feet. Oh, isn't there another sentence: grinding the gun in the front, not bright and light
Yesterday I talked to you about the ugly word of the baby, and today I will talk about English.
Before I told you, we will arrange a special english live broadcast every month in the live broadcast room of the video number [Warm Mother Says Education], whether it is graded reading, natural phonics, or English teaching aids, early enlightenment... Everyone can communicate with us in the live broadcast room for any content related to English learning.
Through several live broadcasts, I found that although English learning has been prevalent for so many years, many mothers still have some misunderstandings in English learning.
I summarized a few of the most common questions asked by everyone to see if you have also fallen into these "misunderstandings"?
After the double subtraction, do you still use English to enlighten?
I believe that many mothers have the same feeling as me, and the impact of "double subtraction" on English learning is the greatest. This makes many parents confused: double subtraction, can English still be learned? How can I learn English without extracurricular institutions? Anyway, I won't take the exam anymore, so I don't have to learn English, right?
Regarding the matter of learning or not learning, I still hold a consistent view, do not take the ≠ do not learn!
English is a language, a tool, not to mention that the current international is still english as the lingua franca, even if it is not in the future, learning more than one language, is one more learning path, more than a communication ability and way of thinking.
So every time someone asks me, "Do you still want to learn English," I still say firmly: Yes! Not only to learn, but the beginning of English must not be too late.
I see that many mothers in the group are distressed: the child has gone to primary school, but the local school only opens English classes in the third grade; I want to enlighten my children outside the school, and now there is no suitable course online and offline.
I have always opposed the "early learning" that the state has vigorously prohibited. But again, if you don't learn in advance≠ don't learn!
As we all know, children will experience multiple sensitive periods during growth and development, among which the golden period of language sensitivity of 0-6 years old is crucial for the development and learning of children's language. Language learning – whether Chinese or foreign – requires and should follow a natural "language sensitivity period".
Even if someone questions it, I want to stress it out loud: if you want your child to better master English as a language tool, don't really wait until the third grade to start learning!
For most Chinese children, the mother tongue environment will gradually lead them to form Chinese language stereotypes. If the time for English learning to intervene is too late, when the child gets an English expression, the first reaction is to organize the language in the brain with Chinese, and then translate it in English. This will make learning English very difficult and half the work.
My child is X years old, which level of graded reading to choose?
Mothers often ask "My child is 5 years old, how many levels should I buy a big cat?" "Kids in first grade, is it appropriate for Harcourt to do Grade 1?" I think this may be a problem for many parents when choosing English learning tools for their children.
Mothers who often watch our live broadcast know that when Teacher Dongchen and I recommend graded reading materials and English teaching aids, we will always ask one more question: How many years has the child learned English?
In fact, if you are not an English/bilingual family and your child is not in an international school, you must not decide solely by age or grade, but choose appropriate reading materials and teaching aids according to your child's actual English level.
Let me give you an example. Beijing is a first-grade English class, but if the child attends a bilingual/international kindergarten, or starts taking systematic English courses such as New Oriental and EF from the age of five, the English level at the time of enrollment is definitely higher than that of children of the same age with zero foundation. In this case, although the age or grade is similar, when choosing graded reading and teaching aids, the same level cannot be selected.
Note: The so-called systematic English learning refers to having a professional teacher who imparts English knowledge according to a coherent system, rather than simply grinding his ears or having a few daily conversations.
Learning pinyin and alphabet at the same time, will children be confused?
Children in Native English-speaking countries begin to receive the systematic learning of Phonics at the kindergarten level. Parents who have been exposed to natural phonics teaching in China will also sigh that this way of using pronunciation rules for spelling training is very similar to the Chinese pinyin in our current kindergarten articulation.
So the question is, if the child learns natural phonics and pinyin separately, will there be a situation of confusion of concepts? If they all learn, will it lead to children not learning well?
This kind of problem has appeared at least a hundred times in the messages that mothers in the background have given me.
For this, as an old mother who has experienced such a tortuous learning process as a public kindergarten international kindergarten and a public primary school, I can responsibly tell you that there is a high probability that it will not.
When Nuan Nuan entered the International Kindergarten, she had already turned the Chinese language learning model into an intrinsic solidification mode in her brain, and then she went to contact the English learning mode. Because it was a completely different way of expression, she didn't create confusion.
The child's brain will spontaneously classify and accept the English language and Chinese language, not only will there be no confusion. In a good environment, I will accept English much more quickly than I expected.
Why should I rigorously add a "high probability"?
For children who have no foundation at all, when exposed to two forms of the same letter at the same time, their thinking ability cannot distinguish between where natural phonics will be used and where phonics will be used.
This confusion occurs not because the child is exposed to multiple languages, but because the child himself does not develop an internalized cognition of a language. That is to say, there is no fixed language system and language environment, which is easy to lead to confusion.
But you must believe that children are born language experts.
The child's brain itself has a language acquisition device that can resolve language confusion with a variety of external resources, different scenarios or cognitive skills. Even if it is confused, it is only temporary. As the child becomes familiar with the two language systems of Chinese and English, he will naturally "return to pinyin of pinyin and return to letters of letters".
Children in the golden age of language, the brain's acceptance of different languages is very intelligent. Even if natural phonics and Hanyu Pinyin are two sets of knowledge, when children receive knowledge of different languages, as long as there is a scene belonging to a certain language, they can store different language signals in different "areas" of the brain.
So, again, if you're worried about your child getting confused, be sure to take advantage of the language sensitivity period to learn.
Graded reading first, or learn natural phonics first?
In the golden period of language learning before the age of six, the most important thing is not to let the child accept how many languages, but to let the child take the time to open the ears when the language signal is initially received, and achieve the goal of language learning and application through scene-based understanding and absorption.
Grinding the ears can be done in various ways, we start to speak from birth to about one year old, during which we are using our hearing to feel the different expressions of speech and morphemes in the language environment to form a solidified language pattern. This is most typical and obvious in the native language environment.
The common way to grind your ears is nothing more than listening to children's songs, listening to nursery rhymes, listening to stories, watching animations... Similarly, graded reading is also an important way to help children grind their ears.
And what is natural phonics?
It is a language learning aid for children in native English-speaking countries, by establishing the correspondence between letter and sound, thereby increasing the ability to quickly spell out English words, even long, completely unseen words can be pronounced correctly according to the pronunciation rules of letters and letter combinations.
When Nuan Nuan was five years old, he heard the word hibernation and was able to spell out hybernation on the small blackboard according to his pronunciation. Although i and y are misspelled, I think I have done a good job for a child who has not been exposed to natural phonics for a long time.
Here, I have a little secret that I have been hiding for many years to share with you: when you encounter trouble in English learning, you can actually substitute for Chinese way of learning. Because Chinese and English are essentially the same thing – language tools.
Chinese is our mother tongue, most children at least before the age of two can understand, can speak Chinese, some children from the age of one or two began to parent-child reading, to four or five years old can know a lot of Chinese characters, but the real start to learn pinyin, often are young to the first grade of this stage.
Seeing this, can you understand the relationship between graded reading (= comprehension + reading + literacy) and natural phonics (= pinyin)?
After learning natural phonics, is it not necessary to learn phonetic transcription?
Natural phonics can be popular for so many years, or it is still very meaningful. This way of memorizing pronunciation according to the combination of letters and letters is very helpful for children to master the pronunciation rules of words and establish an intuitive sense of sound of letters and pronunciation.
For foreign children, the application of natural phonics is very widespread. But this has a premise, because before the age of 3-4, although they do not know words, they have accumulated a large amount of listening and oral input for a long time. When you start reading again, you can naturally use it to recognize the corresponding words.
When many Chinese parents first saw natural phonics, they simply thought it was too good! Any word you don't recognize but that conforms to the rules of self-spelling can easily be pronounced in this way.
Such an easy method, why does it take children so much effort to learn?
In fact, this is because we have overlooked a premise: we feel easy because we have many years of learning the phonetic alphabet, at least know what the English pronunciation is. Children do not have this foundation, they may not even know the pronunciation of //, /, even if they understand the pronunciation rules, but it is rote memorization.
The phonetic alphabet has been demonized by us for many years, and when we mention the phonetic alphabet, it seems to be the product of test-taking education, which is boring and rote. In fact, the phonetic alphabet is a tool, and it is a very good tool, which can help children learn English as ESL more systematically.
We are against learning phonetic transcription, and what we oppose is letting the three- or four-year-old xiaodi learn phonetic transcription in advance. This is completely unnecessary and contrary to the laws of the child's physiological development. In the English enlightenment stage, let them listen more, watch more, and learn natural phonics.
However, after entering the early articulation, if you want to learn advancedly, you must have a large number of words that cannot be naturally obtained in life and a lot of reading, you need to use the assistance of the phonetic transcription to quickly and accurately know how to pronounce it.
(If you're interested in the topic of phonetic learning, you can read this article I wrote earlier, "It's Time to Justify the Demonized Phonetic Alphabet!") 》）
With a bit of a reading pen, do you still need a dictionary pen?
The reading pen and dictionary pen are now one of the most used learning tools in the English learning process for children.
In the warm English enlightenment stage, we use more reading pens. Its biggest role is to grind the ears, and to liberate parents who are not very good at English, in terms of graded reading, picture book reading, basic pronunciation, etc., are all learning tools.
Especially for young babies, this kind of "magic pen" that can listen to children's songs and listen to stories with a little bit of small hands can undoubtedly make them have a great interest in reading and learning.
That's why I would advise pre-elementary school children to have at least one reading pen.
After arriving at primary school, you will find that the English reading materials that children are exposed to are not limited to picture books and graded reading materials, but there are more and more teaching aids, reading comprehension materials, English original literature, magazines, newspapers and periodicals... Wait a minute. In the face of these materials, the reading pen is a little weak. So when I was in the second grade, I got my first dictionary pen.
Compared with the point reading pen that limits the scope of use of books, the dictionary pen is suitable for all books (even electronic screens, instruction manuals, etc.), all kinds of school textbooks, extracurricular tutoring materials can be "swept", it is like when we were young, we used too fast and easy to pass, Wenqu star and other learning tools, therefore, the dictionary pen is more suitable for children after elementary school.
The school learns British pronunciation, graded reading audio
But it is an American pronunciation, what to do?
I believe that the mother who asked this question should have seen a lot of audio and video about the contrast between British pronunciation and American pronunciation.
I have asked several American friends, and they have told me that in the eyes of native English speakers, the influence of English and American sounds in daily communication is almost negligible. A friend even jokingly said to me: I can communicate with my Indian and Japanese colleagues without barriers, let alone English and American.
Seriously, English thinking is the bigger factor influencing communication than accent.
When I visited Silicon Valley before, I also found that there are really a lot of Indian employees there. Their accents are indeed strange, but because English is the official language of India, the English thinking of Indians is the same as that of native speakers in Europe and the United States, and no matter how strange the accent, it does not affect each other's communication and exchange.
Perhaps in the eyes of Zhen Laowai, the difference between English and American is equivalent to the difference between Sichuan dialect and Chongqing dialect. So if you're struggling with this problem, it's really not necessary.
For non-native English speakers like us, we always feel that Learning English is the most headache of "big and big difficulties".
In fact, there is really no need to look at English as mysterious.
English, in the final analysis, is a language. No matter which language is learned, it is nothing more than the four dimensions of "listening, speaking, reading and writing". To summarize in the simplest way, the first is to seize the language sensitivity period, and the second is to find the right learning methods and tools for children.
Seriously, there are far more resources and pathways for warm children to access English than our generation. So English, which seems difficult for us to learn, if you find the right way, the child may not be like a flood beast.
The "double subtraction" I understand is not to prevent children from learning English, but to liberate them from learning methods that violate the laws of physiological development and return to the original way of language learning.
The essence of English is language, and the biggest role of language is communication, not examination. Clarify this point, and then combine the child's age, interest, cognitive level and other individual characteristics, to plan the way of English learning, in order to truly be targeted.
(Some of the picture sources are online, and the copyright belongs to the original author)
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