Wen

@shiwen

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298 Followers

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Interesting thoughts! I don’t have any say about programming languages. Would like to know more if you ever decide to try it out 😆

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A daily conversation with my 2.5yo: 2.5yo: I want a lot of water! All water! (Right after her night bottle of 6oz milk) Me: You have two✌️options. One☝️ is to not drink any water and go brush teeth. The second ✌️option is to drink a little bit water before brushing teeth. 2.5yo: Two! ✌️ Sometimes clearly stating two options works (a known behavior management strategy). Sometimes. Last night, she wanted me to put on a bag and play with her. 2.5yo: Mama, you have two options. One is to put on this bag and play with me. Two is not put on this bag. Which one do you want? Me: Two. 2.5yo: No! You choose one! You want ONE!

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Curious in what language? My 2.5yo has a clear preference of using English, but when she counts in Chinese after 10. 😆

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Higher athletics yoga challenge day 1 with @jachian

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Adults are more cognitively aware of the our own learning experience and are more capable to reflect/adjust in the process. This is also partially why I think I can stay cool if my child doesn’t want to speak Chinese now or in the near future. When she wants to, she can pick up something of her choice in adulthood.

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As a “trying-to-be-good” parent, I find it hard to not have any expectations when being invested in all aspects of my child’s life. Parenting is a self improving journey, too.

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Good luck! Not everyone can have the luxury of an immersion language environment. As long as you try to make the input comprehensible, you should be in a good place.

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Are you learning another language yourself?

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My observation is that kids are extremely adaptive. You gotta believe in them and then they surprise you. As long as the seeds are planted, even though they may appear to “lose” a language, it may come back at some point of their life. Even if they don’t end up speaking the language, it will likely to impact their life in some ways.

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Some people argue that Stephen Krashen’s comprehensible input theory emphasizes too much on the language environment. What if you want to raise a multilingual child, but you don’t have anyone at home who speaks other languages? Legit concern I feel very lucky and privileged that I am able to provide a Chinese language environment at home for my child. However, there will be limitations no matter what. Maybe his comprehensible input theory is still helpful even for monolingual parents. Just knowing the nature of language acquisition and making small changes to offer a language rich environment. As a parent sometimes I simply had to turn off the “concern section” in my brain and go with the flow. You can’t control everything and that’s ok.

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I remember reading research papers in grad school on this topic. Interacting with media doesn’t quite do the same as interacting with real human beings. As human beings, we are adapting every second in when talking to someone, consciously or unconsciously. Immersion through other forms of media in the target language is certainly helpful. On the forums, there are real people behind the screens.

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Wow! It’s cool to earn the $5 from my first few posts here. Just want to say thank you to everyone who welcomed me and shared your thoughts with me. I wonder…what about my posts that you find interesting/relatable? 😊

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Here’s the OG video when he first presented this theory publicly back in the 1970s. https://youtu.be/NiTsduRreug?si=Dqej8dwyPEUqeu21

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Posting about my take on “learning” vs. “acquiring” a language reminded me of Stephen Krashen’s influential theory on language acquisition — comprehensible input. My first exposure to this theory was in grad school when I was studying Bilingual/Bicultural Education. When LEARNING a language, especially as an adult, we might rely on various external tools (dictionary, translation, teacher, textbook etc.). When ACQUIRING a language, all tools come from ourselves — our five senses, the will to communicate, and potentially the interests toward the topics being discussed.

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Here is my submission for the higher dance challenge!

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Our 2.5-year-old has been obsessed with a red-covered Chinese book (yes, “red” is the reason). This morning, she pointed to 蝴蝶 (butterfly) one character at a time and said: “butt-er, where’s fly?” Two things caught my eyes are: 1. She’s matching verbal language to print in Chinese and is attempting to do so in English, too. 2. She’s segmenting syllables in English words

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Kudos to all parents who are making the effort to raise multilingual children!

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Raising our daughter bilingually has always been the default to me. Not because it’s more beneficial, but because it’s simply what’s natural to me and my family. There’s a difference between “learning” a language and “acquiring” a language. (掌握/身につける) No one feels like they “learned” their first language, because we all acquired it as we grew up. Things learned can be forgotten when not used. Skills acquired tend to stick for longer or come back easier. My hope for my child is not just about learning a certain number of Chinese characters or being able to hold conversations with grandparents. I hope it will be part of her life, and impact her life in a positive way, for as long as she lives. At the end of the day, my hopes are my hopes and her life is her life.

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Not sure if you’ve encountered this site but seems very interesting to me. I personally don’t think I have that much dedication though https://chalkacademy.com/

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