Frankly, do you think the word ‘xiao’ or smile in Mandarin is a tad too tough for a 4-year old to write? Though the meaning is straightforward, the word itself has so many strokes that even we adults find it difficult to remember to write, well at least for me, a yellow banana who speaks smattering Mandarin and can only write my own Chinese name and a handful of Chinese words.
The Mandarin enrichment class teacher had expected her to know how to write this word and her homework was to write a page full of the word ‘xiao’. Even after I had dotted the lines for Alycia to trace the word, she could still not remember the correct order of the strokes. She was merely tracing for the sake of completing her homework.
Now, I’m really worried how Alycia is going to catch up if I were to send her to a Chinese school in future. I know nuts about Mandarin and I don’t want to lead her blindly, just as how I had led her blindly on the use of the abacus, coz we were never taught how to use the abacus during our time. I guess I will have to send her for tuition in future.
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