Her Mat Salleh slang

My girl reads her Mandarin books with a Mat Salleh slang. I just hope that she won't get teased in school because of it.

Thanks to the beauty of blogging, I found some books to start preparing my girl for Chinese School. Some bloggers and blog readers had recommended the book. You can see pictures and a more detailed description of the books from this blog post by Jo-n: Learning Chinese. She has done a very nice detailed post about it together with pictures and all. Very nice. Thanks Jo-n. Your post together with some blog readers' description helped me to find the books easily.

The books are along the lines of Peter and Jane concept, but in Chinese. It introduces new words while repeating old ones in a continuous story format. The series introduces up to 800 new words in all. My girl is now reading Book 5 in the 2nd series of 200 words in her Mat Salleh slang. I am a little ahead of her on Book 4 in the 3rd series of 300 words. We had to get the optional CDs to work on our pronounciation. :) Its a very enjoyable and fun way of learning. My girl likes it very much and so do I.

Thats to start off preparing my girl for Chinese School next year. As for me, I am a little worried about how I'm even going to understand what they are saying during the orientation. I tried to put on the Mandarin news and I didn't understand a word of what they were saying. Sigh. I'm afraid that my Preschool Knowledge of Chinese is not going to help me through understanding whats going on. During the orientation, I presume the headmaster will go through the rules and regulations and I won't know a word of what he is saying. Help! When I am in a roomful of Mandarin speaking people I feel really awkward and out of place. How am I going to help my child and become more involved the way I am now?

I just became a member of Popular Bookstore which I seldom visited before this. However, I'll be spending more time there in the future going through the Mandarin books. But theres no escaping knowing Mandarin now is there. I find that the newer generation of 20 and 30 something speaks Mandarin compared to my generation of 40 something who mostly spoke English. All my girl's kindy teachers speak Mandarin with the exception of the principal who is older. All the teachers in the music school who are in their 20 something speaks Mandarin. I feel so lost.

I wish I had the time to take up some adult crash course in Mandarin. I want very much to be able to support my kids in their studies and not leave it to tuition teachers but will I have to now that they are headed for Chinese school? Will I have to leave their studies to tuition teachers?