Bao & Bun's Bilingual Journey

We just completed two weeks of the OCAC program. Both kids were placed in separate first-grade classes. To provide some context, they primarily speak Mandarin to us and each other. Little Bun finished Sagebook almost a year ago and has since been able to read picture books or simple bridge books independently. Little Bao has been slowly learning to recognize Chinese characters, and I believe he knows about 200 characters. While both have learned Zhuyin at their Mandarin immersion school, they are not yet proficient.

Given our background, I was curious to see if their Chinese skills were on par with those of Taiwan’s first graders. After the first day, both teachers praised their proficiency in Chinese, with Little Bao’s teacher noting his good relationships with classmates.

Over the two weeks, it was challenging to gauge what they were learning in school. I could only get an idea from their homework. For Chinese (國語), I learned that the school had covered Zhuyin quickly during the first semester of first grade, while we joined in the middle of the second semester. Each lesson introduces 15 characters that students are expected to master over 2-3 weeks. Homework involves repeated copying of these characters and then using them to write phrases the next day, which takes us about 30-40 minutes due to the twins’ unfamiliarity with writing.

Math homework, on the other hand, closely resembles what they learn in the US but is presented in Chinese. The new 108 curriculum guidelines have changed the approach to math, requiring Chinese reading skills to understand the problems. While Little Bun has no trouble with this, Little Bao struggles with reading the questions quickly but can generally guess the content.

Reflecting on their writing abilities, I wonder if our approach of not focusing on writing has benefitted them. If they struggle with writing in first grade, I fear they’ll face an even greater gap when we try the OCAC program in higher grades.

Overall, it was heartening to see them interacting with local kids, communicating with teachers and peers, and adhering to school rules. However, the pace at which Taiwanese kids learn Chinese characters and phrases seems challenging for us to keep up with.