Bao & Bun's Bilingual Journey

For the past year, I’ve been trying to find ways to keep advancing my kids’ Chinese. I’ve often complained that our Mandarin immersion school’s one Chinese class a day isn’t enough, and I’ve been searching for online tutors to supplement their learning. However, I’ve noticed my kids practicing Chinese writing from school, which I don’t emphasize much at home, and I’ve also seen Little Bun chatting with classmates in Mandarin on the way to school. That’s when I realized that the Mandarin immersion school is not a lost cause—I just had too high expectations.

I’m grateful that our MI school taught Zhuyin and continues to practice it with my kids. I also let the school handle Chinese writing to avoid conflicts at home. The pictures shown are from their school’s summer writing practice. Initially, the kids told me they were learning simple characters like 你, 我, 他, 也, but they actually moved on to more complex characters and even practiced sentence structure, to my surprise 😯.

Sometimes I wonder why my kids’ Chinese hasn’t regressed too much since they started public school three years ago. I think being in a Mandarin immersion school has helped.

So, I’ve changed my perspective on Mandarin immersion and other types of schooling. Although the school may not teach as much as I’d like, it provides a bilingual environment and reinforces the language.

Based on our experience, a combination of Chinese schools—whether it’s immersion programs, after-school classes, or weekend schools—along with targeted instruction from online tutors, has been effective in advancing and maintaining my kids’ Chinese proficiency.