Bao & Bun's Bilingual Journey

This post is inspired by a conversation from Guavarama’s Facebook comments.

We’ve been at a public MI school for the past three years, and it’s definitely been a rollercoaster. Like many parents, I thought sending my kids to an MI school would mean they’d learn Chinese without needing much extra effort at home. But, as many of us have realized, MI schools come with both pros and cons.

Starting with the cons — one thing I didn’t expect was that the amount of Chinese taught in school just isn’t enough for fluency in speaking, reading, or writing. This has been a pretty big letdown for me, but I’m glad I realized it early on.

On the positive side, a lot of parents at our school do care about their kids learning Chinese, though the level of fluency they aim for varies. Not every family speaks Chinese at home, and this sometimes made me wonder whether MI school was worth it for us. But over time, I found a couple of families that also speak Chinese at home, so our kids can chat and play together in Chinese during school.

That said, I’ve noticed that while most kids don’t speak much Chinese at school, some families make an effort over the summer. For example, one family we know spent a month in Taiwan, and after they returned, the kids were speaking a bit more Chinese. It wasn’t a huge change, but it was noticeable. The staff at our school is mostly bilingual, so kids can use Chinese with them if they want to. Recently, a new student from China joined one of my kids’ classes, and because he doesn’t speak much English, the teacher had him sit next to my child, who helps him in class. I’ve been telling my child how proud I am of her for this.

One interesting observation is that even though not all parents speak Chinese with their kids, some have started using more Chinese when they see me do it. Now, when we arrange playdates, we’ll often chat in Chinese. The kids still mostly speak English, but when they come over for snacks or drinks, they’ll answer in Chinese if we speak to them in Chinese. It’s a subtle shift, but it’s there.

As for the limitations of the MI school, that’s where bilingual blogs are helpful for me to do extra Chinese homeschool. At home, we use Sagebooks, and my kids take online classes that follow the Taiwan curriculum. We’ve got a library of Chinese books, and my kids watch most of their cartoons with Chinese audio. MI school doesn’t drive their Chinese learning—it’s more of a reinforcement. The pace of instruction at school is slower than I’d like, but it’s consistent, and they have daily Chinese homework. I don’t focus much on writing at home, but the MI program emphasizes it, so I rely on them to teach stroke order and give the kids practice. On days when I can’t do much Chinese at home, I’m grateful that at least they’re getting some exposure to Chinese every day through schoolwork.

Right now, my main challenge is figuring out how to keep pushing their Chinese forward while maintaining their interest. Recently, I learned about an upper-grade student from our school who is taking Oliver’s reading-aloud class and reading Three Kingdoms (三國演義). This inspired me to start playing the audiobook for my kids as a way to expose them to Chinese history, classical language, and idioms (from 親子天下’s app). One of my kids is really into it, even if they don’t fully understand everything yet. And this, for me, is one of the benefits of being in an MI school — connecting with other families and finding new ways to support our kids’ bilingual journeys.