State of Chinese & Homeschooling 2020-2021 Year

Welp, another year passed. I really need to document. So I’m going to write a not fun post.

I’ve written review posts in previous years:

• State of Chinese 2014-2015 (7yr, 4yr)
• State of Chinese 2015-2016 (8yr, 5yr)
• State of Chinese 2016-2017 (9yr, 6yr)
• State of Chinese 2017-2018 (10yr, 7yr)

I have one theme for each of our homeschooling year. This is to help my procrastinating self to accomplish something, anything during the year.

The theme for this year for Thumper was English Writing. The theme for Astroboy was Chinese handwriting.

This was also probably our last year world schooling. Our two month world schooling trip turned into a year plus stay in Taiwan.

Thumper

English

Our English writing progressed very well this year. I have low standards so I was telling friends left and right how pleased I was with Thumper’s writing. I mean, how can one not be pleased when the phrasing sounds like a native English writer who has been writing for awhile when we have not written at all until this year?

And I’m not really exaggerating. We ramped up slowly, starting with classes that required small number of sentences, up to a paragraph or two. No studying of essay formats, different types of writing, etc etc, other than our grammar and Writing With Ease curriculum.

Anyways, I need to stop here or else I’d go on and on and be annoying. Sadly, I can’t share anything because the teenager will kill me.

So, when your focus is English, what happened to the Chinese?

Chinese

For Chinese, her Chinese class studied 世說新語 as 7th graders in Taiwan do. She also took a composition class.

I was surprised and happy she could keep up in a regular class. She really liked the class, saying she learned a lot. The writing is not up to grade level by any means.

However, in the last year, it’s crystalized for me my requirements for Chinese is just being able to plop a child into a Taiwanese class and have no adjustment issues. The teachers of course make concession for writing. But in general, she gets along with peers, understands everything and actually gets A’s in the class. That’s all I want.

Spoken language wise, it is becoming apparent we’re stuck at the kitchen Chinese level. So that will be our goal for next year, up’ing the spoken language.

In general, Thumper’s Chinese is at a level where she can read adult fiction/non-fiction should she choose to.

Everything else we’re swimming along.

Astroboy

We’ve made no progress in English whatsoever this year other than listening to tons of podcasts.

But our Chinese. Wow, I totally understand now why kids need to study academic Chinese and the importance of an adult school teacher and children interaction.

The Chinese that pops out of Astroboy‘s mouth is higher than Thumper. He uses words that I tend to think are higher level, because of my kitchen Chinese, but really, is what your average school age kids will say!

I wish I could say more about it but I keep forgetting to take note of what he says. All I know is, a year of Chinese school/class for a young kid is REALLY REALLY EFFECTIVE. Thumper was in class but it did not have that same effect.

In general, Astroboy‘s Chinese level is around local kids 4th grade level, other than writing.

Montessori Homeschooling in General

This was the best year in homeschooling yet. Partly because the kids were in classes for so long every day. But also partly because Astroboy is growing up and now finally finally has the habit of doing work at home.

When the kids were young, it’s really hard for them to keep focus on a 3 hour work period. I remember Thumper turning a corner starting at 9 and being more independent and self-motivated as she grew up. What I learned from that is that the teacher can do all they want to normalize a classroom or get kids to work. But really it’s all developmental.

So I’ve been counting and counting down the days till Astroboy grows up. And he did while I wasn’t looking!

So what’s the best year look like? We’re under lock down now right? BOTH kids are waking up by themselves, doing their morning chores, working on their work, taking breaks, eating lunch, cleaning up, exercising themselves, etc etc. Other than my presentations to them, I actually have time to spend the morning on doing my own thing.

There isn’t a lot of nagging of, “You’re getting distracted”, “You need to go back to work.” comments from me. This has never happened before. It’s crazy!

And that’s about it for my summary. No pics because I want to do a separate post on the Chinese that Astroboy’s doing.

This post is more just a summary for myself that Thumper‘s English really went up this year, and Astroboy‘s Chinese really went up this year. I managed to get something accomplished this year! Horray!