Listening is the basis of language learning. Listening is easier than speaking, reading, and writing. To practice listening, we should first focus on the ability to understand everyday speech. If parents speak Chinese at home, children will naturally hear the pronunciation of Chinese. If we can speak Chinese with our children at home and outside, we will give them more chances to listen to Chinese and understand the meaning of Chinese. Listening is very important in both
basic Chinese lessons and advanced Chinese lessons.
If you want your children to have a deeper understanding and interest in Chinese, daily conversation is certainly not enough. Children also need richer language contacts, such as stories, poems, songs, cross talk, book reviews and so on. In these colorful and diverse language environments, children can experience and enjoy more beautiful seconds of Chinese. It also increases the time to grind your ears. The more children listen, the easier and more accurate their pronunciation will be. Especially Chinese is a four-tone language, and some sounds are not found in English, such as "c", "j", "x" and so on.
You can set a goal, such as listening for an hour a day or finding a favorite series, listening to an episode a day. You can do something else when you listen, like when you are in the car, or when you are playing with building blocks, or when you are cleaning the house. Find some time when you don't need to concentrate, you can relax by listening to stories. But it's not recommended to listen when eating, because it's better to talk with family more and communicate more when eating.
Reading to children is also a very good habit. Reading aloud can not only practice listening, but also give children more interactive time to ask questions, and cultivate parent-child feelings. When reading Chinese books, it's better to choose books that are easy for children. Don't make excessive use of this time to "teach", and regard parent-child reading as an interesting, relaxing and enjoyable thing. You can use exaggeration, humorous tone to tell stories, and you can also explain some cultural background in the right place.
Although reading is very good, I feel that time to exercise listening is not enough. Because reading a story usually takes 5 to 10 minutes. It's hard for parents to read for more than 20 minutes. It's too hard for an hour. So I like to use the App, CD and other methods to increase children's listening time.
As for watching videos or TV programs or movies, this is another way to practice listening. But the problem is that seeing too much is not good for the eyes. So I think it's better not to watch too much video, according to the age of the child. My family usually doesn't watch TV every day, maybe once or twice a week. Simple goals: children under 5 years of age do not exceed 20 minutes a day, and children under 10 years of age do not exceed 45 minutes a day. My family should watch much less than this, so we spend more time listening to the radio.
