Play is one of the most powerful teaching methods for preschoolers to learn Chinese while they develop their ability to read, understand, speak, and write the Chinese language.

I remember struggling to learn Chinese when I was young, as mobile devices and programmes did not exist to support Chinese enrichment. Reading storybooks, completing assessment books, and conversing with my Chinese teachers were my main sources of learning. It was hard, as a child, to remember why a character was pronounced in a certain way or to understand why similar characters meant different things.

When I was a child, assessment books were usually printed in two colour tones as it was incredibly expensive to print using CMYK colours back then. And I had to imagine, using my limited knowledge of Chinese, what some of the stories would look like if they were in motion.

Hence, I was pleasantly surprised to see that today, with the easy accessibility to the internet, learners can readily access a gamified version of preschool Chinese enrichment by LingoAce to learn Chinese through play.

LingoAce is a global EdTech platform that delivers authentic, engaging, and effective language learning for young digital natives of ages 3-15 years old. Its engaging bite-size learning content (pegged to globally accredited syllabus leveraging proven methodologies and technology) is developed by its curriculum specialists, creative designers, and teachers.

LingoAce’s live preschool enrichment runs virtually in real-time by teachers to engage learners aged 3 to 6 years old. They offer bite-sized Chinese content dished out with bright colours, pictures, cute cartoon characters, stories and more! These virtual interactive enrichment classes are conducted on a one-on-one basis, with personalised classes for each student. Lessons are also 25-min long to cater to the shorter attention span of preschoolers and reduce screen time.

Children are naturally drawn toward interactive and engaging content. The online feature provides immediate feedback or clues that will lead students to the correct answers for the class activities. Once these activities are completed successfully, teachers hand out rewards like stars, medals, or trophies to the students, adding on to the fun element.

Visuals and videos enable preschoolers to follow character strokes, learn the meaning behind keywords, and tell stories to reinforce learning at the back of their minds.

Teachers ensure the learning pace is personalised for each child and guide them through exercises with the help of cute graphics to support the memorization of characters, such as using a bow tie and a pair of spectacles to form the Mandarin word for father (picture above).

Graphical representations of Chinese characters are also used to associate the character to its meaning. For example, the Chinese character for grandfather looks like an old man with a beard, similar to the graphics of the grandfather in the lower right-hand box (picture above).

In the exercise above, the teacher asks the preschooler to use hand and bodily movements to indicate the different parts of her face. Movement helps the child to remember locations and link the Chinese words to the different facial features.

Each class includes themed stories, such as this Christmas story (above). These themes can flow throughout the lesson and are relevant to preschoolers’ real lives as they experience the festive season concurrently. From all the examples above, gamified learning provides a thrilling way for preschoolers to learn Chinese in an environment that is nurturing.

LingoAce’s entire preschool curriculum is geared towards what your child needs to be prepared for Primary One. Its curriculum, for example, encompasses 70% of P1 characters and over 25 P1 sentence structures designed similarly to a P1 curriculum to prepare learners for learning and answering questions.

Another perk of LingoAce is that its classes are automatically recorded and playbacks are available after the lesson for revision any time, anywhere. LingoAce also provides parents lesson reports to track their preschooler’s learning progress, with a flexible learning schedule to meet your family’s needs.

Sign up for a FREE trial today here!

This post is brought to you by LingoAce.

By Julia Chan.

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