How to Make Chinese Language Learning Fun for Kids: Games, Stories, and Songs

This article’s purpose is to show what games, visual materials, and pedagogical secrets can be used to make it very interesting for the youngest students to study a complex and unusual language like Chinese.

Learning a new language is quite a complicated process, whether you are a child or an adult. It takes quite a lot of time. If you are a student and want to learn Chinese, but because of endless homework, you do not have enough time, do not worry. There are special services that can help you with assignments. For example, you can buy term paper online and spend the saved time on learning Chinese.

How to make Chinese language learning fun for kids

When children learn Chinese, it is very important to constantly encourage their successes – praise, applause, a sincere smile, and joy from their first successes. Sometimes, of course, it is very difficult to maintain patience, persistence, and calm. Rarely a child of one and a half years will sit still for at least fifteen minutes, and therefore, when working with children of this age, it is important to alternate types of tasks, use the physical activity of fidgets, and try to sincerely enjoy the process.

To develop fine motor skills, we recommend using various games with cereals, noodles, and legumes. To prevent the child from getting bored, it is necessary to change the type of activity every ten to fifteen minutes unless they have shown interest in some activity and do not want to stop playing.

To alternate types of activity in lessons, it is advisable to use short children’s songs and poems in Chinese (2-6 lines), lots of toys, and physical activity. All teaching aids should be bright and colorful, and the hieroglyphs in the pictures should be in large print.

Tips for teaching children

• TIP #1. Many teaching aids can be made independently by simply printing out the hieroglyphs and pictures on your computer. You can buy ready-made sets of cards in online stores. A Chinese language teacher should sometimes visit children’s stores and craft stores, where they can buy many materials for making colorful teaching aids for exciting lessons.
• TIP #2. To memorize hieroglyphs, use this method: print out large hieroglyphs on a piece of paper, and then ask the child to trace them several times with their finger along the outline while you guide the student’s hand, showing the sequence of strokes. You can draw a brush with glue on top of the hieroglyph and sprinkle it with glitter, stars, and beads – whatever you like.
• TIP #3. To help your child get used to Chinese culture and become interested in it, we recommend reading them fairy tales about China and its symbols, including your native language. The best at making children fall in love is the famous cute oaf from China — the panda. The task of parents and teachers at this stage (and in the process of further education) is to tell children as much as possible about the Celestial Empire, show photos of small Chinese children who are also learning hieroglyphs, pandas chewing bamboo, Chinese lanterns, etc.
• TIP #4. Play the “Who’s Hiding Here” game with the child. This game should be played after learning the names of animals in Chinese. To do this, prepare large cards from cardboard and write or print hieroglyphs with a picture of an animal on them. Online stores sell ready-made sets of cards with hieroglyphs and pictures with images of objects. During the first lesson on studying animals, the teacher spends ten to fifteen minutes showing pictures of animals. You need to start with those animals that the child already recognizes, for example, with pets – cats, dogs, birds, etc. As this material is mastered, the task becomes more difficult, and you can add new cards with hieroglyphs. At the next stage, you can play the game “Show me where the animal is”: the teacher names an animal – one of those drawn in the pictures lying in front of the child, and a kid should show it.

Follow our tips to make the learning process more fun for kids.

Post written by: Stacey Rigold 

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