Chinese education and training brand giant , New Oriental suffered a huge blow under the “Online Chinese Class” policy last year.
closing almost all online and offline training programs for K-9 compulsory education (kindergarten to junior high school grade three) in China.
However, this did not stop New Oriental from cultivating in the education field. The focus of its work quickly shifted to other educational products and services, including the development of the overseas Chinese market.
“Blingo Chinese” under New Oriental provides online Chinese learning courses for Chinese children aged 3 to 15 all over the world, including the United States.
Qiao Lei, CEO of Link Chinese, said that Link Chinese was derived from “New Oriental Link Foreign Teachers”, which was established in 2017, and at that time mainly provided online small-class foreign teacher services for domestic teenagers.
Qiao Lei said that in just a few years, the platform had grown to more than 2,000 classes taught by English-speaking professors, and 210,000 students attended the classes.
However, last year, we encountered the national “double reduction” policy, that is, to reduce the burden of homework and off-campus training for Online Chinese Class in the compulsory education stage, and foreign teachers are not allowed to teach Chinese children’s courses.
Therefore, in August last year, “New Oriental Link Foreign Teachers” was transformed into “Link Chinese Blingo”. , the customer group is for young people studying Chinese overseas.
For example, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) launched a free online Chinese course, starting from the most basic four tones, with clear human pronunciation, and vivid situational teaching, you can learn all the greetings in a short time without spending a lot of money.
In addition, China’s Confucius Institutes are also deeply rooted in the UK. There are 29 Confucius Institutes and 148 Confucius Schools to promote the Online Chinese Class and Chinese culture.
The Confucius Institute has also been criticized as a tool for exporting ideology, but it has been denied by the Chinese government.
Online Chinese Class
Oliver mentioned in the interview that teaching Chinese well has a big element, that is, “laughter” when learning Chinese, which is not only required by parents, but also does not need to stick to the performance of scores.
So when I asked him why he seemed to be able to teach Chinese better than people who were born and raised in Taiwan when he came to the United States since he was a child, he said that because his Chinese level is not that good, so “we have fewer requirements, I hope children’s It’s good if you can use Chinese.”
He doesn’t pay so much attention to whether children can write Chinese characters by hand, but can use typing to do composition;
At the same time, he doesn’t use exams to test children’s Chinese level, but focuses on encouraging children to continue to use Chinese Read favorite works.
For myself, in the past 3 years when my child grew up, in addition to referring to Oliver’s blog.
I have also constantly reflected on the reasons why I want my child to learn Chinese, and Oliver mentioned a big point in the interview: “The longing for a piece of land is the people built on that land.
If you don’t miss the people in that place, you won’t have feelings for that piece of land.
” This is the same as my opinion──I hope my Although the children grew up in the United States, they will not be separated from the Chinese culture that I am familiar with and their grandparents because of language barriers.
I hope that they have Online Chinese Class and ties with people in Taiwan. This is the main reason why I want my children to learn Chinese.
For example, my children first learned the word “ice cream” when they ate it with their grandfather in the countryside of Taiwan, so even if they return to the United States later, they still have good memories of eating dessert with their elders;
It’s just the language, but the connection with the family.
Raising Bilingual Children in Chinese & English, a Facebook group initiated by Oliver, currently has more than 9,000 members.
It is a very active community mainly in English. Parents from different backgrounds around the world often share their stories.
From experience, I often see that when someone raises a question, many well-meaning parents are willing to share their success or failure process, and many parents encourage each other and cheer for each other.
After finding Oliver, I gradually found other bloggers who teach Chinese, such as Chalk Academy and Guavarama.
Everyone’s method is a little different, but I have benefited a lot from them.
Thinking about it later, because they are all parents who grew up in the United States, they understand how difficult it is to teach children Chinese in an environment that is not Chinese, so their method is much faster than my own.
After all, although Chinese is my mother tongue, But I have never taught Chinese, so I have to study slowly to be successful.
As the saying goes, the boss is raised by books. The anxiety of first-time parents is also reflected in the language education of children.
Prenatal education, early education, reading ancient Online Chinese Class, singing Chinese nursery rhymes…
Due to my unprecedented enthusiasm for education, Ms. Du began to pretend to listen to me reading Chinese picture books as soon as she could sit still. Tell bedtime stories in Chinese.
Some books have been told so many times that after six or seven years, when I picked up the same book and told it to Sister Du’s younger sister, Taomei, I could still retell most of the content from memory.
The international logistics business 10 years ago was not as developed as it is today. In order to allow Ms. Du to have continuous Chinese input, every time we return to China and Japan, in addition to the Chinese picture books we carry with us, we have to ship a large box of books by sea .
We have moved 4 times in 9 years, but the books have stayed with us.
With the blessing of picture books and mother’s story time, Sister Du’s Chinese listening and speaking has always been smooth, and she has also formed a pattern of speaking Chinese at home and Japanese when going out.
In the middle class of the Online Chinese Class, there were Chinese children who joined the class who could not speak Japanese. She was entrusted by the principal to work as a small translator for more than half a year.