Why I Created the Online Course: Introducing Chinese at Home

by | Blog, Teaching Chinese at Home

I’m excited to share why I launched the online course Introducing Chinese at Home.

The creation, beta-testing, launch, and getting feedback from students has been such a great learning experience. It been encouraging and has prompted even more thoughts about how to raise and teach children Chinese at home. And I wanted to take a moment and share what I have learned with you.

Taking Online Courses is a Trend

 

Creating an online course takes an incredible amount of time, but it is fun and rewarding.

I never thought or dreamed that I would have an online course. However, as I tried to become a better blogger you better serve you my readers, I took a couple of online courses as well.

Those online courses have had a huge impact on improving my blogging skills and helping me gain a better perspective of our homeschooling community.

I love taking online courses! It was so much more efficient than trying to research on google and figure everything out on my own. Searching online is often a huge waste of time that ends in results and methods I wasn’t happy with.

Also, by participating in an online course I could see the progress everyone was making by implementing the methods taught, and how it really made a difference in their lives.

That’s why I decided to create an online course – Introducing Chinese at Home.

 

The Reasons I created Introducing Chinese at Home

Creating Chinese Printable and Resources

It is fun to creating Chinese Theme Packs, e-books, art and crafts, and all sorts of printables. It is also challenging and fulfilling to do research, write and create blog posts about teaching tips and different Chinese teaching experiences.

But it is not the best way to share how to teach Chinese at home. To do that clear instructions, examples, detailed training and feedback are needed. Otherwise, it won’t be effective and can’t change people’s lives.

Creating Chinese Online Courses

There are a million online courses for learning Chinese out there. From the very basics i.e. greetings, pronunciation, basic grammar, all the way to advance levels.

However, there aren’t many courses that guide parents on effective methods for how to teach their children Chinese at home. There also isn’t any online course to introduce and prepare children to learn Chinese before they formal learning in classes, from tutors, or online classes.

There was a gap. Helping parents understand how to lay a solid foundation for Chinese learning would be a beneficial online course. It would allow them and their children to have more success in learning Chinese in the long run.

Through Introducing Chinese at Home, you can receive video training and other actionable resources other than just blog posts. It is like having me sitting right next to you and helping you through the whole process.

 

What does Introducing Chinese at the Home cover?

Introducing Chinese at Home lays a solid foundation for learning Chinese and breaks it down into three achievable steps.

These are the same steps that helped my children develop a deeper connection and comfort with the language before they started learning Chinese.

  1. Create a comfortable area at home your child will love to learn Chinese in
  2. Methods to make your daily life so much easier while keeping Chinese exposure consistent
  3. How to incorporate Chinese elements and learning into daily life

If you are a parent (fluent/non-fluent Chinese speakers) and want a better system for teaching your children Chinese at home, this is the right course.

“Introducing Chinese at Home is such a valuable course for every aspect of our homeschooling! As a homeschooling mom of 5, I try to be very intentional with what I spend my time on, and ICaH is so worth every minute. Po Tim King provides useful lessons with bite-size goals that are so attainable no matter how busy our homeschooling days are; I love how the course builds up and starts from square 1 to help incorporate Chinese into every day. Each lesson is like sitting down to coffee with a trusted friend; you leave feeling supported, uplifted, and empowered to set and take on the next goal. I’ve even used the information to help enrich our non-Chinese school subjects! As a student of Chinese myself, trying to expose my children to the world through multiple languages, Introducing Chinese at Home is an incredible resource and I’m so excited to continue putting in to practice the goals outlined in the course!”

Kristi

Homeschooling Mom of 5

Lessons I Have Learned to Teach Chinese at Home

 

During the six months it took to create and launch Introducing Chinese at Home, I have learned so much.

Commitment and Desire are Powerful

I feel honored to work with students who are committed and want to teach their children Chinese. Some of them are fluent in Chinese, but most of them aren’t.

Even though there are many limitations and obstacles, they are not afraid to start their journey and commit to teaching their children Chinese right away.

They are willing to sacrifice time and other desires to make it work.

The Chinese teaching journey with them has been amazing. They are going to have great success because of their strong commitment and desire to teach their children Chinese at home.

Prioritize and Know What’s the Most Important

We all only have 24 hours a day. That’s why prioritizing and knowing what’s most important in your life is vital to happiness and success.

We can’t have everything we want at once, there are things that take more time to nourish but are very rewarding and provide long-lasting joy and other things with give instant but short-term happiness. Teaching children Chinese is one that provides long-lasting joy.

Learning languages need to be a long-term immersive experience for kids, and the earlier they start the better but with busy schedules, it can feel overwhelming. 

My students are parents with full-time jobs, part-time jobs, or are stay-at-home parents. They make teaching Chinese to their children a top priority. No matter how busy they are, how crazy and unstable their lives are, they find time every day to squeeze in Chinese.

Making Chinese a priority is key, so during the launch, I started to teach my 8 years old Mandarin along with Cantonese.

Don’t wait for the perfect moment to do to start, make it a priority and start now.

 

Parents are the Perfect Role Model for Children

Even though launching the course was an extra load of work on top of blogging tasks, I still wanted to learn more about how to teach a second/ third language at home, in order to better prepare to help my students.

I borrowed an amazing book from the library —  A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents Raising a Bilingual Child, from Barbara Zurer Pearson, PhD.

It talks about how parents are always the perfect role model for their own children, whether or not they are fluent in the target language.

Hiring a nanny or having a teacher who is a native speaker of the target language teach them is not as effective. They will never be as influential as the parents themselves.

As parents, our children’s growth and welfare will always be our priority. Even non-fluent parents who use the wrong grammar, words, and speak in a funny accent will still have a more positive influence on their children than anyone else.

My course helps students stop doubting themselves and help them to find ways to be the best example and role model for their children they can be. And you can do it too.

 

Look at the Big Picture and Take Baby Steps

The process of creating my first online course, Introducing Chinese at Home, has helped me see the big picture and how much we support our children’s learning even clearer. 

I have learned to take a huge long list of things to do from day 1 to day 1000 and turn it into baby steps for my students to follow.

That’s the power of having a vision and long-term goals, and knowing how to create digestible tasks is vital. If not, it will be so overwhelming that it is impossible to know where to start.

That’s the key to teaching/learning a new language or anything – look at the big picture, but break it down into baby-steps.

When will Introducing Chinese at Home reopen for enrollment? 

It’s OPEN now!

Click this link HERE to learn more now.

 

My Future Plans are…

This is just the beginning.

Through getting to know more of what my students need I have even more ideas for creating future online courses.

I’m excited to keep working hard so I can help and share more methods and tips for teaching Chinese at home. 

You Might Be Interested

YOU ARE NOT DOING IT ALONE

Join my Facebook support group to meet and get connections with parents and educators with the same goals.

Amazon Influencer Page

If you have any ideas or content you would like to see in the future, please let me know it in the comments below.

Your comments will help me understand which course to create next.

Chinese resource library

身为职业妈妈的我,常常牺牲睡眠来自作教材。版主全方位学习的新年教材真让我省下不少宝贵的时间找资料。四岁的女儿对中文学习有点抗拒。我们善用版主提供的迷你故事书和生字卡来增强她对语文的认识。版主的中文单词棋盘游戏更让女儿投入学习, 因为她想赢嘛!版主的教材可让小孩边玩边学, 太棒了。

Grace

两个小孩的职业妈妈

This is the second 5-Day Challenge that we have done with Fortune Cookie Mom. Both have been very beneficial to our family. I am a homeschool mom of three little kids. We are not Chinese and do not speak any Chinese. With the help of Fortune Cookie Mom, we are slowly learning! The challenges have given me fun activities to do at home with the kids. Each one has reignited my kid's interest in learning. It has been a fun experience for everybody!

Nicolette

Homeschooling Mom of Three

2 Comments

  1. Vaishali

    This is really exciting and I look forward to taking your online course!
    I have already introduced basic Mandarin into our home as a non-fluent speaker but not in a structured way, so that’s why I’m excited about your course!

    Reply
    • fortunecookiemom

      How awesome! Vaishali. That’s really awesome that you did that as a non-fluent parent. Very inspiring. Make sure to subscribe in my email list, and you will get all the updates of when my course will open enrollment again. Thank you.

      Reply

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