Chinese at Berries

It struck me a few days ago that I have yet to post anything related to his Chinese-learning journey at Berries. For my foreign readers (and non-mummy friends), Berries is a hugely popular franchise in Singapore which specialises in Chinese enrichment classes.

I am not exaggerating when I say "hugely popular". When I was scouting around for Chinese enrichment for Christian last year, I called up the Orchard, Pandan Valley, West Coast branches of Berries, only to find that they have a really long wait-list of students who wish to enrol. I was overjoyed when I called up the Mountbatten branch and found out that there were 2 slots left on a weekend morning! (This also set me thinking...anybody who opens a Berries branch would have customers right from the get-go.. anybody keen to start a profitable franchise with me?)

Anyway, just to document his Chinese enrichment journey, I read rave reviews of Berries on many various forums. However, a colleague who had tried out both Tien Hsia and Berries said her child preferred Tien Hsia. I then went on to to have trial sessions at both centres. Although the Tien Hsia branch was more centrally located (Singapore Shopping Centre at Orchard), my observations of the class and a chat with another parent who was waiting for her child outside class led me to conclude that TH appears to be a little less organised, with lots of time spent distributing materials and organising the children. There was also a child who was left alone to just wander about during the TH trial. The teacher explained that the parent of that particular child had asked her to not rein her child in, but to just let her absorb whatever she could whilst in class. Hmm..it may be nice of the TH teacher to oblige her, but it was certainly very distracting for Christian, who kept looking at that girl playing at the slide which was placed within the classroom.

Berries allowed me to join Christian during the trial class, and the teachers were so animated and engaging. It was clear that Christian enjoyed his time there, after he got past his anxiety of being left behind by me. I noticed that the teacher really understood the way children behave and thought...she would talk to props and pretend that the content of the conversation was not meant for the children's ears, which naturally piqued their interest and achieved the intent of having them learn the word of the week.

Oh well...so. P was grumbling a little that $30 per lesson, with 1 or 2 words learnt per week means we are effectively paying $20+ for our child to recognise 1 chinese character. However, I felt that generating an interest in, and enjoyment of, the Chinese language would help us save loads of money in Chinese tuition when he grows older. Some relatives express surprise that we send him for class even on Sunday..but it's great comfort to me that he happily skips into class every week, without giving even a backward glance. Going through the word cards provided by Berries also allows me to confirm that Christian retains most of what was taught, mainly because they tell stories behind the pictograms, and create vivid impressions on the little minds.

All this money spent has also motivated us to instil a "Speak-Mandarin-only-Sunday", where P and I try our best to speak only Mandarin to Christian, while not compelling Ch to reply in Mandarin. Ch intially kept replying in English, but has finally started to reply in halting Mandarin in recent weeks ^_^

What a long account of our Chinese journey with him.. hopefully it'll get easier with time!