Jenny is a nine-year-old girl in Grade Three at a primary school in Singapore. Like many children growing up in Singapore, he is extremely fluent in English and even known as the “little orator” in his class. But when it comes to Chinese, Jenny seems like a completely different person. Whenever his mother asks him in Chinese, “How was your day at school?” he can only blink his big eyes, struggling to search for words in his mind, and finally mumble a few simple ones: “Good… ate… played.” He cannot form complete sentences, such as “Today I had chicken rice at school, and then played football with Tom on the playground.” Complex Chinese characters look like tangled lines to him, difficult to remember and even harder to write.
Chinese class troubles him the most. Once, the teacher showed a picture of a park and asked the students to describe it. While other classmates could say things like “lush green grass,” “colorful flowers,” and “people jogging,” Jenny could only feel anxious. He clearly knew what was in the picture, but those Chinese words were like naughty little fish—no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t catch them. In the end, he might only point at the picture and say: “Trees, many. Flowers, red.” The difficulty in communication made Jenny less and less confident in Chinese, and even a little afraid of it.
Jenny’s parents were very worried. They knew Chinese was extremely important—it was not only a compulsory subject at school, but also a bridge connecting their child to the family’s culture and the broader world. They had tried many methods: they bought interesting Chinese picture books, and Jenny was eager to look at the illustrations, but he would feel sleepy as soon as he tried to read the text; they sent him to a Chinese tuition center, but with so many children in the large class, the teacher couldn’t focus on Jenny’s basic problems. Seeing Jenny looking glum every time before Chinese class, his parents decided to look for a new solution.
One day, his mother excitedly told Jenny that they had found a course specially designed for children in Singapore called “Sino-bus Singapore Chinese Online One-on-One Customized Course.” His mother explained, “This is a one-on-one course where only one teacher teaches you. The curriculum is tailor-made for you, starting from what you’re good at—it’s just like playing a level-breaking game!” When Jenny heard “one-on-one” and “level-breaking game,” he felt a little curious.
First Trial Class: A Fun Start
On Saturday afternoon, Jenny sat in front of the computer with mixed feelings of anxiety and anticipation. A kind-faced female teacher, Teacher Lin, appeared on the screen. She spoke in clear Chinese with a gentle tone: “Hello, Jenny! I’m Teacher Lin. Let’s play Chinese games together today, okay?” Noticing Jenny’s nervousness, Teacher Lin immediately switched to a mix of Chinese and English: “It’s okay, we can take it slow. Let’s start with something fun!” Instead of teaching from textbooks right away, Teacher Lin shared her screen and showed a vivid picture of “My Room,” which included a bed, a desk, a window, a schoolbag, books, and a little cat.
“Jenny, can you tell me what you see here? Just one word in Chinese is fine,” Teacher Lin guided him. Jenny whispered, “Bed.” “Wonderful! In Chinese, we say ‘床 (chuáng)’.” Teacher Lin pointed at the bed in the picture, and the large Chinese character “床” with its pinyin “chuáng” immediately appeared next to it. “Repeat after me: 床 (chuáng) —” “床 (chuáng)…” Jenny followed along. “Great! Look, this character ‘床’—doesn’t it look like a table with bed legs and a bed board?” Teacher Lin sketched it with an animation pen, and Jenny found it really interesting.
In this way, Teacher Lin led Jenny to learn the words for “desk (书桌 shū zhuō),” “window (窗户 chuāng hu),” “schoolbag (书包 shū bāo),” and “little cat (小猫 xiǎo māo)” from the picture. For each word, Teacher Lin used vivid images, simple actions (like mimicking carrying a schoolbag), or funny sounds (like meowing like a cat) to help Jenny understand and remember. Jenny realized that Chinese words could be connected to concrete things—they weren’t all boring symbols.
Next, Teacher Lin began to teach Jenny to combine words into simple sentences. She pointed at the desk in the picture and asked, “Jenny, what’s on the desk?” Looking at the books and pencils on the desk, Jenny tried hard to recall the words he had just learned and said, “Books… pens.” “Excellent! We can say ‘书桌上有书和笔 (There are books and pens on the desk)’.” Teacher Lin typed this sentence on the screen and led Jenny to read it repeatedly. Then she asked again, “Where is the little cat?” Jenny looked at the cat lying on the floor and said, “Cat… on the floor.” “That’s right! ‘小猫在地上 (The little cat is on the floor)’. You’re so smart, Jenny!” Teacher Lin’s encouragement made Jenny feel very happy.
The class passed by quickly, and Jenny even felt a little reluctant to end it. For the first time, he thought that learning Chinese might not be that scary after all.
The Magic of Customized Courses: Chinese Characters, Words and Sentence Patterns
After starting the formal classes, Teacher Lin designed a personalized curriculum based on Jenny’s level, focusing on the core contents for Primary 3 (P3) students: Chinese characters, words, and sentence patterns.
- Ingenious Ways to Remember Chinese Characters
Jenny was most afraid of writing Chinese characters, but Teacher Lin never asked him to memorize them by rote. For example, when learning characters with the radical “木 (mù, meaning wood)”, Teacher Lin drew a tree and said, “Look, this is ‘树 (shù, tree)’, which is made up of many ‘木’ characters.” Then she added the character “对 (duì)” next to “木” to form “树”. Later, she taught him “林 (lín, grove, made of two ‘木’ characters)” and “森 (sēn, forest, made of three ‘木’ characters)”. Jenny felt like he was playing a puzzle game and remembered several characters from the “木” family in one go. The teacher also used a sand table game software, allowing Jenny to “write” large characters with the mouse, which was much more fun than writing in a notebook.
- Enjoyable Word Learning
Learning words was also full of fun. When they covered the topic of “fruits”, Teacher Lin showed a picture with various fruits: apples, bananas, oranges, and watermelons. “Jenny, what fruit do you like to eat?” Teacher Lin asked. “Apple,” Jenny replied. “In Chinese, apple is 苹果 (píng guǒ). Look, it’s red and round. We can say ‘一个红苹果 (a red apple)’.” Then they practiced phrases like “一根黄色的香蕉 (a yellow banana)”, “一个橙色的橘子 (an orange tangerine)”, and “一块甜甜的西瓜 (a sweet piece of watermelon)”. Teacher Lin always expanded the vocabulary by using collocations like “color + fruit name” or “taste + fruit name”, enabling Jenny to make more specific descriptions instead of just saying a single word.
- Speaking Up with Sentences
Sentence pattern practice was the focus of each class. Teacher Lin knew well that Jenny needed to build confidence starting from the simplest sentences, so she often used the method of “describing pictures with words”.
For example, there was a picture of children playing in a park. Teacher Lin would ask questions to guide Jenny to answer with complete sentences: “What’s in the picture?” — “There are trees, flowers, and grass.” “What are the children doing?” — “The children are running.” / “The children are flying kites.” “What’s the weather like here?” — “The weather is nice, and the sun is shining.” From the simplest subject-verb structure “小朋友跑步 (The children are running)”, to the subject-verb-object structure “我吃苹果 (I eat apples)”, and then to sentences including location and state like “小猫在桌子上睡觉 (The little cat is sleeping on the table)”, Jenny made progress step by step under Teacher Lin’s patient guidance. Teacher Lin never hurried to correct every small mistake he made; instead, she first encouraged him to speak up boldly, then repeated the correct version: “Oh, Jenny wants to say ‘小朋友在跑步 (The children are running)’. That’s really good!”
Small Achievements and Great Changes
After taking Sino-bus courses for several months, Jenny’s changes surprised his parents a lot. One day during dinner, his mother cooked fried rice, Jenny’s favorite dish. Looking at the plate, Jenny suddenly said in Chinese: “Mom, look! There are red carrots, green peas, and yellow eggs in the fried rice. It smells delicious!” Although the sentence was still simple, it was the first time he took the initiative to describe something in Chinese, and he even used “有 (there are)” and “还有 (and there are)” to connect the words! His parents looked at each other in surprise, then clapped happily for him. His mother said excitedly, “Jenny, that’s wonderful!” Jenny smiled shyly, but his eyes were shining with pride.
Now, Jenny no longer pulls a long face before Chinese class. He still thinks Chinese is challenging, but he is no longer afraid of it. Because he knows that in the Sino-bus online classroom, there is a patient Teacher Lin who can turn difficult Chinese characters into pictures, unfamiliar words into games, and complex sentences into step-by-step ladders. He can feel that those Chinese words and sentences that once slipped away like little fish are slowly swimming into his mind and taking root there.
Maybe next time, when the Chinese teacher shows a picture of a park again, Jenny can raise his hand and try to say: “This is a beautiful park. There are tall trees and beautiful flowers. The sky is blue, and the sun is bright. I like the park.” For Jenny, this will be an extraordinary victory. His new Chinese learning journey has just begun, but it is already full of sunshine and hope.
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