School Time: Cosette's Class Chinese Concert

Cosette has been attending a local school this past school year. She is in K1 which is the equivalent to pre-k, I think. More like first grade from all that she has been learning this year. She can read, write, and has Chinese lessons every day. She has learned and grown so much this year, I can't help but be proud of her. She is a rock star!

This performance was a big deal, well for me it was. I was so excited to see her perform. Chinese lessons has been the hardest part of school for her. They speak in Mandarin the whole time, and if you ask a question or need help you have to do it in Mandarin. Most of the time if she has anything negative to say about school, which is hardly ever, she will say that she did not like Chinese lessons because it was hard. I don't blame her. I took Japanese at University and it was hard. With this being a hard thing for her, I was excited to see the performance and how she would do. She speaks in Mandarin at home sometimes when she plays, and sings the Mandarin songs from school too. I love hearing it. And I know she is learning it because, she was rambling in what I thought was a made up language on the elevator and someone said "oh she is saying this". I don't remember what she was saying all I remember is is that a local could understand her. My baby is learning Mandarin!

I am so grateful for her to have this experience learning a language from native speakers. It's an incredible opportunity, one that I hope she will continue to pursue. I will be nudging her all the way, hinting at it ever so slightly, haha. I was born in Japan and my first language was Japanese, but once we moved back to the states we did not continue to speak it at home. At least not to us kids. I wish that I did not have to wait till University to essentially re-learn it, but that's the way it was, and I hope Cosette continues with her Chinese even after we leave Singapore. Knowing a second language is extremely useful and when you have opportunities like she has right now, it is a blessing.

Enough with my spiel about all this, and watch this video of clips I collected from all the other parents of the concert.

I am going to miss her class when the school year is over. They are a fantastic group of kids. And her teachers. You can see Chen Lao Shi, which means Teacher Chen (aka Ms. Chen as we would say in America) in Chinese. I am learning a little bit too.