Hi parents,

My kid is turning into 4 in 2 months time. I am thinking to send him to English learning centre to build up his foundation in English so he won't be struggling in future especially entering into primary and secondary school. Since most of the family members here speaks mandarin with him (I'm the only one that speaks English with him, which i think it would not help too much), that is why im thinking to send him to English learning centre to build up his English language, in terms of his reading, writing and speaking.

Any good english learning centre that you could recommend? Preferable in Petaling Jaya area.
Im thinking of british council. Cambridge english for life, ericcan and vital years ( I just know these few centres that provides English program to toddlers). Are these centres good? Or any other centres that you could recommend?

Need your help to advise.

Thanks.

Everything is depends on the tutor actually.
All centres you mentioned are good. Even the materials also prepared by outsider (for example, CEFL all materials prepared by Cambridge, even exam also by them)
My concern, is the teacher is good as the materials provided?

My advice, just continue speak English with your kid, make the main language in your home is English. 4y0 still young mehh. Even my wife also said the same thing. btw, my wife is a teacher in CEFL. 5yo consider acceptable lah to send your kid for English classes.

Just sharing what we experience here.

Our background: both family are cantonese speaking
My family: SK educated
Hubby family : Chinese educated
When we have this baby (1 and only for both side of family), we actually discussed and decided only to speak mandarin and English with him. As the family members didn't converse with each other in English, most of them speak broken mandarin with the child. Only myself speak English with him. But I do notice he prefer to converse in English, thou most of the family speaks cantonese/mandarin. End up I let him join SK. But what unexpectedly, now English has become his mother tongue, he hardly understand Cantonese and his Mandarin deteriorating.

I have a friend send his daughter to Cambridge English since kindergarten age, every year until now age 10. And the girl English have never improve, she even get so bored to study. And of coz, she in SJK. What we analyse, the kid may already get bored with tuition as it started too young.

TS, if you want her to improve in English. Surround her with English books. I bought lots of books to my boy.. No matter he read it or not.. even he trash it.. i never force him to read.. but a big shelves readily there. Let the child sing English song.. go for interesting English medium activities. Am not sure how alert are you towards her spoken English. You actually can correct her on the spot, if you notice some flaw.. using a friendly way. As young child have open minded to learn, but dun let them feel it is classroom. Let them learn as in.. they growing up.. is a daily practice to speak correct sentences.

Thanks =)...agreed....i do think tutor is the one the plays the most important role in the class regardless where i send my kid to. That is why if any of you knows any good English tutor in which centre for toddlers, do let me know ya ^^

Its kinda hard to make English as main language here...my hubby n i both r are actually chinese ed and we speak mandarin quite often to each other and even to other family members, my MIL does not know how to speak English at all..so that is why we speak mandarin often. That is why im the only one taking up the role in speaking English with my kid, realizing the importance of it, but i don't think it helps much, since the rest of them speaks mandarin with him. This what worries me, afraid that he will be struggling in future if he does not have good foundation in English (I struggled last time for my English due to lack of English foundation, so hope he will not be following my path in future =))

Thanks for your advise anyway =)..hopefully he is able to cope in future =)

Thanks for sharing ur experience....im glad to hear that your child is mastering English quite well =) for my son, so far i do see that he is interested to talk in English and he tried..but when comes to express his feeling or thoughts, his mandarin in expressing is always far better than English. I think probably is my own fault as well, as my English is not very good either, so although i speaks English to him, but with my not-so-good English, he may be picking up the wrong grammer or vocabulary. so i think that is why he could not express or speaks English in fluent.

I feel quite sorry for him. That is why im trying ways to help boosting up his English level, hopefully he wont feel so struggle in future (i struggled last time in my English due to poor foundation, so hopefully he will not follow the same path as i am)

Noted with your ideas on improving his English...thx =) May i know what do you mean by English medium activities? Yes, i always let him listen to English songs, i even send him to music class since i see him is quite interested with musics. Yes, actually i hate classroom teaching method for kids, that is also another reason im asking to see if any of you knows any centre that teaches English in a very interactive manner, so they won't feel bored easily.

I doubt you can use my method, as I never intend to send my kid to Chinese education. Hence, I actually prevent him to join any activities that conduct in Mandarin. And in a way, we actually brought him up the western way.

There maybe some kids that can handle both language very well. But so far, what I analysed (along with my colleagues) on their kids same batch with my son. All kids now Std 4 & 5 (in SJK.. some even in genius class of well known school). Once the kid enroll in SJK, and family mainly chinese speaking. It is too hard for the kid to maintain their good English (even if they started off very good during kindergarten). As they develop their language preference based on which language they use most.

If not mistaken, you intend to send your child to SJK like most of the Chinese did, right?
If that so, don't overly worry as English is not her key language. Just continue speaking English the best you could. Buy her English books, song (with lyrics), and if she ever use YouTube.. there are western kids doing review on their toys. It is quite good to pick up English from this western young kids and very interesting too. Can encourage your kid to do a review on her toys too. But avoid watching Singaporean youtuber's short film. As they are not using proper English.
If she's going to SJK, no need buy Chinese story books. Only give her English story books. As she will easily pick up Mandarin, as her school mainly on that language. If you get her Chinese story books, it will actually divert her away from English further.

I don't encourage such young kids to go for tuition, as I've seen my colleague's failure due to he pushes his gal to tuition since age 4.. and til now age 10. The kid education turn out quite disappointing and behave rejective. She went Cambridge English since Kindy age.

And my son have a friend who actually went to Kumon since kindy also. But same thing happen, never show sign of interest in learning and year by year exam results goin down. Funny is.. still attending those extra outside classes.

ahhh, same thing happened to my nephew.
We wanted him to brush up on his english, always talk english to him, now forget to talk in mother tongue

There are things we never thought of, upfront.

Me and my colleagues, all having kids at Tahap 2 (std 4 & 5), and the concern on secondary school started to pop up.
But I realize majority of my colleagues (kids in SJK, chinese speaking family), their worry now is not only English competency. They have been sending kids to English tuition or learning centre, to bridge the gap. But when approaching the time to think about secondary (no more SMJK), they still worry that their kid cannot cope in terms of language use for communication. Somehow, lack of verbal practices.

For languages, going to enrichment classes / tuition, still not as effective as daily communication.

Sending your child to supplementary education centres at such a young age might sound tempting but this might backfire if your child has absolutely zero interest in participating in classes.

My parents sent me to an English medium kindergarten when I turned three. What I found most beneficial, however, was the fact that my mother drove us kids to the public library every other week to borrow books to read. 10 English books + 10 Malay books to last for two weeks. They have kiddy picture books, up to adult fiction and non-fiction. Since we borrowed from the library, there was no need to overspend on children's books. Every time I encountered new vocabulary, I would look them up in the dictionary and write them down in my little notebook (as per mummy's instructions ). Encourage your child to read, and his English will (hopefully) improve tremendously.

This post has been edited by bunny65: Mar 13 2018, 07:20 PM

Supplementary tuition/classes are probably most helpful when it comes to writing and comprehension, but less so on verbal communication. You'll find students who can ace their English written exams, but have difficulty pronouncing words and speaking in full, grammatically correct sentences.

I found that watching English shows online or on TV helped me most in my speaking and listening. Started off with subtitles, but now am very comfortable listening without subtitles. Daily communication played a big part too, as my father communicated with me in English whilst my mother spoke in Mandarin.

Yes , u r right...im intending to send my kid to SJK since my hubby thinks that mandarin is actually equally important nowadays. I have no objection on that so far. So im not worrying about his mandarin language since most of the family members here speaks to him in mandarin and are able to help out with his mandarin related work in future. Now the thing that worries me is his English only.

But maybe you are right, i shouldn't be over worry about it at this stage, and just try me best to buy more English books for him, hopefully he is interested on reading, in order to avoid repeating the same pathway as your friends / colleagues. But even if he could not really master well in his English in future, maybe...by specializing in mandarin, he can have another alternative pathway in his career focusing in mandarin environment, who know? =) Just as long as he is able to write, speaks and read in English will do ^^

Thanks for your advise dear =)......

wowww..thats interesting...public library......hrmm does good libraries still exist in Malaysia? Any public libraries that you know off that you could recommend to me? Maybe i can try this approach as well, since i did not really bring him to any libraries so far.........=) Any recommendation?

For verbal communication, i realized some centres (based on my previous research) did offered a program on speech and drama, focusing on their verbal communication and pronounciation, do you think does this type of program helps?

Yes, currently he is watching a lot in youtube, TV, mainly on English speaking educational videos from western countries. He did improved by watching that, but at a slow pace, and still mixed up with all the grammers and vocabulories. That is why that it worries me. But hopefully im over worrying and maybe this is very common for child at this stage. Because i saw some kid at similar age but speaks good English, so it just made me doubt whether is it because my kid's learning capability is not as strong as the rest of the kids, which needs more attention and more effort to brush up at early stage.

I hope im over worrying =(

They do but they're probably not well-known I suppose. I used to live in Selayang, so we frequented the local "Perpustakaan Daerah Gombak". You can also search for other public libraries in Selangor through the same website. I reckon many states in Malaysia have their own public library body "Perbadanan Perpustakaan Awam". This page gives you the links to most of them.

Perhaps you might also want to check out this list of "Best public libraries in KL"

It might help if your child is interested in such activities. If at first they are disinterested, I suggest that you get the chance to join in and practise together. Show him that it's fun and enjoyable, he might like it more when he sees that you do

My parents enrolled me in Yamaha when I was 5, so I was singing and dancing in English while learning the piano anyway Early Yamaha classes used to require that one parent accompany the child for their lessons, so you'll have a group of children in the classroom each with a mum or dad next to them. Not sure if it's still practised now, but I reckon the main purpose was to get parents involved in their children's learning. It makes a big difference.

Every child has his/her own learning pace. Some might be able to pick up new things in one go, others might need more practise. Don't be disheartened by this, your encouragement and support are more important to him. Give constructive criticism/comments when you find him making mistakes. Being negative will probably put your child into defensive mode and he/she won't be able to learn anything much afterwards. Try not to compare your own child with someone else's. If it's done obvious enough, your child will sense it and this might affect his/her self-confidence in the future.

Myself was a SK student, but I listen to Chinese song (due to my mom daily chinese song) and I actually can read chinese due to singing with lyrics and read those Chinese entertainment magazines.

Whereas my hubby is a totally opposite. He was a SJK boy. He hate learning Chinese since the day his mom put him in school. But due to schooling, force to learn and so he know Chinese. He is someone who is very much into western, listening to all kind of English Rock, he actually did 1119 and Toefl (even myself didn't take that).

So, the daily activities (none school time) counts alot, to determine whether your child can master his/her 2nd language (in this case English). If both language is so much needed for your kids, make sure they grow up with English, if their education is in Chinese. Let them listen mainly to English song, read only English/BM story books. Out of school, minimal contact with chinese reading sources. As usually SJK student, they will end up choose to read and talk in chinese, where English will deteriorate from time to time.

That's a great idea. In my opinion, you can hire the home tutor or contact online tutoring service as well. You can find some good tutors at Champion Tutor. Here is the website: Home tutorhttps://www.championtutor.my/

This post has been edited by championtutor: Mar 31 2018, 02:45 PM

thx very much ...the link helps a lot............i will go through all the links and pick the one that convenient me the most................thx for ur help =)

yes i think u r right.....i should not be so negative and jz go with the pace............i will see how should i help him along with his learning journey along the way =)

thx for ur advise =)