Ever since I have my own class in Chinese school, I have always tried to save at least about 10 to 15 minutes for just plain reading. Usually, it is one of those activities that children are always bagging for and never wanted to end. Yes, this was when I finally realized how powerful books might be.
Each semester, I would only have about three to five students in my classroom. And most of the times, these children has very little or no Chinese language background. Which is to say, when it comes to reading time, I am reading these Chinese books to those English speaking children. And this is when I find that, maybe, the words in children's books are not always the most important thing. When I read the books to my students, they were very focused. It was a big surprise to me how concentrated they were. I was surprised because they did not know almost any of the things that I read to them. Even though, they would frequently ask me questions about what happened in the story and even mention that it was in a language they don't understand, I found most of the time, they actually had a pretty good understanding of what was going on overall. Maybe it was because the pictures and logic of most stories. Maybe it was just the power of language. Maybe it was just the natural ability of communication. Just like how many of us communicate with our pets, none of our pets really speak our language, and none of us speak their language. However, a lot of time, we could communicate and understand each other. From my interpretation, it is just the same thing with these children.
Personally, I think that not only is having a library in the class is very important, providing children a time to read together or on their own is also very important. Just the atmosphere of reading and learning is very necessary. I don't know how much my students have really gotten from me reading these books in Chinese, but I am sure, it has some level of effect to their Chinese learning.
Children are sponges and at this time of life they have the ability to obtain more synaptic connections in their brain. Reading the Chinese books are creating synaptic connections, so they are learning despite the language barrier. They may not fully understand the language but when you were young did you fully understand? All of us learn language through action, conversations, and reading. You reading these books are wonderful for them and i wish there were more books of foreign languages in the class. This is a better way how children can learn about another culture. I am currently taking Spanish classes and i will also include Spanish books in my class and home. A mind is a terrible thing to waste and thanks to you they are having an enriching learning experience.
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