I’ve always been a firm believer of the ‘learn through play’ approach. I believe this particular method teaches problem solving skills, promotes confidence, expands creativity and imagination, while simultaneously allowing the child to have fun in the process. This is the reason why I’m a big supporter of the Mini Mandarins Learning Centre. They engage the child and help them develop interest in spoken Mandarin through imaginative play in “mini” real-life environments. They focus on teaching the language through interactive play, practice and applications which I think is the best way to learn a language. Their play themes revolve around everyday real-life settings, such as a supermarket, a restaurant, or a veterinarian’s office. Their dynamic curriculum involves constantly changing themes which is intended to provide a total Mandarin language immersion experience for kids to put their learning to practice. I’m particularly impressed by the level of detail in each setting they create. Their latest ‘Chinese restaurant’ setup, included a kitchen with a noodle bar, cashier counter, dim sum tables and dim sum trolley. What’s more, the trolley included different types of dim sum made from felt while the cashier included money that looks like real money.
Maya began attending Mini Mandarins towards the beginning of last year and we can tell she enjoys the class very much, so much so I sent her to their summer camp as well, which lasted 2-3 hours each day for 8 weeks. She also attended their term break camp where she was able to sing and dance along with her favorite Peppa Pig stories and songs. I was very impressed about how much she was able to pick up during this short period of time. She started conversing with us in mandarin and can finally communicate with her great-grandma. I’m no expert in education but I believe in the end result and happiness of my child. Thank you Mini Mandarins!
