Editorials

Children's gardens

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-28 08:37

When should children start learning a foreign language? Can their learning abilities be damaged if they start too early? These are important questions with no definite answers, even though educationists have strong opinions on them.

In Wales, young children follow a play-based curriculum until the age of 7. But such a system could drive Chinese parents round the bend. Apart from learning to read and write and do simple arithmetic, our children are also forced to start taking lessons in music at a very young age. Parents say they don't want their children to fall behind at the starting line.

Beijing authorities have decided to help such parents to go easy on their children. A draft to make foreign language teaching conform to children's needs in the next five years says kindergartens will no longer be required to offer foreign language teaching programs.

It is a laudable move to save our children from learning foreign languages from a very early age, even though it can't stop parents from forcing them through other programs.

We know how important playing is for children. But a lot of us wonder how our children will learn to read and write if they play all the time. It is drilled into us that the sooner they start learning to read and write the better.

But kindergarten pupils should spend as much time as possible playing outdoors, and should be introduced to learning programs according to their age and comprehension level.

In this era of globalization, good command of a foreign language is very important. But that does not necessarily mean we should force our children to learn a foreign language when they cannot even talk properly in their mother tongue.

We should let a kindergarten be what it literally means in German: children's garden.