Yesterday, I read Ice City from Oxford Reading Tree with a Year 3 child.
In the story, Biff and Chip had a wonderful day. They saw ice sculptures, went skating, enjoyed an exciting sledge ride, and admired the colourful ice city in the evening sunlight and moonlight.
At the end of the story, Biff exclaimed:
“What a super day!”
The child asked me what the sentence meant.
Instead of translating it straight away, I asked him, “Think about everything Biff and Chip did that day. What happened to them?”
He thought for a moment and smiled.
Then I asked, “Last week, you went cycling with your mum, enjoyed the sea, and had a barbecue in the evening. How would you describe that day?”
He answered immediately:
“What a super day!”
This little classroom moment stayed with me.
When children encounter the same English expression, some may remember its Chinese translation: “What a wonderful day!” But this child had understood the experiences and feelings of the characters through reading, and then used the expression from the story to describe something in his own life.
One child remembers what a sentence means. Another begins to make that sentence his own.
I am not suggesting that memorising vocabulary and learning translations have no value. They certainly have their place. But learning English should not stop at matching English words with Chinese meanings. We want children to understand not only the sentences themselves, but also the situations, feelings and experiences behind them.
I would also like to share a thought with parents: exams are part of learning, but learning should never be only about exams.
We want children to learn English not simply to gain a few more marks on a future test. We hope that one day they will be able to go further: to meet different people, understand different cultures, enjoy stories from different places and discover a much wider world.
Exams are one stage along the journey of growing up. Language, however, can become a tool that helps children travel much further.
I hope that every book they read and every sentence they learn today may one day give them another way to understand the world, express themselves and embrace life.
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