Ni hao!  I'ts been a long time since I've written.  I'm hoping (fingers crossed) to be a bit more consistent about that.  However with American Thanksgiving coming up not to mention Christmas, my husband's birthday, my daughter's birthday, my son-in-law's birthday all coming within just over the next two months, well....I make no promises.

I began with my blog with a Chinese greeting.  This is the language I'm trying to learn.  I'm sure most people know that this is a very, very challenging language to learn. 

We've lived in China for more than 2 years and to this point most of the Chinese I've learned has simply come from daily life.  Much  like a toddler who is simply immersed in the language of his family.  I've gained some vocabulary even if my pronunciation isn't always all that!

Now that my oldest daughter has graduated, my second daughter needs next to no supervision and I essentially have only one child I really have to focus on I've decided it's time to go to the next level in my Chinese study.

As I try to balance my day I find that this effort has an impact on our life of learning.  My children get to see me showing diligence (most of the time) as I spend time making myself flashcards, writing out conversations and checking the grammar and listening to audio lessons.  They see when I do well and when I have to push myself when I don't feel like it.  This is good, modelling the delight and discipline of learning.

I also have regained empathy for their struggles with difficult subjects.  As most of you know we have a very free flowing style of schooling, although this year it has been a bit more structured for ds.  This way of learning has been great for us.  But I know there are times when it seems to be more discipline and not much delight.  This has been good for us all.  My children get to see first hand that it's not "do as I say not as I do" but we walk out the convictions and philosophies we've talked about.

Homeschooling has also been a help to my studies.  After years of preparing Unit Studies, teaching my children to write goals, and pull a learning opportunity from an unexpected moment, I am well trained  to design a course of study that will help me gain the fluency I desire.

In the meantime, well, I was able to go to the stationary store today and buy some big sheets of white paper using only Chinese.  It may not sound like much, but it is progress!

doulos