What a relief!

Yesterday was T's first day of Chinese school. I have mentioned that I was really nervous about how he was going to do in third grade. I wasn't even ready for him to be in second, let alone third!

When I went to pick him up, he was still copying something from the board. His teacher made a point of coming over and telling me that T is a very bright boy and will do fine in this class. What a relief to hear that! I felt a weight lifted from my chest when I heard her comments and I was really proud of T. She said he was willing to write the characters and as long as he was willing to do so, he will do okay. And if he forgets the words during the week, so she will simply review them with him at the beginning of the next class. I just tried to make sure T knew the new vocabulary words before we left class. Unfortunately he did already forget. But the teacher saw what I was doing and came over to review the words with us. Thank goodness for her help because despite all the assistance she had provided by also having the English translation, it is not that simple. Conversational Cantonese and written Cantonese is entirely different. And yikes, T has dictation next week already! But I really do like the teacher and she seems really nice. I think it will be a help that there are only 2 other students besides T. There is one actual other third grader and one guy. He is a teenager who has never taken Chinese before. T actually knows more than he does. For now.

Thankfully we had gone to my parents' place and I was able to ask my grandmother for help. Since we were just hanging out (kids were playing and D was napping), I opened up T's reading book to see what the work was like. Oh my, was I in for a shock. I am used his first grade book with a story with about 15 - 20 words. There was at least 3 times the amount of words. It was quite overwhelming. I took a deep breath and slowly tried to read the story. I surprised myself by being able to read much more than I thought I could. There was a handful of words I didn't know or wasn't not able to guess. I was able to fill in the blanks with the help of my grandmother. I jotted down pronunciations and meanings so that I can help T during the week. Thank goodness for grandma!