How I teach my daughter Bahasa Melayu?

In mid of 2007, my husband had an opportunity to work in Vietnam. After evaluating the pros and cons, we decided to embark onto this "expat" cruise, because our daughter gets to go to international school!

Since then, she progresses very well in English. I was very glad because English, as we all know is a very important international language. She will have a bright future I thought to myself.

Then, counting the months and years before Lv will reach university, it is going to be another 10 years or so. Me and my husband know that we are not planning to stay on "expat" cruise forever and we know that Lv will have to get back to local school one day.

So the problem becomes too obvious now.

How is Lv going to adapt to the local school which requires her to

master Bahasa Melayu

in addition to English and Mandarin language?

I started to browse around for study material in bookstores during the last summer break. Brought back some material and I started her right away.

My head was blowing off!! She has no basics in Bahasa Melayu except some simple phonics and some simple vocabulary. The truth was ~~ There was a big gap between her current standard and the actual Primary 1 standard.

I knew I have to find ways to narrow this gap. I started to work on my own material. The material i did was drafted according to Primary 1 standard. There are "totally-not-fancy" print-outs material.

I am sure there are many parents like me would face the same problem. Some are struggling, some don't know where to start and some I believe may have given up trying. But, I believe If it is the right material, they can. So far she has been picking up the language quite well.

Cheers...