All About Mandarin Academy

We are thrilled with this Chinese language instruction school. It is as friendly, welcoming, and effective for non-​Chinese-​speaking families like ourselves, as it is to the many Chinese-​speaking families who entrust this school with the instruction of their native language to their children.
My daughter has been attending lessons with AAMA for three years now. She attends an after-​school program held on the grounds of a public school, and she has private lessons once a week. Her instructor, Miss Amber, is top-​notch. She knows how to be patient, but firm, and she finds creative and fun ways to help students not only to learn this sometimes challenging language with its varying tones, but also to retain what they’ve learned.
Although we are not Chinese and no one in our family speaks it, thanks to AAMA, my daughter is able to pronounce Chinese words without an accent, and to read Chinese characters. And what’s more, she loves doing it!
Chinese is the language spoken by a significant percentage of the world’s population. China is becoming an ever more important player in world politics and commerce. For better or worse, our countries’ futures are closely intertwined. It behooves American students to develop this important language skill. Certainly, it can only help to make the person a stronger candidate when competing for employment and education opportunities.
My only complaint – and I’d take a half-​star off for this if I could – is that they do not yet offer any after-​school programs in the East County school districts, so for now we have to drive all the way to South County. :(But I’ve heard they have something in the works for the East County school districts. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

We’ve been taking our son every Saturday morning to AAMA since he was 2 years old and was part of the parent-​toddler class. I loved taking our son there because we both could learn some Chinese at the same time and the teachers somehow got our active son’s attention and got him to learn and speak in Chinese (basic every day words)! The teacher made the class fun with cute songs, props and a variety of activities (so it’s a great value considering we pay about the same amount for regular music or Gymboree-​type classes but here your child is also learning Mandarin). It’s amazing to see how quickly and naturally kids just pick up the language. I highly recommend any parent who value the benefits of learning another language to start their kids young (before 5 if possible, but most ideally before 3). When he turned 3, we could drop him off in class (freedom! but then we don’t get to learn alongside him) and again, it amazed us how the teacher could capture and engage the attention of a group of preschool-​aged kids, who hardly or never use or hear Chinese at home, using only Chinese. We started off with the 1 hour class and when he seemed to be progressing well, we tried letting him stay for 2 hours and then 3 hours (9am — 12pm) when he turned 4 so that he could learn more (the kids get a 20 minute snack and free play break in between). The director told us that some of the benefits of their classes include the focus and concentration skills our son will gain and she was right on about that! Unlike some other more Chinese schools that use more traditional Chinese teaching styles (ie. less play based and lots more pressure), they are very careful to make sure the kids are having fun and feeling confident about their ability to learn the language, even when kids like our son can only make it 1x a week. And unlike other Chinese schools where the quality of the education, environment and culture are questionable (ie. kids are not so respectful, learning bad words, teachers are not so caring or experienced enough to teach) — very important that you always interview and tour any school you are considering for your child, the director and teachers our son has had have always been very kind and committed to the students and teach/​expect them to have good, respectful behavior and manners. And they have a system and curriculum that is used by all the teachers so there’s consistency among the teachers and a natural progression to the learning as the kids get older/​more experienced. I feel they teach in a way that takes from the best of Western and Chinese styles of education so the kids have fun and learn Mandarin effectively/​efficiently.
As I’m writing this review, our son is almost 5 years old and he participated in their first school-​wide showcase a few weeks ago. It was a great experience to not only see him singing in Chinese but it was really impressive to see the older kids recite poems, sing songs, and perform skits in Chinese. And most of the students were not Chinese, but from a wide variety of backgrounds and nationalities. Our son is mixed — I am an ABC (American Born Chinese), who does not speak any Mandarin (just some conversational Cantonese), and my husband is Caucasian who doesn’t speak a lick of Chinese (except for a few words he picked up from the parent-​toddler class :). I tried looking for Chinese classes for our son but was not happy with what I was finding (programs in Clairemont Mesa and La Jolla) so when I found AAMA and checked out the parent-​toddler class for the time, I was so grateful and have been pleased ever since with their classes and teachers. My mom, who does speak fluent Mandarin, is also impressed with his progress and happy that we are having him learn Chinese from AAMA. She spends a great deal of time with our kids but even she found it hard to commit to teaching him or exclusively speaking to him in Chinese. So even if you can only commit to bringing your child once a week (more is better) to AAMA, like us, it is worth it! The early exposure will give your child a good advantage to learn Chinese faster and more easily and have the proper tone should he/​she have more opportunity to learn Chinese later.