MM LEE recently said that his bilingual policy many years ago does not work. He mentions that it has caused generations of students to be put off by the Chinese language. He said that traditional methods like 'ting xie' or 'mo xie' have caused distaste in students. Also, a large number of children nowadays come from English-speaking families, hence finding Chinese language a language that is difficult to cope with. Hence, the Ministry of Education is promoting new ways of teaching and changing the Chinese Language syllabus easier for the primary school students to learn the language. The Ministry also encourages teachers to use new teaching methods like more online lessons and not giving students so much Chinese homework. However, how effective would this be in future?
Firstly, i would like to give an example, my sister. She is now currently studying in Primary Two and is affected by this change of syllabus. Comparing my past workload and hers, she now has significantly less Chinese work than me. Last time there was 'xi zi' for me, but now she doesn't even have to practise writing Chinese characters. How has this affected her? Her handwriting in Chinese is not as good as a result of lack of practice, and she doesn't remember words that easily. Secondly, now her test papers does not require her to construct sentences of her own; but look at pictures and form relevant sentences(helping words given). This causes her to have less Chinese vocabulary and hence speak more English. So, is the making of an easier Chinese syllabus that effective? I do not think so.
Some parents say that this language is too difficult to learn and appreciate and some even suggest teaching Chinese in English! Personally, I do not think that this idea is very feasible. If the first year is taught in English, I can still understand(provided I learnt French in English), but I think for the subsequent years the language should be taught Chinese. This is because the first year is to let them be adapted to the language, but later on stop this as a lot of things in Chinese cannot be taught in English. Take sentence structure for example, the two languages have directly opposite structures. Hence you can see why so many pupils(including myself) use the English sentence structure in Chinese compositions. If you write a complicated English sentence in Chinese sentence structure, then I am sure that it does not make any sense in English. The appreciation of the culture is also affected. For example, Chinese literature and history is impossible to be taught in English. When studied in Chinese, only then can you understand the formation of Chinese characters etc.
Hence I think the best way to learn the language is to start young. Since so many parents say that their children is born in an English-speaking family, then why not speak to them in both languages in equal balance from young? This would help solve half the problem instead of putting the blame on the education system. We should make an effort before complaining.
Indeed, students are starting to lose interest in Chinese. (refer to my blog post :D) I feel that those who complain that Chinese is too hard is just trying to find excuses for themselves. No matter how hard the language or how lousy the teacher is, in the end it all depends on how hard you work. Some may say that they have no talent in Chinese, but I think that if they have the determination to do better, they will.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that children needs to start young. Starting young will cultivate your interest in Chinese and as children tend to learn faster when they are younger, they will be able to learn the language faster.
Xue Hao
The bilingual crisis in Singapore is indeed a problem.
ReplyDeleteI agree that giving less homework is not the root to the problem since practice makes perfect. Chinese being a character-based language is also unable to be directly translated into English like many other languages. Therefore, prolonged teaching methods in English is not a good idea.
However, I feel that using English on rare occasions should be allowed because it would be actually possible to understand what a teacher is talking about... This is a method my French teacher uses with my class too.
The main problem, I believe, is retaining the interest of learning the language. An unnamed family member of mine has constantly struggled with learning Chinese because he finds no valid reason or purpose to learning it. With the bland "stories" found in secondary textbooks, I can also very well understand his dilemma.
The best solution to the language crisis is yes, to start at a young age, but also to cultivate an interest in our heritage which has become increasingly scarce because the youth have regarded it as a "mandatory" thing instead of a useful and BENEFICIAL class. This can very well be compared to our trite whine of not wanting to go to school...
(Wow, that was a mouthful... Hope you didn't fall asleep by the time you finished.)