[PSLE MT] PSLE less weightage in Chinese / Mother Tongue

[Way2GO]

Blobbi:

I don't mean work harder. Sometimes cannot. What I mean is work around it, hv different approaches.

Ah Blobbi, we seemed to be talking past each other today.
My first sentence was to say I'm in agreement with ur points.
Follow up part is to say we should inculcate in d young to
strive to achieve despite difficulties, n not whine abt
setbacks and/or inadequancies.

[Blobbi]

ks2me:

Blobbi:

I don't mean work harder. Sometimes cannot. What I mean is work around it, hv different approaches. It's a lot of work on the part of parents and teachers, but we can afford to give up.

My two cents.

You mean \"cannot afford\" right?

Faint, yes!

[HyperKiasu]

tamarind:

watmekiasu:

As a parent, it doesn't make any difference to me the weightage of Chinese in an exam. My daughter is learning Chinese for the language itself. No doubt with less weightage, there will be less stress on her as she spends an inordinate amount of time (70%) on that one subject alone. With less weightage, she can learn it at a more leisurely and enjoyable pace. I believe in the long run, because Chinese was not such a torture, it will bear fruits.


The PRC do well in English here because there is a total English immersion here. Try sending your child to China and you will see their Mandarin improve heaps.

I totally agree with you too. I want my kids to enjoy learning Chinese, because of the wonderful language and culture. I don't understand why parents say that learning Chinese is a torture. Both my kids are very happy reading our wonderful Chinese picture books every night. Parents only have to make an effort to expose their kids to Chinese books from as young as possible. The best age to learn Chinese is from 3 to 6 years old. It is sad that because parents have prejudice towards the Chinese language, they influence their kids in a negative way.

One billion people in China are able to learn Chinese. It is totally not logical to say that there are kids who are excellent in English and Maths, but do not have the ability to do well in Chinese. The only problem is that the parents started to let them learn Chinese too late.

For example, if parents only read English books to kids before the age of 5, and only teach them ABCs and phonics, then kids will certainly be more comfortable with English and refuse to learn any other languages that is different from English.

In the case of my kids, I teach them to read English, while my mother reads many Chinese story books to them every night, since they were babies. That is why my kids enjoy reading both English and Chinese books, so long as the books are good.

I agree with the view that early exposure for language is very important. My two kids' childcare centre teaches Chinese since Nursery. And they enjoy the 唐诗宋词 since 4 yrs old. Now my DS P1 copes very well with CL... My DD (K1) also shows interest in CL. Whenever she sees chinese characters, she will ask me to explain the word to her.....

[Blobbi]

Way2GO:

Blobbi:

I don't mean work harder. Sometimes cannot. What I mean is work around it, hv different approaches.

Ah Blobbi, we seemed to be talking past each other today.
My first sentence was to say I'm in agreement with ur points.
Follow up part is to say we should inculcate in d young to
strive to achieve despite difficulties, n not whine abt
setbacks and/or inadequancies.

I think in this case, we agree that we agree !!

[Blobbi]

Way2GO:

Blobbi:

I don't mean work harder. Sometimes cannot. What I mean is work around it, hv different approaches.

Ah Blobbi, we seemed to be talking past each other today.
My first sentence was to say I'm in agreement with ur points.
Follow up part is to say we should inculcate in d young to
strive to achieve despite difficulties, n not whine abt
setbacks and/or inadequancies.

I think in this case, we agree that we agree !!

[Blobbi]

Way2GO:

I recalled when my kid was in P2 or P3
his class was asked to take conversational Malay
as enrichment in school.
This was conducted after school hours n is non-examinable.

u know wat happened?
He told me he didn't want to attend anymore
after a while cos' many of his classmates stopped attending.

Dat is going to be the mentality when MOE
lowers d MT weightage.
Students n schools will shift their time n emphasis.
In d long run, d standard of MT will deteriorate further.

This is what I worry about ..

[verykiasu2010]

the root of the problem is not the weightage of MT at PSLE


we (including MOE) are all trying to cure the symptoms only

the root of the problems are in two area :

1. parents do not realise and insist on effort be put into MT studies by the kids till too late, may be at P2 / P3 / P4 then start to panic and complain

2. MOE must implement stronger emphasis of MT learning from nursery onward, and please, get competent MT teachers to do it. Problems do not arise overnite …冰冻非一夜之寒.

We as parents come from dialect / mandarin environment and so picking mandarin in primary school is not an issue

however in schools we were in an english speaking environment and these carried into working life and we ended up the most unique chinese race in the world : english speaking chinese people - we speak english at work and at home and to our kids. and this is made worse by the eradication of dialects

fast forward to today’s scenario : how many nursery / pre-school / kindergarten are in chinese medium ?

when my kids were in nursery / kindergarten, we made conscious effort to enroll them into chinese kindergarten classes - everything is taught in chinese - and the teachers were good - arousing interest from the kids to want to learn the language

the result : they have no problem learning and moving up in the chinese language

to cut the long story short : it is the early foundation that is crucial

another point to make : MOE did not say lower the MT standard - but to reduce the weightage. U may still need to work hard to score, but the same effort will yield less t-score : and this will demoralise the teachers and students

[Blobbi]

Way2GO:

I recalled when my kid was in P2 or P3
his class was asked to take conversational Malay
as enrichment in school.
This was conducted after school hours n is non-examinable.

u know wat happened?
He told me he didn't want to attend anymore
after a while cos' many of his classmates stopped attending.

Dat is going to be the mentality when MOE
lowers d MT weightage.
Students n schools will shift their time n emphasis.
In d long run, d standard of MT will deteriorate further.

This is what I worry about ..

[HyperKiasu]

tankee:

daisyt:

\"...... As for the others, if they don't reach these high (levels) in their higher mother tongue, they can also enter because they are good in the other subjects,\" said Dr Ng. - CNA /ls

If the concern is Dont want to penalize those who are strong in subjects like math/science, why not raise the weightage of Math/Science?

[verykiasu2010]

HyperKiasu:

tankee:

[quote=\"daisyt\"]\"...... As for the others, if they don't reach these high (levels) in their higher mother tongue, they can also enter because they are good in the other subjects,\" said Dr Ng. - CNA /ls

If the concern is Dont want to penalize those who are strong in subjects like math/science, why not raise the weightage of Math/Science?

[/quote]that will in effect reduce the weightage of MT / EL