[PSLE MT] PSLE less weightage in Chinese / Mother Tongue
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daisyt:
daisyt, you are most welcome!
Thanks!!25hourmaid:
Some of you may want to write directly to Mr Ng?
[email protected]
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lego:
Great, let's hope he 'hears' us and responds! I am done with all PSLEs in my life, but yet, I feel that they should not reduce the CL weightage just because some students cannot cope with the language.
Thanks, just sent an email over.25hourmaid:
Some of you may want to write directly to Mr Ng?
[email protected] -
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/pslemothertongue/
copied from a parent elsewhere in another discussion
stand up. be heard. if potatoes can be heard, why not us
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HyperKiasu:
[/quote]Cos if MOE raise the weightage of Math/Science, then all parents will rush to enrol their children to Math/Sciene tuition and such tuition centres/teachers will start to raise their fees. Why would MOE want to benefit the tuition centres/teachers?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? -
Dear fellow parents,
if you are concerned about the PSLE cutting of MT weighing, kindly lend your support to the petition. Just imagine the consequences of the reduction in mother tongue weighing it has on the motivation to learn the language!!
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/pslemothertongue/ -
Picolo:
yes, the problems are with the parents and the parents complain the most without taking a look of themselves in the mirror
Look at this thread, so fast so furious. ks2me, you mean this?ks2me:
I cannot remember where I read the post but I support the suggestion of the efforts and funds used now to lower this weighting to be channelled down to preschool learning MT instead.
There is no point trying to solve a problem created by ourselves consciously and then try to adjust the system. Instead go down to the preschool level and set the learning record right, and do not let the poor parents struggle anymore to try to do their own enrichment at preschool level. If a campaign is run at the preschool level to learn Chinese the right way, I am sure the future generation kids will be so sound in their Chinese, believe it or not. No doubt we need to wait but we have waited so long anyway....Picolo:
I stumble across this newsletter written by Dr Cheah Yin Mee which may throw light on how to tackle this issue. For those who do not know, Dr Cheah has many credentials. She is a Master English Teacher who teaches in some Masters' courses for NIE and recently began mentoring some beginning teachers for NIE. She has:I strongly feel that the 'weightage' of Chinese should be doubled when the children are still small, when they are less than 5 years old! MOE should take over to study how Chinese should be taught at preschool level. If they have a good foundation understanding the Chinese characters at preschool level, they will have better success rate in Chinese at primary school level. Introducing Hanyupinying at P1/K2 is not helpful at all.
I came from a Chinese-speaking family, but my children are English-speaking. However, my youngest one at 5 years old loves to read Chinese books aloud to me every day and his mandarin improved in leaps and bounds over the past 1.5 years and he can recognise and understand the meaning of more Chinese characters than my other child at P2. Why? Because since young, I read a lot more interesting Chinese books than English books to him, compared to the pathetic Chinese reader books I read to his elder siblings when they were still small.
-Ph.D. (Education) University of California at Berkeley
Dissertation: Language and Culture:
An ethnographic study of language and literacy education in Singapore
- M. A. (Education) Stanford University
- Dip. Appl. Ling. (with distinction) RELC, Singapore
- Dip. Ed. National University of Singapore
- B.A. (Hons.) University of Malaya
Looking at her attitude towards learning a language that she and her junior are weaker at. For her case, it is Chinese. For others, it is English. If the attitude and method used are right, nothing is insurmountable.
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Extracted from: http://www.learningventures.com.sg/cos/o.x?c=/wbn/pagetree&func=view&rid=1042726
October 2009, Vol. 102
This month's feature:
Focus: Educating Parents
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Focus: Educating Parents
Thank you all for the feedback to my August newsletter on preparing for exams; I am glad it gave some of you a new perspective on the issue. In particular, I'd like to thank Fred for his comments as they gave me ideas for this issue. The other reason why I decided to focus on the topic of educating parents was an interesting discussion on this same topic when I was in Taiwan recently for a conference. But let's begin by reading Fred's comments:
Very interesting and beneficial indeed...your insights into how (especially \"kiasu\") parents can help our children prepare for their exams. May I just add on (in jest) that point 4 (To teach is to learn twice) might work better with parents with solid tertiary education or teaching background? As it is, I know of parents who are already struggling sometimes to understand the questions posed by their children! They probably got away by acting as if they know what their children are \"teaching\" them!
Fred has a point indeed, and I remember struggling with Junior's Chinese texts when he was in primary five and six. I did not have enough Chinese background to help him although I would say that, as an adult, I had better strategies for unlocking meaning from any text than he had then. So while I could not teach him, I still could help him figure out some of the tasks and going over the texts many times invariably helped my own word recognition. But I don't always advocate the idea of parents acting as teachers, well, not all the time at least. My point is to have your children teach you because in doing so, they will be reviewing the subject twice. It does not matter if you don't understand the subject. I remember how my father used to insist on us giving speeches and performing plays in English even though he did not understand much of what we said. Once, I even translated and explained the poem \"If\" by Rudyard Kipling for him. At that time, I wondered if he understood anything. Later I realised he didn't give a fig about what Kipling said. He merely wanted me to practise reading and explaining the message of the poem.
In Singapore, adopting English as a school language has posed many challenges for parents, especially those who are not literate in English. Many years ago, when I was collecting data for my dissertation in a primary school in the northern part of Singapore, I made friends with a woman who sold drinks in the school canteen. One day, she confided in me and told me her worries for her daughter. This woman did not know any English and she was at a loss as to how she could help her child. Her distress was heartbreaking. I thought of so many other parents who similarly feel disempowered because they are not English literate. But at the same time, there are so many of us who learnt English well and succeeded in school although we came from homes where not a word of English was spoken. So, the issue is not whether parents are educated or whether they speak English. Research has established that it is parents' attitude and the value they placed on education that matter most. In other words, your actions will speak louder than your words, regardless of the language you speak.
At the conference in Taiwan recently, I discussed this topic with the Taiwanese and the key note speaker from Hong Kong, Professor PC Wang. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, the home language and the school language are the same but from what I learnt, the push for education is not as strong so there is much that needs to be done in educating parents to support their children's education. As Professor Wang put it, academic achievement will take place if everyone does their part and to him, the parents, the child and the school each has one third of the responsibility. I am pleased that he assigned responsibility to the pupil too because I do think many parents here blame only the teacher or the school when their child is not doing well. Learning is ultimately an individual responsibility, and unfortunately, many children do not realise this until it gets too late. As adults, we need to reinforce this point although I believe that the message should not be that education will get them a better job. Education and learning should be ends in themselves as they help us live a more enlightened and a richer life.
So what about parent education? As a person who conducts a fair number of workshops for parents, I wish for more sessions where parents can be enlightened about education and parenting in general. Unfortunately, we are all caught up in the number game, and parents are also often adversely affected by advertisements that prey on their insecurity about their children's future. Parents tread a fine line between nurturing and interfering, and it is difficult to know the right thing to do when the welfare of one's child is at stake. I too have been down that road before and have agonised over some decisions I have had to make about Junior's education. But ultimately, I still believe in intrinsic motivation although an occasional nudge in the right direction should also be given.
Finally, keeping an eye on the distant goal is a useful way for parents to rise beyond the everyday pressures of school and exams. In the end, we want our children to be happy, well-adjusted adults because this is the only way they can be productive and can contribute to society. Then they can also, in turn, be good parents and bring up a new generation of happy children. Would we, as parents, wish for more than this for our children?
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:celebrate:
yes, like Obama said, change must come : Change our attitude toward's juniors' learning - not changing the system without tackling the issue at hand - the kids are not learning it correctly due to parents' attitude
the quoted article is good- it confirms what we do at home is right. as parents we do not pretend to know all. we take the approach of a facilitator and we learn together - solve a math problem, learn a new word, new phrase .... in fact i always told my kid the math olympiad questions are beyond me......so teach me .... -
Picolo:
Yes Perfect Picolo!! :celebrate:
Look at this thread, so fast so furious. ks2me, you mean this?ks2me:
I cannot remember where I read the post but I support the suggestion of the efforts and funds used now to lower this weighting to be channelled down to preschool learning MT instead.
There is no point trying to solve a problem created by ourselves consciously and then try to adjust the system. Instead go down to the preschool level and set the learning record right, and do not let the poor parents struggle anymore to try to do their own enrichment at preschool level. If a campaign is run at the preschool level to learn Chinese the right way, I am sure the future generation kids will be so sound in their Chinese, believe it or not. No doubt we need to wait but we have waited so long anyway....Picolo:
I strongly feel that the 'weightage' of Chinese should be doubled when the children are still small, when they are less than 5 years old! MOE should take over to study how Chinese should be taught at preschool level. If they have a good foundation understanding the Chinese characters at preschool level, they will have better success rate in Chinese at primary school level. Introducing Hanyupinying at P1/K2 is not helpful at all.
I came from a Chinese-speaking family, but my children are English-speaking. However, my youngest one at 5 years old loves to read Chinese books aloud to me every day and his mandarin improved in leaps and bounds over the past 1.5 years and he can recognise and understand the meaning of more Chinese characters than my other child at P2. Why? Because since young, I read a lot more interesting Chinese books than English books to him, compared to the pathetic Chinese reader books I read to his elder siblings when they were still small. -
My own experience,
Since dd was born, we communicated with her in English, even my mum did that. When she entered K1, we realised it was a mistake because she disliked Chinese and could not mix around with those Mandarin speaking kids. From then onwards, we decided to get my mum to communicate with her in Mandarin while my husband and I continue in English. We also introduced and encouraged her to watch some Chinese programs. Despite the far distance and her dislike in Chinese, we insisted to put her in a SAP primary school. All these effort was not wasted because her interest towards Chinese, gradually grew from dislike to like. With wonderful teachers in her primary school, she got to like Chinese in around P5. She did well in both her PSLE Chinese and English. When she was choosing her secondary school, my main criteria to her, it MUST be a SAP school. Fortunately enough, with her PSLE result, she managed to get in RVHS. She has a wonderful Chinese teacher who can make the class so interesting that she simply loves Chinese and still doing fine in this subject.
If this system goes through, the only thing we can do as parents, who feel Chinese is our root, who feel the correct learning attitude is not to shy away but face it with determination, is to continue our persistance towards Chinese. Anyway, we know for sure, our kids would be the one benefit in future. -
to sum it up, the proposal to reduce weightage for MT for PSLE t-score because of some who cannot master the language is just an escapist mentality
this group of people who cannot face the problems to overcome it, better don’t become the nation’s leader
if MM Lee KY could master it and overcome the language at his adult life, why can’t these kids with all the resources from MOE / schools cannot ? it all boils down to attitude, mentality, escapist mind set -
Daisyt, your story is very inspirational indeed but the strange thing is the whole nation has to lose to sore losers by changing the competitive landscape. :roll:
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