[PSLE MT] PSLE less weightage in Chinese / Mother Tongue
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minnie2004:
don't worry, the following company will hire them:
:rotflmao:BlackAngel:
ha, i agree to one of the post, Set up a school called: I Hate Chinese secondary school. Those who select to go to this school no need to count chinese in PSLE. just need to use 3 subjects = 300 marks.
DSA Entry Condition: They must prove that they really hate the subject to the core and want to migrate overseas because of this subject. A medical visit to IMH is preferred. This group of losers (or you can call them bright sparks or elites) are given a new syllabus called CL H (H for hatred). They only need to know 3 phrases to pass CL H. 我恨华文， 我讨厌华文， 我不是华人。
And it's up to the future employers to decide whether they want to hire graduates from this school
Isolation Corp. (listed in desert) -
What really puzzles me is this. If you really had a passion and a gift for CL, of what relevance is the MT weighting of PSLE to you?
Will you set your standard of proficiency based upon the low passing standard that MOE sets? Obviously not. You will be chugging along merrily at HMT level and participating at clan events and enrichment etc. In 25 years, your DS/DD will be able to write into their CVs that they have mastery of CL and will be ahead of other candidates for certain posts. Congratulations! Now move on and give some space to the less well endowed, will you?
There are basically 3 thrusts of the pro-MT camp;
1) Preservation of a competitive advantage in the school academic system
2) Defence of the culture
3) Economic value
If you are in 3) refer to my post above
If you are in 2), then ask yourself, is this keeping a goodly weightage really the way to go? tamarind has some great suggestions about how to give space to parties who may wish to immerse themselves and those who choose not to.
If you are in 1), then it is a straight political fight, no need to talk about fairness or Math or Science or what.
I have a lot of sympathy for Grandma Chong. The type of vitriol was present back then in my day as a student as well, so pardon if I have a cynical view of the pro-MT agenda. -
3Boys, you may call me old fashioned. but since young, it just knocked into me (not by parents though) that if i am chinese i should know it. it is my roots. It is pretty shocking that some of us here just view our chinese language as a subject. Of cos i should not criticise people for that, but it is very funny that japs are good at japanese, korea good at koreans, chinese good at chinese. singaporean chinese are good at english, weak at chinese. i think we are victims of the language policy. we sacrifice our roots for our economic growth. that is why we had the situation and debate now. countries like taiwan/hk may seems weaker than us economically, but culturally they are much stronger. but economics is not hard to catch up, cultural part once it is lost , it is lost forever.
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ksi:
We have differing experiences then! Here is the false premise, some western executive embarks on a one year crash course in Chinese language and suddenly makes a big change in China strategy and profitability. Hubris followed by nemesis.3Boys, I too have to beg to differ with you here.
I have to share some truths with you from a capacity where I have direct experience.
Many US/Europe-based MNCs have invested heavily in China but fail to be profitable for many years, some as many as over 10 years, believe it or not. They merely survive to make ends meet by using the profits from other regions.
Can they pull the plug and go? No, they still believe that it is a place you cannot NOT be there despite the poor returns and because they are known as MNC. What is an MNC without presence in China? *chuckle*
Internal post-mortem studies pointed to the fact that not knowing the language and rules were indeed a hindrance to their level of penetration in the market. Language is the basic barrier, then there are other barriers to break in that place and with the power of language, it would have been easier. Hiring LOCALs certainly DID NOT resolve the issue, many times it compounded the issues. So more and more foreigners are embarking on the learning of the Chinese language from young, that is the real world.
Conversely, how many our our local investors, big and small, with the presumption of knowing the language, strode confidently into the arena thinking they had a 'competitive advantage' and ended up with fingers burnt?
China is a tough market, period, whether or not you know the lingo. And no one has shown me any information that a MNC with a CEO who knows chinese has done better in that market than those who do not.
Business savvy, strategic thinking, leadership, ethical conduct, cultural sensitivity......fungible traits that will help you succeed in business, be it Brazil, Russia, India, France, Germany, Japan......or China. -
3Boys,
(1) is no longer an issue if they implement this in 2022, 12 years later, then everyone makes a fair choice how they want to develop their kids.
That is truly fair, in my opinion. No one CAN complain then.
(2) has been defended since the ‘No dialects’ days so how much can people defend if you see that it has successfully eliminated the learning of dialects for our children. In a way the dialect-specific culture has already been diluted. So this will eventually diminish…if emphasis on MT is drawn away…it certainly WILL from experience.
(3) is something driven by the world economy…see the above reply I have for you.
If the government can spend some money to sieve out children with learning disabilities for the Chinese language during the baby check-ups, then we can arrest the issue early in the cycle and take corrective measures. Aptitude for learning should be detected early if they are really trying to fix the aptitude problem, just like dyslexic condition can be detected(go for therapy), lack of mathematical acumen can also be detected(focus on arts subjects)…so perhaps we need a special school to nurture such children born without the ability to learn their mother tongue? -
3Boys:
Taiwanese have/are made/making hefty profits from their mainland investments. why?We have differing experiences then! Here is the false premise, some western executive embarks on a one year crash course in Chinese language and suddenly makes a big change in China strategy and profitability. Hubris followed by nemesis.
Conversely, how many our our local investors, big and small, with the presumption of knowing the language, strode confidently into the arena thinking they had a 'competitive advantage' and ended up with fingers burnt?
China is a tough market, period, whether or not you know the lingo. And no one has shown me any information that a MNC with a CEO who knows chinese has done better in that market than those who do not.
Business savvy, strategic thinking, leadership, ethical conduct, cultural sensitivity......fungible traits that will help you succeed in business, be it Brazil, Russia, India, France, Germany, Japan......or China.
Doing business in china, guanxi 关系 (network) plays a crucial part.....
If you don't know the language, how to 关系? -
ksi:
agree! :celebrate:3Boys,
If the government can spend some money to sieve out children with learning disabilities for the Chinese language during the baby check-ups, then we can arrest the issue early in the cycle and take corrective measures. Aptitude for learning should be detected early if they are really trying to fix the aptitude problem, just like dyslexic condition can be detected(go for therapy), lack of mathematical acumen can also be detected(focus on arts subjects)...so perhaps we need a special school to nurture such children born without the ability to learn their mother tongue? -
FYI, i read some reports years ago about why many MNC report loss for business in china. One big reason is tax issue! : They hide the profit and show loss/least profit to enjoy tax benefit!!
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BlackAngel:
3Boys, you may call me old fashioned. but since young, it just knocked into me (not by parents though) that if i am chinese i should know it. it is my roots. It is pretty shocking that some of us here just view our chinese language as a subject. Of cos i should not criticise people for that, but it is very funny that japs are good at japanese, korea good at koreans, chinese good at chinese. singaporean chinese are good at english, weak at chinese. i think we are victims of the language policy. we sacrifice our roots for our economic growth. that is why we had the situation and debate now. countries like taiwan/hk may seems weaker than us economically, but culturally they are much stronger. but economics is not hard to catch up, cultural part once it is lost , it is lost forever.
I am very much a traditionalist myself. The question that needs to be asked, is, who's tradition am I assuming? I had already contributed my 2 cents in another thread about what I feel regarding definitions of 'Chinese-ness'. My native dialect is Teochew. Until I started P1, I never conversed or in mandarin nor had any contact with the written chinese language. I never ever considered myself to be anything else than a rooted chinese guy. When I attended my aunts and uncles weddings, they were all in the traditional chinese style.
However, my Chinese-ness was never ever rooted in speaking MANDARIN. It was a foreign a language to me as was English or Malay. Incidentally, I found English far easier to learn than Mandarin (i.e. far less effort to acquire fluency and vocabulary). Not to say that I did not put in effort, which I did, inordinate amounts of, to learn Chinese. As a P school student, I have no concept of what goes on in the adult world in terms of cultural sensitivities and politics. Chinese was something to be learnt and I took my very best swing at it. To then read and hear, at that time, the kind of vitriol and abuse hurled at those who were weaker at the subject, by the pro-MT camp, was shocking and frankly intimidating.
And it was not as if I was always weak at it, mostly mediocre. But because I was excelling in school in all other subjects, I became a natural target for the chinese teachers who thought I was slacking off and disinterested, despite me spending close to half my studying hours on that one subject alone. Yet, it repeats today, the screeching and the hyperbole......Do I sympathise with Julia Ang and Grandma Chong or whoever? Hell yes!
Despite those rocky years when I was called names by teachers, that would gotten them fired in this day and age, I am comfortable in my skin and content in my Chinese-ness, even if I don't speak MANDARIN well. Speaking mandarin was never part of my culture when I was being raised and while it may be someone else's definition of being chinese, it is not my own. -
HyperKiasu:
I am pro-MT, of course. However, I don't subscribe to the position of learning Chinese is for doing business in China.Doing business in china, guanxi 关系 (network) plays a crucial part.....
If you don't know the language, how to 关系?
Nevertheless, I want to elaborate on what HyperKiasu wrote, to reply to 3Boys.
Many Chinese nationals view Singaporean Chinese (us) as Chinese (as in descendant of ancestors in China - 炎黄子孙). Like it or not, our skin color is the same. In fact, Singapore is the only Chinese-majority country outside of China (中国以外的华人为主的国家). Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are not Chinese-majority. That was why they get so agitated when Singaporean Chinese do not consider themselves as Chinese (中国人).
I understand this because I was in some exhanges of posts with the others in other Chinese based forum. My position is: I am a Singaporean. I hold red IC. I am not a Chinse national (中国人) but I am a Chinese (华人).
Ok, back to what I want to say. Because of this perception, they EXPECT us to be able to speak the language. And after so many years of interaction between Singapore and China, I dare say that they now know Singaporean Chinese is too weak in that language. So, deep down inside them, they already have less respect for us. The 关系 is already not there. Those who are more polite and friendly won't say that upfront. But it doesn't mean that they are close to you.
Whilst they do not have the same expectation from Chinese from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
I belong to the camp where we believe learning the Chinese language is our duty, so long as I carry the Chinese gene or DNA in my blood.
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