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

[jedamum]

nan.nan:

Wish to have a daughter like her ?


http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aVtZ440

:rahrah:

(Is there a thumb-up emotion ?).

how about this?
http://forum.thescubasite.com/happy/happy0159.gif\">

[sunflower]

Read somewhere in the forum that the PSLE passing rate for Chinese is comparable to English, but Maths results not too optimistic. Many people find Maths difficult and didn’t score as well as expected. If cut MT weighting, it’ll mean increase in Maths weighting, which actually is a disadvantage to many "commoner".

[ruyu]

sunflower:

Read somewhere in the forum that the PSLE passing rate for Chinese is comparable to English, but Maths results not too optimistic. Many people find Maths difficult and didn't score as well as expected. If cut MT weighting, it'll mean increase in Maths weighting, which actually is a disadvantage to many \"commoner\".

yes! you are right!

[tamarind]

dimsum:

Minister Ng said, “I agree with everything you said. There is no difference between what you want and what MOE wants.” During the conversation, he said that “MOE has no intention of diluting the importance of MTL” and he emphasised that “the importance of MTL will be maintained”. He also confirmed that a press conference will be held this coming Tuesday to further explain this matter.

MOE gave us this statement to distribute and announce after the meeting: “Minister gave his assurance that the Ministry has no intention whatsoever of reducing the importance of mother tongue languages at PSLE. He emphasised that bilingualism has served Singapore well and will continue to be a cornerstone of our education system. PM and Minister will be meeting the media next Tuesday to speak further on this.”

This sounds to me that he regretted making the statement about reducing the weighting of mother tongue I bet he did not expect so much complains from the public.

[tamarind]

I would like to share this excellent article in today's Straits Times :


Balancing the debate on mother tongue
Better to treat difficulties with bilingualism as pedagogical problems
By Janadas Devan, Review Editor

Many foreigners would have been baffled by the passion Singaporeans have displayed debating the place of the mother tongue languages in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).

Such intensity over an examination for 12-year-olds? Such furore over whether the mother tongues should have the same weight as mathematics or English for entry to secondary schools? Can the future of Chinese, Malay or Indian culture here really turn on the PSLE?

People are passionate about this issue because language equals identity. We use mathematics; we not only use but also are the languages we speak. Nobody is likely to feel justified knowing eight multiplied by eight is 64; we are justified by the culture that shapes our world-view and the language that gives us access to that culture.

The equation of language and identity, moreover, tends to be sharper in multilingual societies than in monolingual ones. A Chinese in Beijing, for example, wouldn't spend any time wondering if he is Chinese; he simply is. By contrast, questions of identity can become fraught for Chinese in Singapore precisely because one can choose between languages in multilingual societies - and with that, there is the possibility of particular identities atrophying.

Thus the fear among some Chinese Singaporeans that if the standard of Chinese language teaching were to decline, Chinese Singaporeans may cease being Chinese. Questions like what weight the mother tongues should have in the PSLE are thus treated as existential, not pedagogical, questions. There is no alternative but to treat such issues with sensitivity, tact and care.

Commentators have offered various proposals that might satisfy both sides on this particular question. The Prime Minister is due to speak to the press on the matter soon, after which it will be clearer how the Ministry of Education intends to proceed. If the weighting of the mother tongue languages in the PSLE is indeed to be changed, it will have to be done in such a way as not to de-emphasise the centrality of the mother tongues. But however the system is reformed, I would urge educators, community leaders and parents to bear in mind two things:

One: It is beyond doubt 'that it is much more difficult to learn a second language in adulthood than a first language in childhood', as Professor Steven Pinker of Harvard University notes in The Language Instinct.

The 'acquisition of a normal language,' he writes, 'is guaranteed for children up to the age of six, is steadily compromised from then until shortly after puberty, and is rare thereafter'.

A cognitive scientist and linguist, Prof Pinker cites a number of examples to substantiate this assessment. One is a test of Korean- and Chinese-born students and faculty at the University of Illinois who were given a list of 276 English sentences, half of them containing grammatical errors such as 'The farmer bought two pig', and asked to spot the errors.

Those who had immigrated to the US between the ages of three and seven performed as well as the US-born. Those who had arrived between eight and 15 did progressively worse the later they arrived. And those who had arrived between 17 and 39, no matter how gifted they were in other respects, did the worst.

Another more dramatic example is that of the so-called 'wolf children' - children found abandoned in the woods or imprisoned from young in homes by abusive parents. One such child, 'Genie', discovered in Los Angeles in 1970 at the age of 131/2, learnt to utter pidgin-like sentences like 'Mike paint', but remained 'permanently incapable of mastering the full grammar of the language', Prof Pinker reports.

By contrast, another child, Isabelle, rescued at the age of 61/2, acquired about 2,000 words within 18 months and was able to produce complex grammatical sentences like 'Why does the paste come out if one upsets the jar?'

No doubt, some exceptionally talented people can master a second language as adults. But even then, the mastery is not total, as the examples of Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov show.

Conrad, whose first language was Polish, became one of the great masters of the English novel. But he spoke an English that was so heavily accented that his English friends had difficulty understanding him. And Nabokov, whose first language was Russian, was so nervous about his spoken English, he refused to lecture off the cuff or to be interviewed. 'I think like a genius,' he wrote rather immodestly, 'I write (English) like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.'

Six in 10 Chinese and Indian Singaporean Primary One pupils now come from English-speaking homes. (By contrast, only 3.5 in 10 Malay pupils do so.) If these children have not been sufficiently exposed to their mother tongue - more like 'Grandmother Tongue', truth be told - before the age of seven, they are going to be disadvantaged.

If Singapore is to remain committed to bilingualism, as it must, we should make a concerted effort to encourage parents to expose their children to their mother tongues before they begin their primary education. One way would be to expand mother tongue exposure in pre-schools - but please, without introducing a KLE, or Kindergarten Leaving Examination, and turning what should be a delightful experience into a chore.

The second point I wish to make is this: The languages we are asking our children to learn - English and Mandarin, Malay or Tamil - are not natural fits. They do not belong to the same language families. It is far easier to learn English and French (or even Latin) - all Indo-European languages - than English and Mandarin. For this reason, despite decades of trying, the Japanese, who do not speak an Indo-European language, have still not mastered English, whereas the Scandinavians, who do, have.

Whatever the shortcomings of bilingual education here, the fact is what has been achieved in Singapore, despite the odds, is closer to Scandinavia than Japan. There are many reasons for this but one reason is that language policy here has been rational and pragmatic despite the strong emotions. We are more likely to remain a bilingual nation if we treat the difficulties of bilingualism as pedagogical, not existential, problems.

[email protected]

[tamarind]

[quote]We are more likely to remain a bilingual nation if we treat the difficulties of bilingualism as pedagogical, not existential, problems. [/quote]
Though many of us feel that our kids should learn Chinese because of our roots (this is what the writer means by \"existential\"), there are others who do not think so, and there is nothing we can do to change their minds.

The only way is to prove that it is their mistake all along. This is my advise to the parents of those minority 10% (good in all subjects except Chinese). There is nothing you can do with your kids now, since they are already over 7 years old and they have already missed the best time to learn Chinese. Next time when you have grandchildren, start reading Chinese books to them no later than 3 years old, make sure you do it everyday, half an hour will do. Or put your grandchildren in a pre-school that has a few hours of Chinese lessons a day and very good Chinese teachers, best to start from 18 months old. This is the only way to learn your lesson.

[xxjustakidxx]

ruyu:

sunflower:

Read somewhere in the forum that the PSLE passing rate for Chinese is comparable to English, but Maths results not too optimistic. Many people find Maths difficult and didn't score as well as expected. If cut MT weighting, it'll mean increase in Maths weighting, which actually is a disadvantage to many \"commoner\".

yes! you are right!

尤其是去年，身在第一班的我，还有同学考Ｂ。

[3Boys]

Well,

personal experiences count, particularly because they echo the situation that faces many children from english speaking families, and well recognised from years ago by the MOE.

Its a very simple problem to identify, but not one that is very easy to fix. And in order to fix it, one needs to agree the philosphy of WHY we would want to fix it.

What is very instructive about this? How politicised it was and still is. You cannot broach this subject without shrill responses from teh encamped.

Consider what it looks like from MY perspective, typical of MANY Singaporeans from English speaking backgrounds.......

I live in SINGAPORE, not China. My heritage, going back 4-5 generations into China, does NOT have a single Mandarin speaking person (except me, the first one).

I.e. I do not define my Chinese-ness by my proficiency in Mandarin, even though I have some adequacy, and I do not allow anyone else to define it for me or for members of my family on that basis. Hence that idiocy about '我不是华人' jibe slides off my back as it merely reflects the insecurities of the people who make it. As I said, I am used to these types of emotional blackmail and although they hurt as a young kid, they hardly bother me any more. If you ask my father, educated in Malaysia, fluent in 3 dialects (but not mandarin), then having come over here, he'd say the only people speaking mandarin in his day were the communists! In his view, who gives the right to the mandarin speaking to 'hijack' the definition of Chinese-ness??

Consider this, hardly 20 years ago, most Hong-Kongers could barely speak mandarin, were they less Chinese then? How about the migrants to the Chinatowns of Vancouver, Melbourne, who took their dialects with them and barely had an incentive to learn mandarin? How about the very elderly in our midst who do not speak mandarin and often do not read the text as well? Are they less Chinese as well? Is Tang poetry part of the cultural scene in Tibet or Manchuria? The use of the fluency in the language as a benchmark of ethnicity is clearly nonsense. So what motivates this type of name calling then? Probably several things, but I can't help but feel that special interests are at play. Just so that I am clear, I am not suggesting this of people who are passionate about the language and wish to propagate its use and fluency. I send my boys to enrichment schools run by such people, but there is none of this 'cultural' baggage.

Remember this, we are an immigrant population, from diverse backgrounds. And, we are in one way, immigrants or descendants of immigrants from China, but living in Singapore. We are Singapore, not China. If you check with the migrant population of many asian races in far flung places like Europe, Australia or the US, the face exactly the same issues with the maintenance of MT fluency. So whilst the Japanese in Japan, the Koreans in Korea and the Chinese in China have good fluency in MT, it is not the same for migrants and their descendants. The difference is their hosting countries do not drive a fixed percentage of school grades to be in MT, which is exactly what MOE is saying. No other country in the world does what Singapore is doing.

Something that is lost in all this, I am putting my kids through Chinese immersion. There is certainly an academic need to do so, and a possibly future economc utility. I have nothing against gaining proficiency in Mandarin, like all other subjects. Also, I would like to equip them with some tools, so that in future, should they so desire, they may explore the MANDARIN culture more fully. But I do it on my own terms, and I do it to a reasonable extent. What is reasonable is now being looked at by MOE, and is the cause of this furore. There needs to be a cool and unemotional discussion of this, and the 'cultural' card as is being bandied about in this forum and others needs to be discarded or we will never get anywhere.

[Picolo]

tamarind:

dimsum:

Minister Ng said, “I agree with everything you said. There is no difference between what you want and what MOE wants.” During the conversation, he said that “MOE has no intention of diluting the importance of MTL” and he emphasised that “the importance of MTL will be maintained”. He also confirmed that a press conference will be held this coming Tuesday to further explain this matter.

MOE gave us this statement to distribute and announce after the meeting: “Minister gave his assurance that the Ministry has no intention whatsoever of reducing the importance of mother tongue languages at PSLE. He emphasised that bilingualism has served Singapore well and will continue to be a cornerstone of our education system. PM and Minister will be meeting the media next Tuesday to speak further on this.”

This sounds to me that he regretted making the statement about reducing the weighting of mother tongue I bet he did not expect so much complains from the public.

The message in Chinese is much clearer:

http://www.zaobao.com/wencui/2010/05/zaobao100509.shtml

黄永宏保证 教育部无意降低母语在小六会考中重要性

（新加坡）联合早报 (2010-05-09)



● 何惜薇
　　教育部长黄永宏医生保证教育部无意降低母语在小六会考中的重要性，也强调双语政策在新加坡起了很大作用，将继续是我国教育制度的基石。

　　前电台主持人、现任义安理工学院人文学院中文系媒体讲师杨君伟，昨晚在博客中贴了教育部的文告。文告说：“教育部长保证教育部无意降低母语在小六会考的重要性。他强调双语政策在新加坡起了很大作用，将继续是我国教育制度的基石。李显龙总理和部长将在来临的星期二与媒体会面，届时将提供更多详情。”

　　杨君伟也透露昨天早上受邀到教育部总部与黄永宏和四位官员会面，进行了有关母语教育课题的对谈。

　　据了解，除了杨君伟之外，同黄永宏等人进行一个多小时对谈者还包括戏剧团体戏剧盒艺术总监郭庆亮和广告界名人、推广华语理事会主席林少芬。

　　杨君伟在博客中说，他们在对话中传达了民间对有关“教育部考虑降低母语教育在小学会考的分数比重”这个课题的关心与担忧。

　　他说：“如果教育部接下来的决策是降低母语教育在小学会考的分数比重，那我们深深感到担忧，不表赞同。如果教育部决定不会降低母语教育在小学会考的分数比重，那我们希望教育部能为大家说明未来的母语教育方向。”

　　他也说：“部长多次在会谈中保证，教育部确定小学母语教育的重要性。他也正面证实，来临的星期二他将陪同李显龙总理一起召开记者会，针对整个事件阐明教育部的方针。”

　　对于黄永宏的表态，杨君伟说他“感到欣慰”。

　　黄永宏医生不久前接受本报和《海峡时报》专访时透露，政府正在探讨减低母语在小六会考总分中的比重。专访见报后引起各方舆论，不少公众投函到报章或者在网上论坛发表意见，还有人通过网上签名请愿表达看法。

　　芳林公园今天傍晚5时至7时也将有一场配合母亲节的庆祝活动，呼吁民众联署请愿，要求保留母语目前在小六会考中的比重。 相关活动的邀约信息通过电邮、网络及手机简讯广泛传播，一些邀约以“一群文化界的名人，如郭庆亮、林少芬、杨君伟等”名义发出。不过，三人前天受询时都表示，并不是活动的主办者，而是支持者。

　　杨君伟说，他们也向黄永宏表明，今天的聚会纯粹是让大家表达意愿与关注的活动，目的在于向教育部传达他们对母语教育的关心，他也说：“部长的回复是，大家的声音他听到了，并且表示愿意继续聆听我们的心声。”

　　林少芬昨晚受询时证实昨天与黄永宏等人会谈，同样表示希望传达民间对双语政策的关注以及他们的声音。她也说，在会谈时强调，芳林公园活动背后是很多关心母语教育的人。

　　芳林公园的活动今天下午依旧进行。

----

Did you guys receive the free copy of 联合早报 today? My whole block did. Maybe the Govt is afraid that Hong Lim Park gets too crowded. Haha.

:celebrate:

[MMM]

Picolo:

Did you guys receive the free copy of 联合早报 today? My whole block did. Maybe the Govt is afraid that Hong Lim Park gets too crowded. Haha.


:celebrate:

I am sure they also don't want to do this to cost them seats in the parliament just like 1991.