Bi-lingualism at school a mistake ?

[daisyt]

watmekiasu:

A new approach that some schools are offering is the bi-lingual method of teaching mandarin. In other words, the teacher uses English to explain some words, phrases etc. It's a gentle introduction to a new language. It would benefit those students who are totally lost when thrown into the deep end, resulting in many hating the language. The amount of English is slowly reduced until it is not use altogether by P3.

In Sec 1, my dd's Chinese teacher taught them to write the meaning of the difficult Chinese words/sentence, in their own ways. It can be in English or any kind of drawings, as long as it can make them understand the meaning of that difficult Chinese words/sentence.

[skunk]

watmekiasu:

A new approach that some schools are offering is the bi-lingual method of teaching mandarin. In other words, the teacher uses English to explain some words, phrases etc. It's a gentle introduction to a new language. It would benefit those students who are totally lost when thrown into the deep end, resulting in many hating the language. The amount of English is slowly reduced until it is not use altogether by P3.

i disagree with this method, I think that immersing someone in the deep end is a better way to teach someone how to swim....at most drown only lor LOL

Kidding....just a personal preference

[schellen]

daisyt:

In Sec 1, my dd's Chinese teacher taught them to write the meaning of the difficult Chinese words/sentence, in their own ways. It can be in English or any kind of drawings, as long as it can make them understand the meaning of that difficult Chinese words/sentence.

That's what I did for my own notes when I had to learn lots of yanyu, chengyu, etc in JC. It helped that I had friends who were better in Chinese and they were mostly from RV so I think they had experience with such phrases before. Although I was from NH, I don't recall having to learn all that though, surprisingly.

[tamarind]

[quote]
HYPY is slowly getting less emphasis in primary edu now. P1 students only learn HYPY during the 1st 2 terms. After that, the emphasis shifts to character recognition. I undertstand it was not the case a few years back.

A new approach that some schools are offering is the bi-lingual method of teaching mandarin. In other words, the teacher uses English to explain some words, phrases etc. It's a gentle introduction to a new language. It would benefit those students who are totally lost when thrown into the deep end, resulting in many hating the language. The amount of English is slowly reduced until it is not use altogether by P3.[/quote]They are still teaching HYPY before character recognition which is still a mistake. Once kids start learning Chinese using the wrong methods, then it will be very difficult to make them love Chinese. The best way is start with simple character recognition from a very young age. Nowadays many parents are sending their kids to Berries, they know their methods work.

Regarding the use of English to explain Chinese, there are many kids who are from Chinese or Dialect speaking families in the HDB heartland and it will not work for them.

skunk:

I think that immersing someone in the deep end is a better way to teach someone how to swim....at most drown only lor LOL

I agree. The best way is to put the kids in a school in China where no one knows how to speak English I am seriously planning to do so.

rains:

Hi there tamarind,
I am with you on the hanyu pinyin way of learning Chinese. I thought it's the wrong approach to teach Chinese too. During my time, we were taught Chinese characters at P1 and P2 and hanyu pinyin only came into play at P3. I thought that's a better way of learning Chinese. Learning hanyu pinyin before character-recognition is a mistake.

I hope MOE can seriously review their policies. I believe the number of Singaporeans who grow up loving Chinese is getting fewer through the years.

Insider:

PS: I seriously hate 'crutches' and this HYPY when taught before Chinese Characters are like crutches. Learning HYPY is more for the purpose of checking dictionary and not for the purpose of what it is being used now. MOE people - what kind of brain???

That's exactly what I used HYPY for, check dictionary. How many P1 kids are able to check dictionary ? Even if they can check dictionary, do they know what they are looking for ? There are so many Chinese words which are pronounced in exactly the same way. I don't know what to say about MOE people's brains I think they are only concerned with implementing \"methods\" which they think are correct, but they don't check the results which their \"methods\" are producing.

[daisyt]

Hahah ! That night Singapore drama at 9pm, (Daddy at home), the two kids self introduction on their Chinese names, its really funny !


Girl : 我的名是思恩, 思念的思，感恩的恩
Boy : 我的名是希源， xi yuan

:lol: :lol:

[watmekiasu]

tamarind:

Regarding the use of English to explain Chinese, there are many kids who are from Chinese or Dialect speaking families in the HDB heartland and it will not work for them.



.

And that is why the learning of mandarin bi-lingually is an option in these schools. Parent can choose this method or the usual \"throw into the deep end\".

[ponyo]

Looking at this post, I am really heartened to know that there are parents out there who prefer their kids to learn unadulterated Chinese.


The Chinese language is a character based language. Romanizing it is a way to aid in learning the pronounciation and for those ang-mohs to have a bridging tool to learning this beautiful language.

I am very happy with my daughter’s chinese teacher at the childcare. At least my daughter knows the bu shou bian pang and even recites/sings out tangshi. Because of her teacher’s emphasis on teaching the class chinese as is, my daughter is not afraid to read Chinese books without hanyupinyin. SHe will only use the HYPY as a guide for the pronunciation.

When I teach my kid her 听写, I will try very hard to break the character up and to help her imagine how the character actually resemble the meaning of the word. And sometimes I will show the 繁体字version to show her how the word has evolved. It is tedious and sometimes I cheat by drawing cartoon figures instead and show her how the character resembles the drawing. We usually have a lot of fun in the process.

Those folks at MOE probably are just trying to have a quick fix so as to look good /answer to their big bosses but in the process they are slowly killing the language.

Next year, my girl will go to P1 and I saw some sample exam papers from other schools and they are testing HYPY instead of getting the kids to write the word. It is really up to us as parents to undo the damage in school and to get our kids to appreciate Chinese and its rich culture.

Dumbing down Chinese language is not the correct method. If we keep saying that Chinese is difficult to learn (it is not difficult to learn at all but mastering it is), we are just creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Children are sponges. Their perceptions are largely influenced by the adults around them. So what if the parents are not good in the language, if they are prepared to roll up their sleeves and learn together with their kids in a positive manner, it will rub off on them.

Just my 2 cents worth…

[outsider]

I came from a teochew speaking family and I speak Hokkien too. I went to kindergarten and primary without any prior English exposure at .Yet I managed to pass my examination and is able to have a decent conversation in English. My Chinese is much better then English.


We do not have a choice and we dont complain about having to learn English.

I agreed with Insider that when the dialect died, chinese will follow too.

[qms]

outsider:

I agreed with Insider that when the dialect died, chinese will follow too.

So, now, we have an outsider agreeing with insider? :laugh: :siam:

[Philosophical_Anarchist]

In Singapore, English is taught using first language methodology while Chinese is taught using second language methodology.


For learning a second language, the methods used are:

1. Direct method - Target language is taught in the actual language. Used by all decent language schools and native English speakers in S’pore.

2. Grammar Translation Method - Target language is taught using the students’ mother tongue. Used in countries like Japan and China.

3. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) - Language is taught with communication being the key objective. Used in Universities and good language schools.

For LKY to insinuate that direct method is ineffective is a joke since he’s not a linguist nor language specialist.

I see bilingualism in Singapore as a policy that favours those from real English-speaking families - those that are able to pronounce red, flour and abalone properly.

The syllabus and vocabulary to be learned for Chinese is fixed but there are no such restrictions for English. As such, it is much more tedious and taxing for a child from a non-English speaking family to learn English than it is for his English-speaking counterpart to learn Chinese. Given that everything is taught in English, he who fails to master English is doomed to struggle for his primary school life.