Bi-lingualism at school a mistake ?
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insider:
I think that is quite prejorative on people who can pronounce red, flour and abalone :lol:
Chinese are heading towards its doomsday under this group of people who can pronounce their 'red, flour and abalone' properly... (we are going to see another group coming up soon with this coming election...more people from ivory tower who dare dare said HDB is 'affordable' and losing $2 billion for last financial year?? yawn...) -
tamarind:
YES YES YES! Very Strongly agree with tamarind.First of all, I want to say that bilingualism in Singapore has never been successful.
I disagree. The government should examine how Berries teach Chinese and learn from them. At the ages of 3, 4 and 5 years old, kids only learn Chinese characters...
Bilingualism is not totally unsuccessful but people needs to have a choice
to take it on or not. The edu system leaves very little flexibility for people
to choose the best combination.
:lovesite:
My girl went through Berries' P1 Prep course during K2 and it catapult her
Chinese to great heights! She is now in the P1 Higher Chinese class and
enjoys every lesson! Her primary school does not offer P1 HCL.
YES, the MOE should study Berries teachings of Chinese.
I do not belief children can suddenly go into Higher Chinese at P5 just because they did well in CL. They need to lay the foundation at lower levels from P1 for those who opt for it! Hanyupinyin should be learn along side with main text, not exclusively for 4 to 6 months in P1 1st Semester! -
At the end of the day, its about whether one is wedded to the language as a medium for the transmission of culture, and how a culture is tied to ethnicity. We quite frequently speak of a ‘Chinese culture’, and whilst most can agree on certain core tenets, one wonders if it can really be defined at all. Even in China, the Uighurs, Tibetans, Cantonese etc., have vastly different cultures, beliefs and practices. So which is it? A blend of all? Han Chinese only? Which language to use if the former?
Bi-lingualism as a policy is a laudable aim, in that it promotes greater functionality in a global environment, and allows those who desire, a medium to connect with their own culture, whatever they may perceive that to be. There is good justification for the former to be imposed broadly, but not the purview of MOE to demand the latter. Hence, the way the policies and teaching techniques are crafted are to meet the first need of functionality.
As for the offending passage with ‘stupid’, its pretty shocking in an official communication for sure. However, the brief is mainly stating that dialects get in the way of learning 2 core languages. For one who is unskilled in languages, having been proficient in Teochew in my childhood sure played no part in my being able (or unable) to master chinese in the latter years. Did knowing a dialect get in the way? I don’t know, but it sure didn’t help. -
insider:
I agree. Even the teachers use Singlish in schools. So if the children are not taught grammar as a foundation, it is not easy to produce children who can speak proper English.I don't really like the way English is being taught in some schools now (and I can't say 'many schools' but my hunch is most of them) as teachers skip the teaching of much of grammar components and they expect children to know... (kids, even from English speaking families, go to school with different level of English standard and it is just not fair for teachers to assume they 'should' know.)
Being fun is good but at what cost and at whose expense are the questions. In terms of learning, new generation kids generally can't compare to the older generation ones in terms of the ability to swallow difficulties squarely and move on without wailing 'help help help'... -
I also don’t think we should start teaching HYPY at P1. It should be introduced at a later stage as a tool to use the dictionary. I am not sure about your kids but mine often try to read the HYPY in books instead of trying to recognise the characters.
With so much emphasis on HYPY in P1 & 2, the children learn very few Chinese characters in P1 & 2. So it becomes rather difficult for them to write compo in P3, especially for those schools which do not offer Higher Chinese prior to P5 and the parents who do not speak Chinese.
And correct me if I am wrong, I notice that there is very little emphasis on stroke sequence in primary school nowadays. I often have to tell my children that they have written the characters correctly but in the wrong manner! -
I am one of those who rely heavily on HYPY to read any chinese articles. I come from a family that speak mainly English and Teochew and the Peranakan dialect which is a mix of malay and hokkien. Both my parents did not learn chinese when they were in school, they were taught malay instead. So needless to say, we had very little exposure to the language.
I aced my english and literature and I managed to pass my chinese exams. I have no problems speaking or understanding Mandarin but I have problems reading and writing. More so now since I left school decades ago. My chinese composition used to have a fair bit of HYPY in it cos I cannot remember how to write the characters. My teachers will always comment that I score on content and use of idioms but fail on character recognition and writing. :oops: Till today, I can do 绕口令 though not as fast as I could when I was in school but I can stare for 5mins at my K2 girl's 听写 list and draw a blank.
Someone mentioned that others think that Singaporean's English and Chinese are not that good. I however have heard from many foreign friends and business associates that they are pretty impressed with our grasp of the language, be it English or Chinese especially when these 2 languages are not our native tongue to begin with. Yes, English is suppose to be our first language but compared to Britain, our history with this language is still in its infancy. Coupled with that, each dialect group will bring into the language their own inflection and that's how you get the Singlish and same goes for Chinese, you get Singnese. Heheh.
Though our command of the languages may not be considered pure, but to a certain extent, I think the emergence of Singlish and our version of Chinese is shows our unique identity. Who knows, a few hundred years down the road, the world might recognise Singapore English and Chinese like they do British and American English or Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
As for LKY and his decisions, we have the benefits of 'on hindsight'. He may not have had chosen the best method but at that time who would know. Just as it is now, we won't know if the new revamped method will be the better method. One thing I know, HYPY allows me to type out a chinese essay without having to relearn which key is for what stroke.
Well for my kids, I want them to be able to recognise the chinese characters as well as 拼 them out accurately. -
3Boys:
My P3 dd is going through what you did. Non-mandarin speaking background, no chinese enviroment. Attended all the right Chinese enrichment classes. P1 Higher Chinese, average 95. P2, average 90, P3 now, just barely clinging onto Band 1 around 86. She spends a ridiculous 70% of her time on chinese, leaving just 30% on math, sci and music. It is a tough road ahead of her. Do not underestimate how difficult it is for a strictly non-native chinese speaker to learn that language. My dd is lucky in the sense that she likes the language so there is little resistance to learning it.
I don't have a Chinese speaking background, my folks spoke Teochew as a dialect, and english more pre-dominantly. I started P1 not knowing a single word of Chinese, barely being able to write my name in characters. However, by dint of hard work and natural academic ability, I was able to sustain a good level of Chinese language proficiency early on, aceing the spelling tests and getting good grades on exams. However, as the years wore on, and by P4, without a home-based environment to learn, it was beginning to be a struggle to keep up. At that time, a really dreadful chinese language teacher came into the frame that completely destroyed my interest in the language. I went from a 90%+ scorer to barely passing in a year. The rest of my school career was a chain of chinese language tuition teachers and constant frustration from my parents who couldn't help because they did not know the lingo. -
watmekiasu:
Does she read books regularly? It is important to read for both EL and CL.
My P3 dd is going through what you did. Non-mandarin speaking background, no chinese enviroment. Attended all the right Chinese enrichment classes. P1 Higher Chinese, average 95. P2, average 90, P3 now, just barely clinging onto Band 1 around 86. She spends a ridiculous 70% of her time on chinese, leaving just 30% on math, sci and music. It is a tough road ahead of her. Do not underestimate how difficult it is for a strictly non-native chinese speaker to learn that language. My dd is lucky in the sense that she likes the language so there is little resistance to learning it.
And the difficulty level has to be increased at stages as she moves up the
ladder. Eg. My P1 girl has moved from Robins readers to Junior Picture
books to Junior Simple books, now reading Ladybird mini Classics and Geronimo series.
For Chinese, borrow any JP books from National
Library, all reading the CLIPS supplementary levels (she can manage up
to P3/4 now with guidance).
Generally she reads about 4 to 5 books each for EL & CL every week
during non-exam period. During exam period, average 1 book each week.
Tailor the books to be introduced to your kid according to his/her interest
and level of competency to maintain interest.
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...with regular reading, should not need to spend so much time on
Chinese only. I think for study time, 50% for Math, 50% for Science.
Chinese and English is a ongoing thing. Should only need time to
practice assessment by chapter (for Chinese) and revise spelling.
Anybody else can comment? :?: -
For English, she reads the same type of books as her P3 classmates, namely Harry Potter, Spiderwick, Roman Mysteries etc.
For Chinese, it is CLIPs readers, the "naughty school-boy" reader, Doraemon and another comic series about school teachers (sorry, I cannot even tell you the name of the books cos I am totally illiterate in that language). The main problem is, her low level of chinese does not allow her to read books that interests her like mystery and adventure books.
She also watches chinese dramas, mainly for the mandarin exposure. She loves some of those Jin Yong shows like Legend Of The Condor Heroes, Laughing In The Wind, Tian Long Ba Bu so much, that she has even read the english translation of 2 of these novels. When she finally found a mandarin comic of one of those novels, she tried reading it but threw it away in disgust cos there were just too many words she couldn’t make out. It’s no fun checking into your BESTA every few pages.
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