Bi-lingualism at school a mistake ?

[clarabella]

Thanks, buds

Aiyoh, haven't been sayang'ed for so long. I forgot the feeling keke ~~

[daisyt]

This Thursday, on channel 8, 10:30pm, there would be a documentary about this topic. I think I saw AiTong in the preview last night.

[kiasimom]

Been struggling and wondering if I should share my 2cents worth.

I finally mustered up enough courage to do it.

As a chinese, I treasure values and traditions.
I want my children to be able to speak mandarin and read Chinese characters.
I do not aspire them to be superb in Mt but at least proficient.
I personally feel it is a shame that as Chinese we can’t even speak our own MT.

Chinese values go a long way back.
During my chinese CME, they emphasize on fillial piety, respect our parents and teachers etc.

I have seen Caucasians, Indians and Malays able to speak Mandarin very well and at the same time they can speak their MT too.

If other races can speak Mandarin, why do we as Chinese wants to give up our MT?

At the very least, I hope that my two children can be proficient in their MT.

I personally like Chinese as I derive a lot of pride and joy in learning Chinese.
Take Chinese words for example, they are written with a meaning.
Add a single stroke or minus a single stroke, it becomes another word. It is truly meaningful.
In English, it is the 26 alphabets, but in Chinese it is never ending to learning.

[corneyAmber]

kiasimum, your view is certainly not wrong so it is good that you share.


Just need to keep an open mind about the following:

Firstly, the world has become more complex and families are quite international these days. So more and more people’s origin are not very clear…and hence there is a struggle of what is MT to them?

Secondly, the next group of people may not be able to cope with the demands of learning 2 languages equally proficiently. Given that English has so much more economic value then Chinese language in terms of going global, this is sometimes a choice people will make to focus on one language only.

[kiasimom]

Hi ks2me,


I acknowledge the fact that English has its economic values now.

If we are talking about future, I don’t see Chinese losing out.
MM Lee once said, give China another 10 years and they will be on the same leverage as US if not better.

We have to acknowledge how fast China is catching up on technologies and is learning how to open their doors to do business with the rest of the world.

China has its own resources, their own pool of talents.
In terms of size and abilities, I do not think they are in anyway more inferior than any of their counterparts in the world.

We can also see for ourselves that China is producing more and more billionaires each year.
These are the people that gives the economy the boost.

A history of 5000 years can’t be wrong.
Economic wise, if we want to stay ahead and do business in China, we have to know how to speak Mandarin. No doubt the Chinese are learning English, they do still prefer to speak in their MT.

From what I know from DH, all his business peers set up their factories in China and source for their raw materials in China.

They made big bucks.
Even if it is not for economic wise, I am still for the idea that my children know their roots and culture and be able to speak their MT.

P.S: I am not promoting China but is acknowledging the presence of China and its growth.

[kiasimom]

Hi insider,


You couldn't be more right.

IT IS THE ATTITUDE TO LEARN ! :celebrate:

[tamarind]

insider:

This girl who arrived in Singapore at age 10 with only knowledge of single English vocabulary can top the country PSLE scores and she thanked her Indian teacher for not giving her a chance to speak Mandarin so that she could polish up her English. That should be the way to go. It's the attitude to learn...

Agree that this is the way to go. That's why I always wrote that the correct method is very important.

ks2me:

Just need to keep an open mind about the following:

Firstly, the world has become more complex and families are quite international these days. So more and more people's origin are not very clear....and hence there is a struggle of what is MT to them?

Secondly, the next group of people may not be able to cope with the demands of learning 2 languages equally proficiently. Given that English has so much more economic value then Chinese language in terms of going global, this is sometimes a choice people will make to focus on one language only.

That's right.

For example, take a look at this family :
http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_458210.html

The mother is very happy that her sons do not need to learn Chinese in Australia. It's their choice, and they are happy with it, so we should respect them.

I realized, over many years, that you cannot encourage other people to learn Chinese, by telling them \"You are Chinese blah blah blah\". It simply does not work.

We should encourage kids to learn Chinese, by showing them how interesting Chinese can be. The complex Chinese characters are actually built up using simpler characters. It is not correct to learn by memorizing individual strokes. Kids should learn the 部首，and simple characters first, with these they can build up most Chinese words.

We must also read interesting Chinese story books to them, like short stories taken from the 4 great classical novels, especially 西游记, as well as 封神榜, 山海经， etc, and true stories from the history of China. These are very fascinating to kids, much better than Disney cartoons

[3Boys]

Congratulations to this girl on her wonderful achievement. Overcoming a handicap in English to become a top scorer cannot have been easy.


However, one should not extrapolate from what is obviously a highly intelligent and motivated individual to all students in Singapore, of varying abilities and backgrounds.

Further, to quote Chua Lee Hoong today in ST, quoting MM Lee, English is far easier to learn. Whether you choose to believe this or not, is certainly your own choice.

At the end of the day, the intention is to expand the toolkit available to educators, in order to enable more of those who struggle with the Chinese language to learn more of it and not engender resentment. This may for instance, involve the use of English to instruct. If the final outcome is to expand the base of Chinese language speakers, even if not at a high standard, without precluding those who wish to pursue the language at a higher level, surely that should engender support from those amongst you who are the proponents of mastery of the language?

Lets not be dogmatic about the techniques of learning Chinese…

[tamarind]

[quote]
Lets not be dogmatic about the techniques of learning Chinese.....[/quote]Millions and millions of Chinese in the world learn Chinese the way I described, and that is the reason why we do not find Chinese difficult at all. Those people who do not uderstand the techniques, really should not be making any comments.

In fact, many people, including myself when I was young, found English more difficult to learn than Chinese. I struggled with English grammar which was very confusing to me. Chinese grammar is very simple in comparison, don't need to worry about past tense, present tense, future tense etc.

I don't think anyone should judge whether Chinese is more difficult than English or not. Everyone has different backgrounds.

I think there is no point debating about whether Chinese is difficult or easy. Instead, we should be spending our time trying to understand effective methods of learning Chinese, as well as how to motivate our kids to learn Chinese.

[tamarind]

http://www.usingenglish.com/articles/which-most-difficult-language.html


Which is the most difficult language?


We are often asked what is the most difficult language to learn, and it is a difficult question to answer because there are a lot of things to take into consideration. Firstly, as a first language, or mother tongue, the differences are unimportant, so the question of how hard a language is to learn only arises in the area of second language acquisition.
A native speaker of Spanish will find Portuguese much easier to learn than a native speaker of Chinese, for example, because Portuguese is very similar to Spanish, while Chinese is very different, so first language is an important factor. the more different a language is from our mother tongue, the harder it will be to learn. Many people answer that Chinese is the hardest language to learn, possibly influenced by the thought of learning Chinese characters, and the pronunciation of Chinese does appear to be very difficult for foreign learners. However, for Japanese speakers, who already use Chinese characters in their own language, the writing will be less of a challenge than it will for people from languages using the Roman alphabet.

Some people can learn languages naturally and easily without much effort, while others find it very difficult, so natural aptitude for language learning is another factor. Teachers and the circumstances in which we learn also play an important role, as well as the motivation for learning. If people learn a language they need to use, they often learn it faster than people studying a language that has no direct use in the lives.

There is no single answer to this question; it depends on so many factors. However, the British Foreign Office has looked at the languages that diplomats and other embassy staff have to learn and has worked out which they find the most difficult to learn. The second hardest is Japanese, which probably comes as no surprise to many, but the language that they have found to be the most difficult to learn is Hungarian, which has 35 cases (forms of a nouns according to whether it is subject, object, genitive, etc). This does not mean that Hungarian is the hardest language to learn for everybody, but it causes British diplomatic staff, who are used to learning languages, the most difficulty. However, Tabassaran, a Caucasian language has 48 cases, so it would probably cause more difficulty if British diplomats had to learn it.

Different cultures and individuals from those cultures will find different languages more difficult. In the case of Hungarian for British learners, it is not a question of the writing system, which is alphabetic, but the grammatical complexity, though native speakers of related languages may find it easier, while struggling with languages that we find relatively easy. No language is easy to learn well, though languages which are related to our first language will be easier. Learning a completely different writing system is a huge challenge, but that does not necessarily make a language more difficult that another. In the end, it is impossible to say that there is one language that is the most difficult language in the world.