Bi-lingualism at school a mistake ?
-
tamarind:
Actually I have a mahjong set to share too...
I really like your analogy of the lego pieces ! Totally agree with you.
Using this 部首approach, you can play this mahjong game and have lots of fun.
http://colorwise.com.sg/creativetilegenie.htm
Chief, this can potentially be another auction item.
Tamarind, you should have enough points to auction for this if it comes true. -
ks2me:
That looks really interesting ! OK I must go and buy this. Aiyah but cannot buy from Jurong Point. Must find time to go to Bras Basah.
Actually I have a mahjong set to share too...tamarind:
I really like your analogy of the lego pieces ! Totally agree with you.
Using this 部首approach, you can play this mahjong game and have lots of fun.
http://colorwise.com.sg/creativetilegenie.htm
Chief, this can potentially be another auction item.
Tamarind, you should have enough points to auction for this if it comes true. -
tamarind:
Can order online and free delivery in SG or wait for Chief to give an auction on this.
That looks really interesting ! OK I must go and buy this. Aiyah but cannot buy from Jurong Point. Must find time to go to Bras Basah.
-
ks2me:
OIC free delivery. OK thanks. I have not tried the auction before
Can order online and free delivery in SG or wait for Chief to give an auction on this.tamarind:
That looks really interesting ! OK I must go and buy this. Aiyah but cannot buy from Jurong Point. Must find time to go to Bras Basah.
-
tamarind:
OIC free delivery. OK thanks. I have not tried the auction before
Just look out for the auction thread and see if this is one of the xmas gift Chief wants to give and if so, he will start a thread to solicit registration by asking you to pledge some points. Then when the time of auction comes, ensure you have a good clock/watch that ties in with KSP clock and send your bid online. Each auction will last 15 mins and the last person who bid the highest gets the items. This is where you will start to enjoy the fun, so I shan't say more... My suggestion is you go and try to bid for the netbook this round since you have considerably KSP points I believe, and get some first hand experience in bidding, then you will know how to bid for future items that you want next time.
Sorry to hijack this thread with bidding info...
-
ks2me:
Just look out for the auction thread and see if this is one of the xmas gift Chief wants to give and if so, he will start a thread to solicit registration by asking you to pledge some points. Then when the time of auction comes, ensure you have a good clock/watch that ties in with KSP clock and send your bid online. Each auction will last 15 mins and the last person who bid the highest gets the items. This is where you will start to enjoy the fun, so I shan't say more... My suggestion is you go and try to bid for the netbook this round since you have considerably KSP points I believe, and get some first hand experience in bidding, then you will know how to bid for future items that you want next time.
Sorry to hijack this thread with bidding info...
Thanks for the explanation
-
Hi,
Have been following this thread with interest as I have a 28 mth son and intend him to take up Mandarin. Refrained from sharing cuz really can't remember how I built up my foundation in Mandarin. Will just share what I remember at the moment ...
I took Mandarin due to my father's urging although it is not my MT. He claimed since I was getting so many stars in my wksheets in PAP, so shd carry on with language. :lol:
Anyway, my first memory of Mandarin lesson in P1 was that I would busily copy down in HYPY while teacher was reading out psg in textbk. I can say that thk god for HYPY, or else die ....
Then in P3, was recommended a v v gd tutor. Both husband and wife worked as a team and were sch teachers. The sort that won't allow you to go hm until you finish work and until you got all your ting xie words correct. I was learning vocab words fit for sec level at that time as well, and had to do zao ju (hope I am getting the HYPY rite here cuz I am SO rusty
) I did relatively well in PSLE - an A.
Then in sec level, went downhill. Mostly cuz couldn't continue with tuition due to circumstances happening in the family. I struggled with the keeping up of learning the language but I also had to struggle with M&S. I was really more phobic towards Maths. I am more of a Lit/EL person actually. So you will by now predict what happened.... I only managed to get a C for CL in the end.
Decided not to do 'A' levels then cuz I knew I could not keep up with CL even though I wanted so bad to do Lit. Once again, family circumstances also interfered in that I had to put my studies on hold ... but I eventually got my hons in Lit yrs later.
Anyway, the point is ... I NEVER for once remember thinking that CL was difficult to learn. I just did not have the much needed support for it. I had to struggle on my own. And I knew that, w/o the support, if I spent too much time on CL and neglect the others, then I am done for.
Now I am my reviving my learning with/through my son. He is in a parent accompanied Mandarin playgrp and I don't find it at all difficult to pick up the language. I also play Mandarin nursery songs for him to listen to and he has learnt to sing some of the songs as well. Just recently, in his class, one of the mummies commented that my articulation is so clear when I speak to him (ironically, most of the mummies there speak to their kids in EL) and that DS has picked up all ten words learnt in the term and is not shy to speak up in class aft 10 wks.
Although my Mandarin is V rusty, I make an effort to speak to him in it evry day. Because most of the time I can't remember many of the words, I just intersperse it with EL words. Have thought of enrolling for conversational classes for myself sometime in the future too. The point is, I want to/and am making an effort to provide my son with a conducive and supportive environment for him to learn the language. I believe that parental support is v v impt. I know eventually DS will know my Mandarin is 'koyak', but at the same time, he will also know that mummi has been making an effort to re-learn it and that itself, I believe will be a motivational factor for him. That, I also believe, will set the tone for him to be interested in the language and hopefully will not cause him to have a mental block.
Because of that, I have also bought books/flashcards for him. So we are learning together. I can only read simple nursery level books and (can teach him to write simple words eventually) but have to choose cuz some of them have words that I can't read :!: With HYPY, its alot easier, if not I use the CL/EL/HYPY dict. Still can remember to count the strokes (if wrong, count again :lol:) Eventually though, I know I have to engage a tutor cuz I won't be able to keep up. But I will do what I can at the moment.
Does that sound too naively optimistic????
Anyway, will be posting in the thread 'Teaching Chinese at Home' to ask for advice/suggestions on how to teach DS CL properly because all this while I have been using my common sense to approach the teaching of the language to my son. However, aft going thru this thread, I have to agree with some others and Tamarinds' views. One particularly, which Tamarind mentioned - about teaching CL using the 'correct methods'. So, in order to follow that philosophy, will appreciate some input in the thread above aft my post later. :lol:
BTW, was at GIANT today and was about to buy CL flashcards but thank god I checked first. While going thru them, saw one with pix of hot air ballon, with CL words, HYPY then ... this is the funniest part ... the EL translation:
HOT BLADDER
:rotflmao: :rotflmao: -
Nobody interested in what PM has to say?
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20091204-183839.html
Excerpts
Pre-amble
To put it very simply, we are affirming our bilingualism policy. We have never wavered in this fundamental, but we have to update it and adapt our teaching and our CL system so as to respond to a dynamic situation and a varying range of student abilities and language backgrounds.
.......we are trying to do it with English- Chinese. These are two very dissimilar languages and very difficult to master at the same level.
About value of Chinese language
Everybody knows that Chinese language is valuable and they want to master it - both the students and the parents, and we have enabled them to do it. The proportion of students taking Higher Chinese has gone up. Now, 27 per cent take HCL in secondary schools, more than double the figure before the last changes were made. So that is a very valuable positive factor. Singaporeans want to learn Chinese, and understand its importance. We should capitalise on that, and enable students who are good at the language to achieve the maximum for themselves.
But....
At the same time, the population mix in Singapore and the language environment in Singapore are shifting.
When I did the CL review in 1999, 60 per cent of the students in P1 came from Chinese-speaking homes and about 40 per cent from English-speaking. It is the opposite today. Now almost 60 per cent of P1 students come from predominantly English- speaking homes. Those coming from the Chinese-speaking homes are the minority. The home environment makes enormous difference to the child's language habits and abilities.
We have to acknowledge this shift in language habits, and adapt our system so as to make it work for the larger number of English-background students.
And....
We cannot go back to where we were when I and the present generation of Lianhe Zaobao readers were in school in the 1950s and 60s when we had a completely Chinese language environment. All the subjects were taught in Chinese, the students conversed among themselves in Chinese, the system assumed the students already knew the language and the classes were just teaching them to polish up, expand their vocabulary, their understanding of the literature, the idioms, the classical references to make the student a cultivated, educated Chinese scholar. We are not in that position anymore.
Also...
....some students from English speaking homes are going to have a lot of difficulties with Chinese, however hard they try. Maybe they are generally weak in school, but not always. The correlation between your language ability and your general academic skills is not that close.
Quite often we come across students who are generally bright and able, but have a lot of difficulties with Chinese. So we have to set standards for this group which are realistic, which they can aim for, but without bringing down standards for everybody else. That is why we introduced CL B.
Therefore....
......we need a tailored approach which is adapted to the whole range of language backgrounds and abilities. We have to acknowledge that as a reality and make our system work on that basis.
But the effort demanded has to be realistic, reasonable, and commensurate with what the students are able to do, and that level will vary from student to student.
Public response.....
There are two groups of instant responses every time we raise the subject of mother tongue. One, from those who hated the subject - there you are, I was right all along, now you have finally admitted that you were wrong. And the other group which says mother tongue is sacrosanct, let us not touch it, do not disturb it, leave it be.
But these perspectives focus on the past. We are not arguing over the past. We are trying to deliberate what is the best way forward for the future.
The reality....
We have to decide what is the right thing to do. If you look at the track record over the last few years, the proportion of students taking Higher Chinese has been going up, because the students have been able to do Higher Chinese and are interested to do it.
At the other end, we have students who have considerable difficulty with Chinese and we have made adjustments partly because we have not been teaching them in quite the right way, so we have to adjust our teaching method to be better suited to their backgrounds and how they are able to learn the new language.
and finally....
We have to try and do what is educationally sound, and pedagogically and academically in the interest of the child.
If you politicise this and ask what is the popular thing to do when teaching Chinese, or for that matter English or Science, then we are going to do a big disfavour to the child.
In my view, an incredibly balanced approach to the issue, taking into account the needs of all constituents as opposed to interest groups. -
I had read the PM’s interview thoroughly this morning and I totally agree with what he said. Also noted that he is a very articulate man.
-
my son and daughter both can speak chinese and english. one problem i face is they tend add Rojak in their speech…
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login