Bi-lingualism at school a mistake ?
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autumnbronze:
Thanks for sharing. It is good to know someone whose MT is not Chinese, did not think that CL was difficult to learn.
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.
That makes me wonder why many other Chinese Singaporeans complain that Chinese is difficult. Personally I believe that there are 2 causes :
1. In schools, they had very bad Chinese teachers who taught using the wrong methods.Since they don't know what are the correct methods, they don't even understand why Chinese is so difficult to learn (I am not referring to anyone in this thread.) It is like learning English without any knowledge of phonics, it is even more difficult to memorize the spellings of so many English words.
2. They did not have the correct attitude towards Chinese. Some people does not even realize that.
I have added photos of the P1 textbook in my blog, scroll down to the bottom of the page.
http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2009/12/reading-chinese-books.html
and explanations of why I think that the textbook is bad. I think it is very unfair for parents who did not send their kids to Chinese enrichment classes before P1.
For parents who want to teach Chinese at home, it is very important to look for good teaching materials, sadly, such materials cannot be found in Singapore. We have to search in China websites like http://www.dangdang.com.
There are some good materials in the Teaching Chinese at Home thread.
http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3878&start=0
It is very difficult to teach without good materials. That is why I sent my kids to Berries, their materials are good, but only their students can get the materials.autumnbronze:
It is best for one parent to always speak in English and one parent to always speak in Mandarin. Try not to mix English and Mandarin. Otherwise send the kid to a good enrichment class, or a nursery/kindergarten which has at least one hour of Chinese lessons everyday.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.
It is also very important that the child learn both A, B, C, etc and the simplest Chinese characters and strokes at the same time. My boy faced the same amount of difficulty when learning to write the alphabet, as well as 亻, 扌, 辶, 氵, 犭, 人, 口, 天, 大, 小 etc. So he does not complain that Chinese is more difficult to learn.
I have been doing some research in the China websites, and I found that it is possible for kids to learn enough Chinese to be able to read newspapers before they enter primary school. In China they are aiming to teach kids to recognize as many Chinese words as possible so that they can read independently at 7 years old. We should also try to do the same.
If the child is able to read Chinese effortlessly, and he/she reads Chinese books consistently, then Chinese will not be difficult at all. -
i talk english to my kids and chinese to my wife…so all were come to contact with english and mandarin
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I quote PM Lee again....
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.
To suggest that we need FULL immersion, with lots and lots of enrichment, plenty of hours of committed effort, start from very young (which I agree, is what needs to be done for someone from an English speaking background), all sorts of tactics and maneuvers and cost and time and energy and diversion of resources, but then in the same sentence, say that it is then EASY to learn, is completely contradictory. You do not need to do the same for maths, or science, or english, to be good at it. I do not disagree that we need to apply effort, but how much is reasonable? I don't want my boys spending 4 hours a day on 1 language to the exclusion of everything else,just because the language lvel is pitched too high. I also challenge the concept of having to immerse in the culture. My DW, from a chinese speaking background (my FIL is a chinese language teacher), was never interested in the classics or chinese poetry, but had an easy time at 'O's and 'A's, scoring distinctions without effort. My sis did chinese at the first language at 'O' levels, scoring a B. There was no Chinese poetry in our house, I can assure you. At least recognize that there is a difference in the level of difficulty in learning Chinese and everything else, as shown in independent polls and as suggested my both MM and PM Lee.
autumnbronze, I got a B3 for CL2 at 'O' level, but found it incredibly difficult and time consuming to get to even that level, incredibly difficult, but I simply refused to surrender a grades advantage to my classmates from Chinese speaking backgrounds. -
My kids only attend 2 hours of Chinese enrichment class a week. They spend only about 10 mins a day reading their Berries materials. That is all the time they spent learning Chinese since they were 4 years old. That is not a lot of effort to me. My younger boy is only of average ability, but he still knows far more Chinese than I do at the same age.
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about how to learn Chinese. PM’s speech did not mention specifically about what the changes are. I don’t know what is there to comment about.
For those who keep complaining that Chinese is difficult, I wonder what exactly do they want ? A more constructive approach is to try to understand why the hundreds of millions of children in China do not have problems learning Chinese, and try to learn effective methods of teaching Chinese. I do not believe that Singaporean kids are more stupid than China kids.
Otherwise, do they expect the standard of Chinese to be lowered even further ? Isn’t that 没出息 ？My English not so good, don’t know how to write that phrase in English.
Even if a child needs to put in a lot of hard work to learn a language, so what ? Why can’t our kids take some hardship ? I spent many hours memorizing textbooks in English, that meant all subjects except Chinese, when I was a student. I spent the least time learning Chinese. I am sure there are many people like me.
I am actually very supportive of those who claim that they really cannot learn Chinese, to just give up and study Malay instead. I really hope that MOE does not dumb down Chinese further for this group of people. -
3Boys:
I disagree. There are many students who struggle with maths, science and english, despite putting in alot of effort and time. So, is MOE going to make these subjects easier? Definitely not. In fact, they are getting more difficult as compared to our times. So why is there a differential treatment for Chinese simply because there is a group of students who struggle with it?
You do not need to do the same for maths, or science, or english, to be good at it. I do not disagree that we need to apply effort, but how much is reasonable? . -
dimsum:
Yeah 3Boys, as much as I try to see things from your angle, I would have to agree with dimsum and disagree with you here. I think it has to do with our brain hemispheres and how we tick differently. Your frustration is however noted because of the tremendous effort put in. The only possibility now is to look forward for your sons' case which I think they have alot of opportunity to master it well given your DW & FIL background. Actually you are already several steps ahead of many families who do not even have the support.
I disagree. There are many students who struggle with maths, science and english, despite putting in alot of effort and time. So, is MOE going to make these subjects easier? Definitely not. In fact, they are getting more difficult as compared to our times. So why is there a differential treatment for Chinese simply because there is a group of students who struggle with it?3Boys:
You do not need to do the same for maths, or science, or english, to be good at it. I do not disagree that we need to apply effort, but how much is reasonable? .
Congrats! In fact, I think a few years down the road, you will have a nice case study to write about the success of your kids mastering the Chinese language.
Maths, for as far as I recall, is a very challenging subject for many students I know and it spills over to Science sometimes. It is really aptitude, some people has it easy and some just don't but they may have other talents. English, is another area many struggle but because you are in an English forum here where it attracts many parents with sound background in English, you may be getting the impression that English is not so difficult to learn. But the very reason we have so many polys, it is to cater for people who struggle with the English language and prefer to give the GP paper a miss at 'A' levels.
Personally, I agree with Tamarind, there is no short cut to learning ANY languages WELL, one just has to start from young, as early as before or immediately after birth. The effort is directly proportional to age. The younger you start the lesser effort, the older the more effort.
As for learning a 3rd language well at an older age, then it depends on the script of the 3rd language and the exposure of the person's base language. For example, learning Malay after mastering English should not be as tedious because they still follow similar phonetic sounds with some slight variation. So Tamarind's suggestion as a choice to learn Malay is valid except again, the difficulty will be conversational if there are no Malay neighbours or family members to converse with. Like Peranakans, is their MT Chinese or Malay? There should be a choice right? Any Peranakans here to advise on this? -
ks2me:
My hubby's father is Peranakan. Their MT is English
Like Peranakans, is their MT Chinese or Malay? There should be a choice right? Any Peranakans here to advise on this?
Fortunately, they employed Chinese tutors for my hubby, so he was able to do well in Chinese. He scored A for his 'O' level Chinese. He had to put in hard work, but he never complains that Chinese is difficult to learn.
I cannot find anything in the MOE webpage stating that Chinese cannot choose Malay as a second language. May be it is possible to do so all along ? -
Tamarind:
Just to clarify, I never wrote that a child must memorize Tang poetry in order to do well in Chinese. What I wrote above is meant to show that kids can be taught to enjoy learning Chinese. Even reciting Tang Poetry can be fun if taught correctly. There are many other fun ways to learn Chinese. Kids never need to suffer in order to learn Chinese. A better way is actually to find interesting Chinese stories to read to the kids from a very young age. I believe that all kids love to listen to good stories. And there is no need to make them listen to stories for many hours a day, 20 - 30 mins a day is more than enough.
My 6 year old girl enjoys memorizing and reciting Tang Poetry, she loves the beautiful characters and the rhymes and she asks to learn more. She is certainly not suffering. -
tamarind:
The rules changed. Previously, students can just take any Mother Tongue. Some, like my elder brothers, who are in their 50s, chose Malay. But policy changed so that you would need to take your own Mother Tongue...that is, Chinese have to take CL, Malay have to take ML.
I cannot find anything in the MOE webpage stating that Chinese cannot choose Malay as a second language. May be it is possible to do so all along ?ks2me:
Like Peranakans, is their MT Chinese or Malay? There should be a choice right? Any Peranakans here to advise on this?
HTH. -
[quote] 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. [/quote]
Same goes to my sister.
[quote]The rules changed. Previously, students can just take any Mother Tongue. Some, like my elder brothers, who are in their 50s, chose Malay. But policy changed so that you would need to take your own Mother Tongue...that is, Chinese have to take CL, Malay have to take ML. [/quote]Unless non-Chinese in SAP school or the children of mix parentage will have exception.
I thought learning language takes a while to build? It's an everyday effort. My children are exposed to English language at home daily. Their spoken mother tongue are not fantastic. I don't expect an A immediately but I believe the marks can be improve year by year slowly.
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