3Boys:

Ask yourself, what is the reality in modern day Singapore. Native Chinese speakers who are hindered in their ability to learn Math and Science, or native English speakers who commit excessive amounts of time to cover their bases in Chinese? What you fail to consider is that the difficulty in learning Chinese and English is not equal. Look at the threads on Chinese and English enrichment in this forum, 35+ pages for the former and less than 7 in aggregate for the latter. Whatever your theories about fixed amount vs everything under the sun, which do you think is presenting the greater challenge in general, Chinese or English? And you are confusing favouritism for the sake of a language with what is a deliberate policy of setting forth the primacy of English as the language of business and lingua-franca amongst diverse ethnicities. In that context, why on Earth have a GEP test in mother tongue?

I don't think your contention is borne out at all by the situation on the ground, and I see nothing, even if empirical, put forth to support it.

The GEP test is a test to discover if a person is gifted in languages or maths. If he is truely gifted, then his talent should be nurtured. However, the English GEP test only serves to develop the talents of the English speaker who may or may not be gifted, neglecting those of the non-English speakers.

Are you familiar with the Primary School syllabus? For the English syllabus, there is no fixed vocabulary list or grammar list for students to work with, unlike that of Chinese. At least, those taking the Chinese exams know what they will be tested on for vocabulary and probably grammar. Here is a Primary One question from one of my students' paper.
I saw a _________ of penguins.

1) Herd
2) Parcel
3) Ambush
4) Shoal

And I understand the political purposes of the bilingual policy. However, my argument about this policy is that the policy is more suited to one group than another. And regarding empirical evidence. Do you even think that the government will make available to the public any figures or statistics that can be used to criticise it?

I'll give you plus points for throwing the burden of proof to me though.

autumnbronze:

Hi,


Is anyone able to verify this??

With the new format in place for the EL paper 2 ie Passage A and B and questions from each paragraph, is it true that pupils are being trained to just read each paragraph, then answer the questions as opposed to reading the whole passage then attempting the questions paragraph by paragraph?? TIA

I've never heard of any teacher doing that. Students are still expected to read through the entire passage at least twice before attempting any questions.

Why don’t you ask her what she wants to do in the future?


If she’s not interested in the triple science stream, forcing her to take it might not be in her best interests.

Alternatively, she might perform better if she’s studying something she likes.

3Boys:

Philosophical_Anarchist:

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.

I disagree. Why should it seek to favour one group or dis-favour another? The way I see, its really a need to drive to a higher level of English competency as compared to MT, due to 1) Realities of global business environment, and 2) Establishing the primacy of a neutral language as lingua franca amongst S'poreans to avoid issues of communalism.

It favours the natural English-speakers who have to work with much less to get a decent result in Chinese. Contrast that with the non-English speakers thathave to work much harder to get a decent result in English and its related subjects.
Chinese vocabulary to be taught in Pri School =Fixed amount
English vocabulary to be taught in Pri School = Everything under the sun

In primary school, a poor command of English will hinder you in both Maths and Science. A poor command of Chinese will only get you a poor
result in one subject.

In secondary school, Chinese is of even less importance as you can get into a JC without using your Chinese score at all. However, those who are weak in English will have to struggle with EL, Eng Lit and the respective humanities.

The bilingual policy clearly favours the English speakers because the burden of learning is less for them. If there is equal emphasis on both languages, why then do we not have a GEP test for Mother Tongue?

Are we looking for those who are gifted in languages? Or just those who are gifted in English?

At the end of the day, we usually end up with three products of such a system.
1. The natural English speaker from an English-speaking family who can't speak Chinese to save his life
2. The bilingual speaker who is a jack of all trades but master of none. He think he's speaking English but in reality, his diction and pronunciation are quite inaccurate.
3. The semilingual speaker who is unable to master his MT or English. A sad product who mixes English and Chinese (Or MT) in his sentences.

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.

I’ll have to disagree with English being easy. English is never easy. If English were easy, the national average for distinction would be much higher instead of a pathetic 23.1%.

Most kids like to SCAN or SKIM, not read. They’ll go through the story and skip any difficult words they encounter. I know of kids who are "avid readers" but in reality, they scan more than they read. To test if your kid really understands what he is reading, you can ask him for a summary or the meaning of the difficult words.

Based on what I know, the MOE has a ranking system for schools.


Bukit Panjang Govt High is a Band 1 school. I think Commonwealth is also a Band 1 school. Fuhua Sec is a Band 4 school and Clementi Town is a Band 5 school.

I’m not sure about the rest but I can comment about Fuhua and CTSS.

Fuhua isn’t a good school. I have three Fuhua students (2 Sec Four and 1 Sec One) and from I’ve gathered, your kid is better off not going there. One of my students is a China national and he wanted to take Chinese Lit as a subject. Unfortunately, the principal refused to allow him to take it, her reasons being that he’ll bring down the school’s ranking if he failed the subject. As a result, my boy’s entry into JC is now totally dependent on his combined humanities grade.

Fuhua also has a very unorthodox system of teaching English. They believe in exposing the new students immediately to O-levels questions instead of taking a gradual approach. So, most students usually end up failing their Sec 1 English exams.

I did relief teaching at CTSS for a while and I would say that it is a relatively decent school. Their strength lies in their English department as their distinction rate for English is 60%.

I hope that the above information has been of use.

I would recommend getting the Creative Writing phrase book by Liza Tan. You can try making your kid memorise the phrases but remember to do it gradually.


Practice is also a must. Make him write a compo or a journal entry every week. If possible, get someone who knows how to write and improve essays to go through his writing. It’ll help him to improve in the long run.

Lastly, make him read. The best writers are avid readers. It’s next to impossible to be a good writer without reading widely since reading improves your passive vocabulary tremendously.