Many years ago, when I was new to the internet, I pissed a certain bureaucrat off in an online forum by describing Singapore’s closure of Singapore’s Chinese medium schools as a stupid mistake and the Singapore’s so-called bilingual scheme as dong bu cheng, xi bu jiu. Not surprisingly, Mr Bureaucrat expressed shock at my audacity in challenging the unquestionable wisdom from the top.
I’m sure that if it was a letter I had written to the press, I would have been villified by representatives from every department of the civil service and the editor would have closed the topic just as I started to pen my first reply. Thanks to the internet, I had more supporters than enemies, all coming from the general public.
Fast forward 15 years and it’s now my turn to be shocked when I read the following article:
SINGAPORE - As a child, he was much more comfortable speaking to his friends in English than in Mandarin. Not surprisingly, Mr Vincent Ng, who comes from an English-speaking family, found Mandarin language lessons in school to be quite a chore.
Even though he did “pretty well” for Mandarin during his O-levels, the 32-year-old marketing executive said he remembered lessons being “tough”.
“There was a lot of emphasis on memorising and dictation … what the teachers should have done was to keep us interested. That way, we could perhaps have put more effort into learning.”
Mr Ng isn’t alone in feeling this way.
Web architect Feng Tan, 30, said: “When I was in school, Chinese lessons were more about drilling the topic into your brain rather than making you understand the beauty and complexity of the language.
“To be honest, I’m actually more keen to learn Chinese now that I’m not tested on it.”
Both men were surprised when Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew admitted that the early years of the bilingualism policy had put generations of students off the Chinese language.
Speaking at the launch of the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language on Tuesday, Mr Lee had said: “We started the wrong way. We insisted on ting xie (listening), mo xie (dictation) - madness!”
“We had teachers who were teaching in completely Chinese schools. And they did not want to use any English to teach English-speaking children Chinese and that turned them off completely.”
Mr Ng feels validated by the Minister Mentor’s comments. “Perhaps it is time for a change, we need better ways to keep today’s students interested in the language.”
To generate interest among children from English-speaking families, Mr Lee suggested methods such as using drama and IT. “It doesn’t matter what level they reach, they will like the language, it’s fun and later on in life they will use it”.
Ms Adele Sim, a 29-year-old media executive, pointed out that it was easier to learn a second language through pop culture and television, as was the case when she picked up Japanese a few years ago. “I learned because I liked it, not because it was compulsory,” she said.
I must say that an admission of error from our elderly statesman is something most unusual and perhaps quite welcome to many of us. Unfortunately, I believe that the real mistake is not being recognised. There is ting xie in Chinese. There is also spelling in English. What is so mad about all that?
If the teaching of Chinese the traditional way has been so “mad” and ineffective, then why are so many of our Chinese-educated friends so proficient in the language? Just look at the teaching of English in our primary schools. Is it not boring and punishing? Is it not madness? Primary 1 students already have to do comprehension and understand grammatical rules like verb agreement. And the comprehension passages are mostly about Ali visiting his grandmother and helping her with the chores. No wizards and dragons, no magical spells, no laser weapons, alien transformations and buildings blowing up. How do these kids ever learn English then?
Ask a senior of mine who is now earnestly learning the Thai language. What keeps his interest? Are his Thai language books illustrated with bikini babes? Are the books scented with aromas from his favourite food? Most of all, does he need any of these attractions (or distractions) to keep him focussed on learning the language when he is so interested and involved with Thai temple activities?
What about my TCM course? It’s a totally different philosophy from the conventional anatomy and physiology I’ve studied throughout the years. Now I must shut down a lot of my memory banks and tune in to the new frequency of TCM. Eye problems, treat the liver. Bone problems, treat the kidneys. Muscle weakness treat the spleen. Insomnia treat the heart. 324 points, 12 meridians …. not “madness”? How bad can a little ting xie be? Why why would I put up with this madness? Because I want to learn about alternative remedies to benefit myself, my family and my patients.
The whole problem with kids not being interested in Chinese lies with the issue of options and distractions. In the good old days of Chinese medium schools, all science and art subjects were taught in Chinese. The students not only learned Chinese from their Chinese language class, they also learned it in Biology and Geography. They didn’t just have to do ting xie. They had to remember what Chinese characters are used in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name.
What happens when you shut down Chinese schools. What happens when you teach all the science and arts subjects in English? Does one learn English only from English class? Of course not. We also learn English from Biology class, Math class, Physics class, Chemistry class, Geography class … then there is Chinese. Is it so difficult to see that the problem doesn’t just lie in the madness of ting xie? The students don’t need Chinese to help them understand Physics and Chemistry. The lonely subject of Chinese becomes just an optional distraction.
Yes, one cannot master 2 or more languages at the same level. But I believe that many people out there can be decently proficient in 2 languages. Check out some of the MBBS doctors who are also TCM practitioners. They couldn’t have passed their MBBS without being good at English. They also couldn’t have passed their TCM course conducted in Chinese without being good at Chinese. How did they do it? In exactly the same way we learn the English language. By studying not just “pure” Chinese language, but practical subjects in Chinese. Maybe we should just forget about teaching “pure” English and “pure” Chinese. Maybe we should just teach the “important” subjects in these languages and students pick up the languages “naturally”.
Climb on, Adventurer..”
