Everything But The Weed

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Chinese or malay Differentiated learning will surely KILL  All mother tongue  in the long run 

Can Tao Nan  Primary School be a beacon for Singapore’s Chinese language? 

On 19 th May 2010,  Our state propaganda machinery the Channel eight (a division of Singapore Media Corp) mentioned and showed very flimsy examples of mother tongue being alive and well  . It also mentioned that mother tongue is alive and well, with student numbers  extending from 80 to 90. Is this dead on target. It is truthful that if we use this magnifying glass and look at this very small number, it is indeed increasing. From 80 to 90 students, not bad, in a country of 5 million population right? This is a joke . 

Try speaking to  someone in Orchard road, Boat   or even Ang Mo kio  , nobody  speaks Chinese anymore. How can the government blame parents for not teaching their kids  as the Singapore government  Systematically  dilute the Chinese language . Chinese education is ousted from the mainstream and sidelined. 

Language is culture, most people  agree .

Are we seriously at risk of  sacrificing not only our Mother culture but also to potential economic benefits from knowing one more language? 

Lee Kuan Yew has succeeded in diluting chinese 

Singapore where 70% are  of the Chinese ethnic group  and in these chinese homes , 70% use english at home  . Out of these people , some persistently hate learning Chinese language.

You call that well? This problem is rather  serious amongst chinese people in Singapore. 

Government should sincerely push mother tongue (not just chinese language)

Like the saying goes, FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS… and begin with the end in mind. If the END is that MTL Mother tongue language standards is further diluted, the efforts to learn it will falter.

Aim low and we can all forget about it

Let’s just say, keep the standards and mother tongue percentage weigh same and then work on the foundations and promote the Mother tongue language ecology alive.

Let’s not have differentiated learning or teaching as it tends to create a bunch of elites and another bunch who will perennially swear off chinese . Let all the children study in one single class in a one standardized teaching. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work for all. Thus a solution must be found. Rather than the divide and conquer tactics of differentiated learning.

One of the most damning   policy soon to be implemented regarding of differentiated teaching is to TEACH CHINESE using ENGLISH language as a  medium on the pretext of chinese students from English speaking families  !

This can come in many forms. The government has to lead the way rather than paying lip service to promoting mother tongue with media campaigns about how important mother tongue is and yet there is hardly any chance to use Chinese language or malay or Tamil in routine life.

While we all recognise that English is the language that gels all races in Singapore, we cannot and shall not sit idly while mother tongue witters away. In this case, it is not wittering away, but being chopped away!!! I recount   during my grand mother’s time, she spoke different languages to different friends  . Did we have an issue?

In fact we think that in Schools, there should be a compulsory module for chinese to learn 20 hours of Malay and 20 hours of tamil. And likewise for Malays to learn 20 hours of Chinese and Tamil and for the tamils learn 20 hours of Malay and Chinese.

How many of our Ministers  can  Converse in   Chinese Fluently?

If you seriously look at the composition of our parliament, they are over-represented by people who speak predominantly English. Some of them even clamber to speak in Chinese (if they are chinese). The Malay member of parliament  are better, they at least can speak Malay fluently. We respect them even if they cannot speak Chinese language.

Having such people as MP will only send the WRONG picture about learning Mother Tongue that the RICH and powerful speaks English and those poor and not so educated Speak mandarin Chinese or dialects.

SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT PANDERS TO THE MORE WELL OFF???
There has been statement that 95% of students are okay (as they pass) with the current Mother Tongue language levels at PSLE. So if 95% of the students have no problem, why is the government saying that there is some issue?

Are they seriously trying to win over the parents of the 5% who faces problems with mother tongue? This surely is not MERITOCRATIC, neither is it fair. Maybe the government would have a better explanation.

The excuse that Different population composition  CHANGES FORCE variety

(The local population did not agree  for massive immigration, mind you)

Many times, the government has been saying that with the influx of immigration , Singapore education ministry  cannot afford to  teaching Chinese at high level , they cannot teach malay at high standard  and tamil at high standard  . But let’s face it, this is Singapore. And Singapore is for Singaporeans shouldn’t it be? We welcome foreign talents, but Singaporeans must take precedence over expats or PRs  As more immigrants come into Singapore, surely Singapore has to widen the mother tongue to include Hindi and maybe Tagalog and who knows, maybe even some western based languages.

But until such immigrants  become Singapore citizens  and until they serve national service or it’s equivalent, the Singapore ministers who speak with english slang better listen up  , or else  the smart people will know what to do in the  next election, if there is one.

These days, even Nanyang Primary school students hardly speak chinese even as it was one of the last fortress standing for chinese education in singapore

Now, let the DOG wag the tail and not let the tail wag the dog.