Dentist Everett

Chinese or malay Differentiated learning will destroy further the ecology of  All mother tongue  eventually 

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

Today 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 said  that mother tongue is alive and well, with enrollment extending from 80 to 90. Is this true?. It is truthful but missing the point completely as this trend is an anomaly, it is indeed increasing. From 80 to 90 students, not bad, in a country of almost 5m peopleright? This is a joke . 

Try interviewing   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  deliberately dilute the Chinese language . Chinese education is ousted from the mainstream and sidelined. 

Language is culture, most linguists concur  .

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

Chinese language is not well

Singapore where 70% are Chinese and in these chinese households  , 70% use english at home  . Within this group , some swear to  hate learning about their chinese heritage. 

Does that bode well for the people and nation?  This Issue  is more prevalent amongst chinese families  in Singapore. 

Government should genuinely promote mother tongue (not just chinese language)

Like the expression goes,     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.

Like in Singapore ministry of education’s failed streaming education policies where weaker students are grouped together and learn at slower pace, it has created even weaker students and low morale students amongst this group. And social problems arise. 

Let’s keep the standards, passing grades, rating and ranking high and students will find a way to master the language. And parents alike will pay more focus to it. 

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  executed   regarding of differentiated teaching is to TEACH CHINESE using ENGLISH language as a  medium on the pretext of chinese students from English speaking families  !

   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 everyday life.

While we all recognise that English is the language that gels all races in Singapore,  We need to learn english well, this is not debatable, but try to Kill Chinese language and we shall be up in ARMS and be counted.  I recount   during my grand mother’s time, she spoke cantonese, Hokkien, Malay, some english and some teochew . 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 Members of parliament can speak 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 MPs 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 argument 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 CHANGE?

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

Many times, the government has been saying that with the influx of immigration , they cannot afford to  teaching Chinese at high standard  , they cannot teach malay at high level and tamil at high standard  . Is this the Singapore we want after being forced to give up 2.5 years of our lives serving national service   almost for free, in the jungle?  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 Singaporeans and until they serve national service or it’s equivalent, the  Singapore’s English slanging ministers better listen , or else  the smart people will know what to do in the  next election, if there is one.

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