MM Lee’s admission – a good time for govt to reflect on poli
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MM Lee’s admission – a good time for govt to reflect on policy
Thursday, 19 November 2009, 12:36 am | 688 views
Amnesty International Press Release:
“If Singapore has pretensions to being an international commercial center, especially in the age of the internet, its legislature must immediately act to bring the country in line with commonly accepted concepts of free expression and media activity.” (Read the full release on TOC Facebook.)Andrew Loh
When I was in primary and secondary school, Chinese class was always a struggle. I absolutely hated the classes. And when there was a test on a particular day, I would dread going to school. I could never understand why I was expected to learn those strange, difficult-to-write and impossible-to-read characters of the Chinese language. Even though Singapore adopted the “jian pi zi” (short-form) Chinese language characters, they still made no sense to me.
In class, my teacher would purposely pick on those who were worst at the language, to read out loud from the textbooks. It was nerve-wrecking and a torture. I would perspire spontaneously and dip my head behind my classmate seated in my front of me, all in the hope that I could be invisible.
I remember once when, to my terror, I was called upon to read a passage from the textbook. I think I was in primary four and I could only read very basic, simple words like “wo” (me), “ni” (you), “mei you” (none), etc. I stood up, picked up the textbook and opened my mouth – but nothing came out as I didn’t know how to read the very first word of that passage.
The teacher, bless her for being so patient, had to help me. After another three words, I was stumped again. More help from the teacher. And it went on like this for a while. I could sense my classmates turning impatient and I hoped that I would be relieved of my embarrassment.
It was the same in secondary school, so much so that when I was to sit for my O Levels exams, I decided to skip it entirely. I stayed home and studied my other subjects. Needless to say, I received an F9 for my Chinese O Levels exams. However, I never felt bad about this. I was just glad all those years of misery were over.
All my brothers and sisters (eleven of them) struggled with their second language and none, as far as I know, were any good in it, even now. I see the same thing happening with my nieces and nephews who are in school presently.I was fortunate that the English language was more manageable for me. I never really had any problems with it in school. In fact, it was a joy to breeze through English language lessons. I do not know why I had such an affinity with the language, given that my family spoke Teochew at home and hardly any English at all.
To be honest, despite my experiences with the Chinese language in school, I still feel it is good if one could be proficient in more than one language. However, I also feel we should not impose this on everyone. While I am ambivalent about how my personal experiences may have affected my self-confidence in my younger years, I would hate for others – children, especially – to go through what I went through.
The bilingual policy needs to be tweaked – and I am glad the Ministry of Education had looked into this. For some of us it may have come too late, way too late, but it is good that someone like the Minister Mentor has realised the shortcomings of the policy. I would not discard the bilingual policy, but I would want to make it optional. Only those with the ability to master the language should volunteer for bilingual education.
If the Minister Mentor indeed feels he has made a mistake with the policy, then perhaps he should also look into these other issues which have resulted from the policy as well. Language streamlining for example, led to dialects being banned from schools, television, and radio programmes. The resulting communication barrier between the older dialect-speaking generation and the younger generation brought up in an English plus mother tongue environment is an issue we should worry about.MM Lee’s admission at this time gives us an opportunity to take a more comprehensive look at the policy. We should see how we could fine-tune it, and look more closely at how it has affected society as a whole.
Source: The Online Citizen
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oh-oh...election must be very near liao
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Originally posted by angel7030:
oh-oh...election must be very near liao
And how do you propose to contribute anything of substance and value to this thread ? -
Originally posted by angel7030:
oh-oh...election must be very near liao
It's good that you feedback.Please replied with constructive comments.
Pls ... ...