Singapore’s bilingual policy: a success or setback?
-
Singapore’s bilingual policy: a success or setback?
By Nicholas Tan
Long regarded as the crux of Singapore’s financial, political and national success, the bilingualism policy has come under the limelight recently, all thanks to Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s apology for his mistakes in the policy.
When the policy was meted out four decades ago, Mr Lee said: “if we were monolingual in our mother tongues, we would not make a living.”
Nobody can deny the fact that as a result of learning our sciences and mathematics in English, we can go almost anywhere to further our education and earn a living as a scientist or a lawyer. MNCs and research companies have no qualms about setting up regional bases here and directly contributing to our economy. However a further prognosis of Mr Lee did not quite materialize. He predicted that ”Becoming monolingual in English would have been a setback.
We would have lost our cultural identity, that quiet confidence about ourselves and our place in the world.” Regrettably, the younger generation has already shown signs of that much unwanted setback despite NOT being monolingual. We might, with some difficulty, claim to be bilingual but we are definitely not bicultural. The younger generation has lost interest in the Chinese language because of the way Chinese is taught in schools: rigid, boring and meaningless. Chinese literature and culture are out of the question if students loathe the medium of instruction. It is hardly perplexing that most of us know nothing about cultural heritage and identity.
What might be happening? A fundamental principle of our governance is that education keeps up with economic growth and society. Consequentially, we learn a language if it is beneficial to the country, regardless of personal interest. For instance, we learn mother tongue to promote communication and economic cooperation with other countries.
The Chinese language is emphasized in particular because the government wants Singaporeans to leverage on the rapid growth of China. The problem occurs when the pressure on students comes in the form of ‘forced’ learning of the written and spoken forms of Chinese over a short period of time in order to ‘keep up with the economy’. Our ‘comprehensive’ Chinese education lasts from primary school to pre-university education (JC/polytechnic), after which hardly anyone reads or writes Chinese anymore. At best, we use a mixture of Chinese and English in our daily conversations in addition to losing almost all writing and reading skills. Is this the kind of attitude and level of Chinese literacy desirable in a population expected to deal with native speakers of Chinese?
It would be exaggerated to claim that we are all jaded victims of the bilingualism policy, for I consider myself a relatively grateful survivor of the policy. I enjoy speaking and writing Chinese and it still surprises me how some of my peers abhor the language.
Learning Chinese was not enjoyable because one had to go through the rites of dictation and ‘ting xie’ year after year. It was a chore, a pain, but it gradually became bearable as I was moulded by being around Chinese-speaking friends and grew to like Chinese music and Taiwanese entertainment shows. These seem like trivial and silly reasons but they all point to the fact that to learn Chinese, one has to enjoy the process. Make it ‘fun’, as Mr Lee Kuan Yew puts. However, learning Chinese should not be achieved by removing the arduous process of ‘ting xie’ and ‘mo xie’ (it’s not madness, really.) Instead, the focus should lie on inculcating interest in the language out of a school setting.
Family and friends play an important role in shaping one’s attitude towards the language. For example, it helps that families try to speak Chinese at home to help students habituate into speaking mandarin. It is not easy to create a whole new environment around the student, one that facilitates enjoyable learning of the language, but learning a new language is not meant to be effortless.
The top PSLE student this year came from Guangzhou in 2006 and began learning English here. She attributed her success to ‘library trips and encouragement from family and friends to speak English’. Furthermore, she admits that there were no short-cuts to learning a language. Her achievement proved that language learning is hard work; lowering standards or removing burdensome procedures of writing do not solve the problem. I also caution against excessive use of English in teaching Chinese because the two languages are very different in nature and by using English, we are conveying the message that there are ‘equivalents’ in Chinese for everything in English and vice versa.
They all sound more like restrictions than advice to learning a new language. Well, not every individual has a flair for language learning and we have all come to realize that some people are more bilingual than others. Apart from the dearth of a conducive environment for learning Chinese, more commonly there is a lack of motivation. It is impressive to read about people who push themselves to the limit to learn 8 or more languages, all out of passion, but it is idealistic to expect such ardor in our students. Why not separate students into groups of ‘I love Chinese’ and ‘I just want to get it over and done with’? It would be nice to reward passionate learners with the chance to learn more and guarantee release for the uninterested after imparting the most essential ‘knowledge’.
We need to replace the image that Chinese is just another subject one has to mindlessly memorize for twelve years before throwing it away with a precious gift of heritage. For the few who have suffered under the bilingualism policy such that their talents went unrecognized and emigration was the only way out, it is sad to see them forsake valuable cultural assets for the development of their limitless aptitude.
In the earlier years of Singapore’s independence, the situation was reverse. There was a greater proportion of mandarin-speaking families and we were figuring out ways of better grasping the English language. How did we become better at English over the years? Encouraging families to communicate more in English and gradually shifting from Chinese-medium schools to English-medium schools were some contributing factors. As much as these changes improved our English, they reduced Chinese and other mother tongues to mere subjects like mathematics. Could there be a similar reversal in favour of the Chinese language? Bilingualism was borne out of Singapore’s need to operate globally and ‘retain’ cultural identity; it is time we put more effort into its second objective.
About the Author:
Nicholas was born and bred in Singapore. Like most other Singaporean males, he ad undergone primary, secondary, JC education and full-time national service. Currently, Nicholas is an undergraduate of the University of Western Australia.
-
My conclusion of PAP's bilingual policy is that it is a complete disaster and a total failure.
It is rare to find a government implementing such rubbish policies.
After Lee Kuan Yew is dead, our historians must sternly criticise Lee Kuan Yew for his rubbish policies, so that future generations can learn from his mistakes.
-
Originally posted by angel3070:
My conclusion of PAP's bilingual policy is that it is a complete disaster and a total failure.
It is rare to find a government implementing such rubbish policies.
After Lee Kuan Yew is dead, our historians must sternly criticise Lee Kuan Yew for his rubbish policies, so that future generations can learn from his mistakes.
later first half sentence chinese and the second hald sentence englishor
enlglish first then chinese continued
in future no more singlish just some alien language come out
-
Originally posted by whycannot:
later first half sentence chinese and the second hald sentence englishor
enlglish first then chinese continued
in future no more singlish just some alien language come out
The languages in our country totally messed up and corrupted by the imbecile policies of Lee Kuan Yew.
It is hard for me to put in words my feelings on this issue and about Lee Kuan Yew.
-
Originally posted by angel3070:
The languages in our country totally messed up and corrupted by the imbecile policies of Lee Kuan Yew.
It is hard for me to put in words my feelings on this issue and about Lee Kuan Yew.
first - is people supporthalf way - money to brainwash
lastly - power to control
so china emperor most of them - kena overthrow by their own people and not their enemy what
-
Originally posted by whycannot:
so china emperor most of them - kena overthrow by their own people and not their enemy what
Actually Lee Kuan Yew also corrupted me. Before I knew about history of Lee Kuan Yew, I was more compassionate.
But after I studied Lee Kuan Yew I realised that sometimes it is necessary to kill people.
-
how abt ppl who are half pail in english and half pail in their mother tongue, but still wanna take up a "third language"?
-
Originally posted by FireIce:
how abt ppl who are half pail in english and half pail in their mother tongue, but still wanna take up a "third language"?
those people would be very confused in their thoughts and speech cos their mind totally messed up by the language they had to learn.permanent headache for them
-
Originally posted by whycannot:
those people would be very confused in their thoughts and speech cos their mind totally messed up by the language they had to learn.A child from young can only be trained in ONE language.
After the person has grown and mastered that ONE language, then it is possible to move on to learn other languages if there is such a need or desire.
If you train a child in two languages from young, the end result is complete rubbish.
That is basically the story of the imbecile and incompetent policy of Harry Lee Kuan Yew.
I see this Lee Kuan Yew, I only see filth.
I can see nothing else when I see Lee Kuan Yew.
Only filth.
-
Originally posted by angel3070:
A child from young can only be trained in ONE language.
After the person has grown and mastered that ONE language, then it is possible to move on to learn other languages if there is such a need or desire.
If you train a child in two languages from young, the end result is complete rubbish.
That is basically the story of the imbecile and incompetent policy of Harry Lee Kuan Yew.
I see this Lee Kuan Yew, I only see filth.
I can see nothing else when I see Lee Kuan Yew.
Only filth.
ur own assumption or c&p from somewhere?
do u even know that s'pore aint the only country that taught more then just one language from young? Uk and most europe schooling does that too....
the problem with our 1/2 pail standard is a result of poor teacher or limited teacher equip with the proper knowledge to teach language....
imagine having A1 student like Ris low teaching ur kids english..... how good can ur kid proficiency b?
sometime, i wonder why i bother reply to ur posting... just pap basher...
-
Originally posted by EarlNeo:
the problem with our 1/2 pail standard is a result of poor teacher or limited teacher equip with the proper knowledge to teach language....
I don't think that is the cause.
-
Originally posted by EarlNeo:
sometime, i wonder why i bother reply to ur posting... just pap basher...
There is a reason why I bash PAP.
I don't anyhow go and bash people.
I bash PAP because of their rubbish policies and not because the policies are from PAP and so they are rubbish.
-
Originally posted by angel3070:
I don't think that is the cause.
but yet u believe that bilingual policy at young is bad? when almost every developed country practice that?
hoe many pri school teacher u know of speak with proper diction and write without grammar or spelling mistake?
most primary school teacher never even attended uni... not that it is needed or required. Do u even know how the selection process or the requirement need before u can teach language in primary school?
-
Why blame PAP here and there when we have the chance of learning an extra language? I benefit from this policy because I am now working in China and I am earning a very decent salary + house+ cars+ plane+maid+travel++++++++ because I speak both English and Chinese well.
I will continue to earn this salary until one day our neighbour country or Chinese local can speak another language. I am not making statement for you to envy me, attitude and environment are most important in helping our kids with the learning process. If my parent did not encourage or provide me with the environment to learnt Chinese, I would not have been able to find such employment in China.
If we Singapore citizen compliant of this billigual policy, we probably will end up doing those low paying job at home while our PR will be our bosses! At least , for me, I draw a good salary and I pay for someone to keep my house clean back home in Singapore!