Mothering our tongues.
I’m quite bemused by this whole mother tongue issue, especially after having read a few forum letters written by parents who claim they were forced to migrate so that they could give their children a better, Mandarin-less future in a country where they would not be forced to study a language that they not only cannot speak, read or write, but have no interest in learning.
I’m amused that the Ministry of Education, having jumped the gun in announcing that it was looking at adjusting the weightage of Mother Tongue (which, by the way, is not just limited to Mandarin but also includes Malay, Tamil and other minority languages) in the PSLE, quickly backtracked after pressure was applied by the legion of Mandarin teachers in its stable and sought refuge in the motherhood statement that its earlier statement had “created the wrong impression”. Funny, I think it was very clear what kind of impression we were supposed to get in the first place.
I would have been happy to see the weightage reduced, simply because my kids have as much interest in learning Mandarin as they do bird-watching or deep-sea fishing. Contrary to MOE’s nomenclature, their “mother tongue” is not Mandarin. It is English. English is the language of entertainment, of education, of interaction. Mandarin, on the other hand, is the language of struggle for everyone in our family. It is despised by K, who does not like having to tutor Alison in her homework because he is the only person who can read more than 10 Chinese characters. It is mangled by me, not having any formal education in the language. It is abhorred by Alison, who has written “I hate Chinese” all over her wardrobe door in fits of frustration while doing homework. As for Zoe, she mixes up the smattering of Mandarin she knows so that it sounds like a cross between Elvish and Klingon. The one with the strongest command of the language in the house is the Besta English/Chinese electronic dictionary, whose abilities were bought for a pretty penny at Popular Bookstore.
K and I are very realistic about our expectations of the girls when it comes to Mandarin. It may well be the rock on which their dreams of higher education in Singapore are smashed. There are already signs that things are worsening. After getting stellar results in the subject in Primary One, Alison is now having issues as the syllabus gets tougher. Even though she attends Mandarin enrichment classes, it’s not enough to simply learn the subject on an academic level. To do well, she has to live, breathe and be interested in the language the same way she has English for the last eight years. And that is an impossibility.
But will we actually consider leaving Singapore just because of this? I doubt it. If people are going to uproot their families because of a language policy, well, more power to them. But being forced to learn Mandarin is not the same as being forced to live with ethnic warfare. Besides, it’s not like learning Mandarin is bad for a kid. Au contraire, learn it well and he is likely to become a poster boy for doing business with China; which, as you know, is very important to Singapore. But if your child’s abilities in the language are more accidental than oriental, there’s nothing to do but help him make the best of it. Hopefully, he will come out on the right side of 50 in each exam to get him through 14 15-16 years of formal education in Singapore.
Comments (4)
This is one of those things that I tell myself “argh, it’ll be years before any of these MOE educational stuff matters to me” but knowing well that both the hubby and I SUCK big time at the language I’m actually starting to get a little concerned.
We were supposed to start integrating mandarin into some of our meal time conversation for the benefit of the little ones but that hasn’t quite caught on (i.e. we forgot a couple of days in a row and it basically *lapsed*). I’ve seen how my friend’s kid struggles with the language but she’s a bright one and gets by – just barely though.
Well I do have another 3-4 years to look into getting that green card…
Eh, 14yrs of education? 6yrs pri, 4yrs sec, 2yrs JC = 12yrs. Or are you counting pre-school. Anyway, not to fear, you can always send them to live with their aunts for university in London or Canada ha! (Though one hopes of course that errrr the uncle/aunt situations would be more amenable than history might suggest)
It should be 15-16, which includes 3-4 years of university education.
i agree with your sentiments. but the reason i’m commenting is that i am very taken with your ‘more accidental than oriental’ comment. how clever!