Overcoming the Chinese wall

During the Rio Olympics, one of the sports we followed closely was, of course, badminton, since Andre is a badminton player. The epic match was the semi-final between long-time rivals - Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan. It was cathartic to finally see Lee Chong Wei beat Lin Dan at an Olympic setting (Andre has idolised Lee Chong Wei ever since he could hold a badminton racket). Unfortunately, the fairy tale was still not to be as Dato Lee was denied the gold medal once more by yet another China player - Chen Long.

The less talked about match though, was the one where Viktor Axelsen, in his first Olympics, beat titan Lin Dan in straight sets to clinch the bronze medal. That was a real shocker and prompted some to say, perhaps Lin Dan tanked that match cos he didn't want to stand third on the podium.

I don't know if that's true but it certainly made me sit up and notice the 22-year-old Dane. Then he talked to a Chinese journalist after the match and that nearly made me fall off my chair. Because Axelsen spoke to the journalist in perfectly fluent Mandarin.



Later, I found out that Axelsen had only been learning Chinese for the past two years. WAH! Colour me impressed. I showed Andre, who struggles to get even the intonation of basic words right, the video. He watched it, mouth open, and mumbled, "What am I doing with my life."

The Chinese language was a topic of interest in our household recently because Andre had just completed his 'O' level Chinese exam last month. Studying Chinese has always been an uphill battle for our kids, even for Lesley-Anne who basically memorised her way to a B3 in Higher Chinese. Andre has even less aptitude and interest. Let's just call a spade a spade - we're a jiak kantang family lah.

For the Chinese 'O' levels, Andre flubbed his oral component because the topic was on water polo and he had no clue what water polo was called in Chinese. So we were mighty relieved when the results came in and he found out that he had managed to pass his Chinese exam. Woohoo! He was whooping so loudly when he received the results in school that his friends thought he'd scored an A. 😂 Hey, different strokes for different folks, ok? Don't judge.

For us, we're satisfied with his grade so he won't be retaking his Chinese exam at the end of the year. But we were surprised to find out that 90% of his school cohort intend to retake the exam. Except for those who had already earned their A1s, most of the students want a second attempt to improve on their score. In fact, for students like Andre who didn't want to retake the exam, the school asked for a parent's letter explaining why they should be exempt.

Where do I even begin? Here were the thoughts that were running through my head:

1. After 10 years of learning Chinese, Andre's Chinese is still atrocious. What makes you think he can suddenly improve in 2 months? 
2. We prayed so hard for him to pass. In other words, pass = miracle. If he takes it again, he might FAIL. 
3. I dowan to pay for any more Chinese tuition. 10 years is enough. 
4. He has 6 other O level subjects where he has a chance of doing better in. Can focus on those instead of flogging a dead horse? 
5. Not everyone is like Axelsen.

In the end, I sent a polite version of this letter, thus marking the end of a chapter. Not that it's the end of Chinese in Andre's life, just the structured lessons bit. I'm sure at work or in life in the future, Andre will need to use Chinese at some point, and hopefully he'll be fine in this respect, outside of the academic environment.

Maybe the trick is just to find an Axelsen to play badminton with.

Higher Chinese and its implications

As an IP student, Lesley-Anne didn't have to sit for the GCE 'O' levels, as she had a through-train pass to Junior College (JC) (as long as she met the minimum requirements in her school exams). However, she did sit for one paper last November - the 'O' level Higher Chinese exam.

The results were released last Monday and... happiness! Lesley-Anne scored a B3 which we're absolutely thrilled about. This means that she won't have to take up Chinese as a subject in JC. One less subject to worry about, one less exam. That's always good news!

Those who have followed my blog from way back when Lesley-Anne was in primary school (gosh, that seems like a million years ago!) will know that Chinese was always a subject that she struggled with. We don't speak Mandarin at home and she had a pretty lackadaisical childhood, free from all kinds of enrichment programmes. Her kindergarten didn't even have a Chinese teacher for six months and it was only before she entered p1, that I realised just how appalling Lesley-Anne's Chinese standard was. That's when I engaged a Chinese tutor for her and even then, it wasn't very intensive.

All things considered, Lesley-Anne has always done ok in Chinese but it's certainly not one of her strengths. It was the only PSLE subject she didn't score an A* in but we weren't expecting anything more. Then came secondary school, where all the students in her school had to take Higher Chinese. Wah, how to cope when she didn't even take Higher Chinese in primary school? Nevertheless, she gamely said she'd give it a try. Call it foolhardiness. Or maybe ignorance really is bliss.

So she plodded along and it was TOUGH. She had to attend remedial classes. She had Chinese tuition. She was called up for prep tests because she performed below the cohort's average. Her compositions were probably 'Dick and Jane' compared to some of her classmates' Shakespearean sonnets.

Thing is, we as parents weren't too anxious because we could see how much effort she put in. And that's why we're so delighted that she managed a B3 - she earned it through sheer dogged hard work. Sweat and tears.

This part of Lesley-Anne's journey is now over but I was pondering the polarising topic of Chinese in Singapore schools. There's the pro camp and the anti camp. And then there are those who are so terrified of it that they will find all ways to avoid it, especially at PSLE. Yes, I'm talking about the group that are exempt from Chinese. As far as I know, there are a couple of ways to be exempt from Chinese - 1) the child is away from Singapore for a minimum number of years 2) the child has been medically diagnosed as having a disability in languages (usually dyslexia).

I want to stress that most of these cases are absolutely legitimate. I'm not suggesting that anyone is faking a disability to get out of Chinese, especially since the condition has to be certified by professional psychologists anyway. But I find it amusing to hear anecdotal accounts of how in certain schools *ahemmissionschools*, by p5, there is suddenly a sizeable number of kids being sent to the psychologist because their parents are convinced they have a learning disability in Chinese. Or how some parents, on hearing that they're being posted back to Singapore from an overseas stint, will ask for their posting to be delayed/extended so that their child can hit the minimum period to be exempt from Chinese.

All these accounts demonstrate just how much the PSLE and Chinese are dreaded. To me, the situation is made worse by how MOE has chosen to remain very vague about the issue. When a child is exempt from Chinese, how is his t-score calculated? Here's MOE's reply to a question on their website:

Q: Would pupils who are exempted from offering Mother Tongue Language at PSLE be at a disadvantage as compared to those who offer the subject at PSLE?

A: No. These pupils’ PSLE aggregate scores would be adjusted so that they are neither disadvantaged nor advantaged.

Translation: Nyeh nyeh ni nyeh nyeh! We're not telling!

It's truly a non-answer because it is not humanly possible to make sure that every student is not disadvantaged or advantaged. So parents start guessing and their guess is that, when you're exempt from Chinese, your fourth grade is an average of the grades of your other three subjects. If this is true, then if your child is bad in Chinese, this is a HUGE advantage. Not only does he get to count only the other three subjects which he's likely to be better in, he has one fewer subject to study.

There's no way of knowing if this is true but again anecdotally, looking at cases from my kids' classes who had been exempt from Chinese, it seems to bear out. These kids have generally gotten higher t-scores in comparison to other kids in class with a similar standard of English/Math/Science.

If this is true, then my personal opinion is it's not really fair lah. To prevent any over-zealous parents from exploiting this loophole, MOE should do something like say, all those exempted from Chinese will be given a Chinese grade equivalent to the AVERAGE of the cohort. Or something like that. Then these parents will really have to consider if it's worthwhile trying to get that exemption.

What I don't get though, is why Mother Tongue continues to be given special treatment. No, Chinese Nazis! I'm not saying Chinese is not important! Of course learning Chinese is important. But consider this: at PSLE, those who ace Higher Chinese are given two extra points for SAP schools. Which I accept as fair cos it's only two points and only for Chinese schools. But then comes 'O' levels and those who pass Higher Mother Tongue (HMT) are given two extra points for admission to JC.

I'm sure everyone will agree with me that two points for JC admission is a WORLD of difference from two points at PSLE. Cut off point to the top JCs is in single digits. Two points can be as much as 33.3% of your L1R5 score! The message is this: HMT is not just important, it is the MOST important subject. Why not special recognition for English? Or Maths? Or Science? To me, this is baffling.

You can't sell me the argument that it's to encourage kids to take HMT because in JC, if you haven't taken HMT, it's compulsory to continue MT lessons at H1 level. Which is somewhat like HMT at 'O' levels. And the HMT kids would already have the advantage of not having to go for any more MT lessons in JC, freeing up their time for other subjects.

To me, this is an instance of how some education policies have not evolved with time. Maybe in the old days, two points didn't make much of a difference, and not that many kids take HMT. But in today's very kiasu and very competitive landscape where people chiong down to the last decimal point, it becomes yet another area for kids, parents and teachers to strategise, so as to get the better of the system.

I know the Chinese subject is a hot potato. Let's see if anyone in MOE is brave enough to raise the issue.

The day chivalry died

I know I haven't blogged about Andre in ages. I guess there are limitations when a kid hits secondary school:

1) The frequency of funny incidents has decreased since he has matured (somewhat).

2) He is less inclined to let me blog about incidents as he has grown more self-conscious (slightly).

3) Even when there are funny incidents, I think twice about whether to blog about them because part of me thinks, "Alamak!  How come he's still so childish?"

Nevertheless, I know that a few years ago, the funny perspectives of Andre were what many readers looked forward to on this blog, so I decided to write one just for old time's sake. This dialogue took place last year, during Andre's PSLE year and was told to Lesley-Anne by their Chinese tuition teacher.

Incidentally, their lao shi is a darling. She's animated, engaging and always tries to make the Chinese language interesting.  Even though she sometimes expresses exasperation with Andre (she equates teaching him to playing ball: "他好像在跟我打球一样. 我教他什么，他就打回给我."), she finds him hilarious.

This was a particular conversation that kept her in stitches.

Lao shi: "以后你要照顾姐姐." ('In the future, you should look after your sister.")

Andre: "呵! 不要! 以后我找个男人给她就可以了." ("Hah! I dowan! Next time, I'll just find a man for her.")

Lao shi: "可是，如果有人要欺负她的话，你一定要保护她." ("But if anyone tries to bully her, you have to protect her.")

Andre: "不用啦! 她的这个 (shows fist) 很强!" ("No need lah! Her fist is very powerful!")

Big sisters rule!

Shanghai-ed!

Right after Andre returned from Ho Chi Minh, Lesley-Anne left for a two-week immersion programme in Shanghai. Kids are more jet-setting than their parents these days.  Since I'm summarising Lesley-Anne's trip in one post, I'll be very selective in the photos and places she visited.

Shanghai is an extremely cosmopolitan city. Here is a model of the entire city which is both amazing and scary - see how built up it is.

Here's a pretty interesting building - it has a built-in thermometer!  It was uncharacteristically chilly this November.  This was before it rained. After the downpour, the temperature dropped to 15 degrees celcius.

Here's a night scene of the famous Bund.

The kids went up the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower in the Pudong District. Up to 2007, this was the tallest structure in China until it was surpassed by the Shanghai World Financial Center. 

At any of the three observation decks, you can enjoy a panoramic view of Shanghai.

What creeped me out though was the glass floor. You can't make me stand on it like the students did here - the illusion of falling is too terrifying.

A trip to the Shanghai Museum to view its rich collection of Ancient Chinese artworks and historical artifacts.  Here's a Mongolian chess set with intricately crafted pieces.

A jade carving

As it so happened, Lesley-Anne was fortunate enough to catch a visiting Russian exhibition called World of Faberge with exquisite pieces from the Kremlin Museum, including this opulent Faberge Easter Egg.

As a community service module of their programme, the students had to visit a childcare centre to teach the kids English.  Lesley-Anne said it was clearly a centre for rich kids as the facilities were fabulous. Look at the music room!

The kids were uber cute and precocious - here they are acting as shopkeepers.

One of the highlights of the trip for Lesley-Anne was the overnight trip to Hangzhou, a three-hour drive from Shanghai.  Known for its natural scenery, Hangzhou and its iconic West Lake (西湖) have been immortalised in Chinese poetry and art. Since June 2011, the West Lake has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Butterfly Lovers Bridge (many couples congregate around this romantic spot).

Another popular tourist destination in Hangzhou, the Running Tiger Spring (虎跑).

In the evening, the students were treated to a performance, Impression West Lake. Directed by Zhang Yimou, the story is loosely based on the Chinese classic, Madam White Snake. Words cannot express how spectacular it is. With typical Chinese ingenuity, the lake is transformed into a live stage and the actors seem to dance and float on the water to an ethereal soundtrack.

Lesley-Anne couldn't take good pictures cos it was too dark but do check out this promotional video  - it's quite, quite magical.

Finally, here's a look at the school where Lesley-Anne attended classes. She even sat in physics and maths classes conducted in Chinese (which she said were pretty scary)!

Lovely surroundings. Since this is in a suburban part of Shanghai, it's much more peaceful and less congested.

The dormitory is in a building next to the school. Basic but comfortable.  The tv only broadcasts one channel though, haha. 

Overall, it was an eye-opening experience for Lesley-Anne. Although two weeks is relatively short for an immersion programme, living and studying with PRC kids for two weeks is a fantastic way to understand a different culture and improve your Chinese!

The PRC students were extremely welcoming and hospitable, and went out of their way to make their Singapore counterparts feel at home. Because the education landscape in China is even more competitive than in Singapore, the poor PRC kids admitted to having no life as their days revolved around studies. When they didn't have school, they often did self-revision.

Soon after she returned, Lesley-Anne kept in touch with her Shanghai buddies via Chinese emails and QQ, the China version of Facebook. Friends across cities - truly, we live in a borderless world.

"Tell me about your school turtle"

So PSLE finally begins, with the oral exams last Thursday and Friday. Oral with Andre is a touch-and-go affair as it depends largely whether the topic given can trigger his imagination. Even though the weightage for the oral component (especially for Chinese) is pretty high, it tends to get relatively little attention. I know his school hardly practises oral with students except closer to the exams and I tend to neglect it with Andre as well, simply because I have no idea how to go about it.

Thursday was his Chinese oral. My heart sank when Andre came home looking upset and said it was quite difficult. The picture was a road scene which was not something he had practised much with his tutor. He couldn't use any of the phrases he had learned and he didn't know the Chinese names for a couple of items in the picture.

For the conversation topic, the examiner asked, "What are the school rules you like and dislike the most?" I thought this was a very odd question and my first reaction was pure relief - that Andre actually understood the phrase "校规"! (As you can tell, the Chinese standard in this household is not very high).

My heart almost stopped when he told me that initially, he didn't hear the teacher's question clearly and thought she was asking something about turtles. Thank God he asked her to repeat the question as I wouldn't put it past him to start rattling on about turtles. Phew.

His reply? He liked how you can't cross the roads in school until the teacher directing traffic indicated that you could as that showed the school's concern and care for the students. The rule he liked the least was that even after the exams, you're not allowed to talk in class.

I was rather impressed, not that his answers were particularly insightful, but by his ability to think on his feet. If it was me, I'm pretty sure I would have been stumped. I thought the second answer was hilarious - I hope the examiners were entertained!

Friday was English oral and according to him, it went ok. The picture showed a charity foodfair and the conversation topic was a school activity that he had participated in. He spoke about taking part in the school's funfair and when asked what he learned from it, his answer was teamwork.

So for now, this part of the PSLE is over. I don't think it went as well as he'd hoped but I'm fully aware that it could have been worse. Much worse.

Lesley-Anne's sec 2 report card

Lesley-Anne's exams took place two weeks ago and just as she has done ever since she entered secondary school, she took on the planning and revisions entirely on her own. Which was a good thing, considering I was knee deep in house preparations and work, and had absolutely no time to watch over her (except to yell out "jia you!" whenever I remembered).

I always thank God that I have a motivated and sensible daughter whom I can trust to manage her own studies. Her year-end exam results are:

English & Lit - 81/100 (A1)
Higher Chinese - 130/200 (B3)
Maths - 90/120 (A1)
Science - 80/100 (A1)
Geography - 47.5/50 (A1, highest in class!)
History - 39/50 (A1, second highest in class!)

While she has generally been diligent, I sense that for this exam, she has finally found her groove in note-taking and study techniques, to optimise learning. That, I feel, is more important than the results themselves as it will put her in good stead moving forward.

Even though her Chinese results were the worst compared to her other subjects, we're actually pretty pleased with it. Over the past half a year, her Chinese has improve by leaps and bounds through sheer hard work and determination (and a very good Chinese tutor).

Recently, her tutor set her a mock exam paper without telling her it was actually an 'O' level Higher Chinese paper. Much to her own surprise, she scored A1 for it. A year ago, this result would simply have been unimaginable, when she was still identified by the school for Chinese remedial. Improvement is a great motivator.

PS Please don't ask me for the tutor's contact - I know her schedule is full and she already has kids on a waiting list.

We're very thankful and this marks a good end to Lesley-Anne's school year. By the end of this week, she would have completed sec 2. I know it's a cliche but gosh, time really does fly.

Isn't a B grade good enough?

In the blink of an eye, sec 1 is officially over for Lesley-Anne and she turned in very satisfactory results, in my opinion:

English & Literature: A1 (double weightage)
Higher Chinese: B3
Maths: A1
Science: A1
Geography & History: B3

We were especially pleased with her Chinese results. Having only taken Chinese as a 2nd language in primary school (and not being particularly adept at it), we were concerned over her transition to Higher Chinese. In the end, she not only managed to cope, she even attained a B3 grade for the year), which we thought was a great achievement.

You can therefore imagine my dismay when Lesley-Anne came home with a letter from the principal saying that she would need to sit for a preparatory test for Higher Chinese when school reopens in January because "she did not do well in the subject."

What??? They've got to be kidding, right? A 'B' grade for Higher Chinese, especially for someone who had not previously taken the subject, is considered unsatisfactory? I was miffed, to be honest. I felt that the school was setting the standard at an unnecessarily high level and putting additional pressure on the kids. I also found it difficult to believe that the vast minority of kids received an 'A' grade for Higher Chinese. Was Lesley-Anne's standard really so far behind other students in the school?

I made a call to a friend whose daughter is in the same school to find out if she knew anything. Well, the mystery was solved. According to her daughter, only students in the SBGE classes are subject to such preparatory tests. SBGE stands for School Based Gifted Education and it's an extension of the GEP programme in primary schools. Apparently for these classes, the kids are expected to maintain higher grades than the mainstream classes, so even a 'B' grade may not be acceptable (the preparatory tests are available for all subjects, by the way).

What I found particularly intriguing is that the schools continue to track and push the progress of the GEP kids even after they've left the programme in primary school. Is it so the school can lay claim to sterling results in national exams later? Or are they answerable to MOE for the continued performance of these kids?

I don't know and I find it odd that the parents were not briefed of this policy. I wouldn't have minded it so much if I was informed of the rationale and motivation behind such a practice. Definitely, the notice could have been written in a less draconian tone. (Parents were even asked to sign an acknowledgment form to make sure their kids study for the test. Ugh.) There was also no mention of the consequences should the child not pass the test, which is bound to create some anxiety.

It's a blip on an otherwise perfect record for the school in my books. Hopefully they can work on their diplomacy and transparency.

The tale of the agricultural village

Once upon a time, there was an agricultural village in a rich and fertile valley. To ensure the health of its children, the village elders mandated a daily diet of one portion each of meat, fish, vegetables and fruit for dinner everyday.

As the years went by, some parents found it more and more difficult to get their children to finish their portion of vegetables. The elders tried to make the vegetables more interesting. Instead of just spinach everyday, they introduced carrots and green beans. However, the problem continued. In some households, dinner time took twice as long because the children struggled to finish their portion of vegetables. There were fights and tears. Many children grew to hate the smell of vegetables.

The elders studied the problem and found that there were a growing number of such children. In fact, 1 in 10 children had a severe food intolerance to carrots. Some families had moved away to other villages because they couldn't keep up with the vegetable policy. The elders suggested, "maybe if we reduced the portion of vegetables slightly, that might help."

This caused a big furore in the village.

"You're threatening our livelihood! This is a conspiracy by the rich and privileged fishmongers!" roared the vegetable sellers.

"Vegetables are in our roots, this is how our village was founded! Villagers who don't eat vegetables should be ashamed of themselves."

"One portion each is fair! I hate fish, why should you only reduce the portion of vegetables?"

"The children are just spoilt, they should try harder!"

"They should have a better attitude towards vegetables!"

"It's the parents' fault, they should have force fed their children vegetables when they were babies."

"I had to grow up eating a portion of vegetables everyday! If I could do it, so can you."

The parents protested, "We're not saying vegetables are not important! But we want our children to love eating them. Forcing the children to eat one portion everyday is making them hate vegetables for life."

One parent chirped, "We moved here from another village! We don't have vegetable growers in our roots!"

Another added, "We moved here from a cattle ranch! We didn't even have vegetables available. It's a foreign food to my children."

Yet another said, "Why should you dictate how much and what we eat? It's a personal choice."

Others insisted, "My children have really tried their best but they just can't finish it. I even tried hiring a professional cook to make the vegetables more palatable. It didn't help much." (In fact, professional vegetable cooks were greatly in demand and a highly paid trade).

The uproar intensified. Both sides were shouting to be heard and it threatened to break the harmony of the otherwise apathetic village.

The elders retreated so quickly they left skid marks. "Calm down, everything remains the way it always was. Maybe within the next 5 - 15 years, we'll look at adding bok choy to the vegetable mix."

And thus, another generation of vegetable-hating villagers was created.

THE END

From the mouth of a Chinese tutor

You must be sick and tired of hearing me blather on about this Chinese at PSLE issue but something interesting happened over the weekend that I'd like to share.

My kids' Chinese tutor came over for the weekly tuition session and she told me that she'd read the newspaper article on Lesley-Anne in the Straits Times. My first thought was, "uh oh... she's not gonna be happy."

To my utter astonishment, she went on to say that this was a good move by MOE. She says she has seen so many kids struggle with learning Chinese and unable to cope with the standards, which has eroded the love of the subject. To her, Chinese isn't really their 姆语 (mother tongue) as they never grew up with the language or spoke it at home. In fact, it's closer to a 外语 (foreign language)!

I was floored. This is coming from a lady originally from China, whose livelihood depends on teaching kids Chinese (which she has been doing in Singapore for more than 15 years). If even she can see the sense of reducing the weightage of Chinese at PSLE, that makes for a strong case indeed because nobody can accuse her of being biased.

On a particular forum, some of the pro-status quo folks are crying foul, saying that the gahmen is bowing to the wishes of a small minority (rich and influential implied) and parents should just have the foresight to instill a Mandarin-speaking environment at home from young so that their kids grew to be "naturally" adept in Chinese.

First of all, saying English-speaking folks are a minority is laughable. As at 2010, the rate stands at 60% of Singapore households. By no stretch of the imagination can that be considered a minority. Secondly, not everybody can (or want to) transform their households into Chinese-speaking ones for the sole purpose of having their kids perform better in Chinese exams. And what about those who realise this too late? Those who rigidly insist on not giving this group of kids a helping hand are basically saying, "well, your parents didn't do the right thing, so serves you right."

The double standards on this forum thread are blatant but I don't think the posters even noticed. One said the children should just adapt to the system (so why don't they adapt to the revised system?) Many said the gahmen shouldn't cave to parents who complain (umm... sure sounds to me like they want the gahmen to give in to their complaints now).

As the posters continue to feed off each other's frenzy and fan the flames, it has become very ugly the last I checked, degenerating into wild accusations, mailbox spamming and petty name-calling. Isn't that how mass hysteria starts? I'm always appalled by the immaturity of Singapore's online community.

I think some people are losing sight of the fact that MOE is simply announcing a reduction in the weightage of Chinese assessment at PSLE. The way they're foaming at the mouth, you would think that MOE is proposing a complete removal of Chinese from the syllabus. And MOE has already clarified that those who can do well in Chinese will be supported and given opportunities to cultivate their strengths in the subject.

I have lots more to say but I think I've belaboured the topic long enough. I'll climb down from my soapbox now.

Revisiting the assessment of Chinese at PSLE

Lesley-Anne was featured in the Straits Times yesterday (if the print is too small to read, click on the image):

If you've read my original post on this topic in March, you will know how thrilled I am by the news that MOE is looking at reducing the weightage of Chinese at the PSLE. It's like someone took a look at my wishlist and decided to grant it.

As expected, there are contrasting reactions to this announcement, and on such a controversial topic, you can bet there are heated arguments flying in all quarters. Afterall, we talking about something which up to this point, has been a sacred cow in Singapore education - the bilingualism policy.

To me, this move is long overdue. I've already detailed in my previous post why I think it needs to be done. In this post, I want to elaborate on this, specifically in response to arguments made by those in the opposing camp.

1. If we drop the weightage in Chinese, we're sending the message that Chinese is not important.

We're confusing the issues of exams and learning. Unfortunately, in exam-intense Singapore, many parents and kids have become so skewed in our focus on exams that we judge the value of a subject by how much it will count in the exam. This is a mindset problem, not one of policy. If you are one of these tunnel-vision people, then so be it, but national policy shouldn't be dictated by such myopia.

However, I have enough faith in people to believe that there will be parents who will still recognise the importance of Chinese (not difficult, given China's position) and together with schools, help children learn Chinese well, without the burden of acing Chinese exams. Pragmatists who are all for learning Chinese so that they can work in China will be the first to tell you that you don't need exams to indicate what's important.

2. Kids won't bother to study Chinese anymore, hence causing standards to drop and loss of our cultural roots.

Riiiiight... as opposed to our wonderful Chinese standards now? Compared to the mainland Chinese, our Chinese is pathetic. My kids' Chinese tutor from China once said to Lesley-Anne (in Mandarin), "No need to say that your Chinese is not fantastic. Everyone knows that the Chinese of Singaporeans is not fantastic." She wasn't being condescending, she was just stating a fact.

Raising Chinese standards has nothing to do with assessment. The solution is to design the Chinese curriculum so that it builds proficiency in the language, especially spoken Chinese. This, MOE has been striving to do for the past few years, by revamping the syllabus so that it's more interactive, relevant and customised towards different levels of ability.

On the flip side, I'll tell you what's the fastest way to make a child hate Chinese and renounce his roots. Make him swot for hours everyday for six years and then find out that he still does badly in an exam which determines his future school. I guarantee you Chinese will come to represent everything negative to the child, for a long time. Trust me, I've been there.

Yes, granted there will be a group of students who will take the opportunity to drop Chinese like a hot brick but I'm guessing this group has already more or less given up on the subject anyway. If you reduce the exam component, I feel there's a better chance that these kids will not hate Chinese, even *gasp* find it fun, since there's less at stake.

3. Reducing weightage is taking the easy way out, kids should just work harder at Chinese.

I'm pretty certain that people who say this are those who never had difficulty learning Chinese. It's not as simple as "if I can do it, so can you." If you are a size 2 model who can feast on a chocolate buffet and still fit into your skinny jeans, it's so easy to tell a chubby woman who can put on weight simply by looking at a doughnut ad, "Why don't you go on a diet?" (though she'll probably whack you into tomorrow's dining room with her over-sized bag).

In short, it's a predicament you won't understand unless you've experienced it. Unless you have spent days, nights and weeks slogging at Chinese idioms and characters until you want to cry, and still go into an exam not understanding the questions, you simply won't get it. It's always more convenient to glibly dismiss other people as lazy or not putting in enough effort than to admit that perhaps they were disadvantaged to begin with (because that would mean we were advantaged somehow).

I personally know of kids who have put in more time and effort into studying Chinese than all the other subjects combined and still score barely passable grades. These are otherwise bright kids who do very well in school. Both Lesley-Anne and Andre have had Chinese tuition since they were in p1, the only subject they have tuition in. If effort = results, shouldn't they both be doing better in Chinese than their other subjects by now?

I'm not saying effort counts for nothing, of course it does. A lot. But when it comes to learning languages, it's not entirely a question of effort. It's partly how the human brain processes languages - it's different from say, learning maths or science, and some kids, especially boys, are unable to do so optimally, exacerbated by a non-conducive home environment. I have friends who think Chinese can just be learned as easily as other subjects. Incidentally, they're all fluent in Chinese and grew up in Chinese-speaking families. Coincidence? I think not.

4. The move would put Chinese-speaking kids who are weak in English, at a disadvantage.

Actually, I can't argue with this one. But it's difficult to make a case for reducing the importance of English, simply because it's our official language. English is the language of business and instruction in Singapore. There is simply no good enough reason to reduce its weightage in assessment, whereas Chinese is a second language. Why should it be given equal weightage as a first language?

And my gut feel tells me English, being a Romanised language, is more straightforward to learn than Chinese. It's probably one of the reasons why you often hear of Chinese kids struggling with Chinese and Indian kids struggling with Tamil, but seldom Malay kids struggling with Malay. I know a few Malaysian Chinese who picked up Malay easily but couldn't learn Chinese. Notice it's not as if they spoke Malay at home. While I applaud the abilities and tenacity of China kids who come to Singapore with zero English and become adept at it within three years, I can't help wondering if the road would be more arduous if they had to master say, Hindi or Thai. I know it's not politically correct to say this - just verbalising what many people believe to be true.

Anyway, even if I agreed that Chinese-speaking kids might be disadvantaged by this move, it is not a valid point for keeping the status quo - you don't make policy just so that everybody can be equally disadvantaged.


I think arguments for issues like these something get confused amidst the rabble because there are too many vested interests at stake. I suspect for many opposing parties, the real reason they don't want the changes is because they're strong in Chinese and they fear that the revised policy will erode their advantage (or it's coming too late for them and they want others to suffer as they have). But wanting others to fail so that you can succeed is just kiasu-ism at its ugliest. Let's not go there.

I will be the first to confess that I'm not completely impartial either because obviously Andre stands to gain from the new revisions (if they're implemented in time). That's why I thought I should look at the opposing arguments and present what I hope are credible responses to them.

I couldn't have said it better than someone who wrote to ST Forum: "Our examination system should recognise a pupil's strengths, not penalise his weakness." There you have it, folks. At the end of the day, this issue is not about who gets to benefit more, or which faction we should support. It's about making the assessment system as fair as possible, so that there are minimal casualties.

Let's change the way Chinese is assessed at PSLE

I've been mulling over the Chinese issue for a while now. When MM admitted publicly that he was wrong to assume that people could master Chinese with equal dexterity as English, I thought to myself, "Finally!"

Hordes of people will tell you that they've known this to be true for decades but nothing was done to help them. Just ask all my convent counterparts. Many of us only had tuition in Chinese, yet we continued to struggle with this subject. In school, I was always pretty good at my studies but I just couldn't master Chinese. We came to the conclusion rather quickly that you simply cannot become fluent in a language by swotting (we were all the jiak kantang types, our only exposure to Chinese was scolding from the characteristically fierce Chinese teacher for our total non-comprehension). Then came the inevitables - phobia, even extreme hatred, for the subject and the inadvertent sigh of relief when we finally passed the final compulsory exam for Chinese. No more Chinese!

Or so we thought. Sometime during the past two decades, China became an ecomonic powerhouse and there was a resurgent interest in all things Chinese, if only for pragmatic reasons. Suddenly, it was fashionable to be Chinese and in Singapore, more Chinese started realising the value of embracing their Chinese heritage.

In education, things changed too. The Chinese syllabus underwent several evolvements, slowly the focus shifted from the written to the spoken language, from mundane rote memorising to more interactive and relevant methods.

All this is great but you know what I found? Like me, my kids STILL struggle with Chinese. Despite all the changes in curriculum, the hard sell, the soft sell, my kids face the same problems I did 30 years ago. And this struggle has pushed them to the precipice of hating the language.

I thought long and hard about it and came to the conclusion that changing the Chinese curriculum is not enough to change the mindset of our kids. One of the biggest hurdles in my mind is the assessment approach, particularly in primary school. I find the issue less daunting in secondary school partly because the kids are more mature and also in secondary school, there is less pressure to ace Chinese. At the primary school level, for some inexplicable reason, instead of instilling the joys of learning and discovery, the kids are put through a rigorous channel aimed primarily at acing exams, culminating in the PSLE.

The PSLE is a strange animal. To do well in the PSLE, a child basically needs to ace or at least fare above average in every subject. There's no concession. You can't really do very well in one subject and hope to pull up bad performance in another subject, it just doesn't work that way. Because the scores are all in relation to others in the cohort, a bad grade in one subject completely drags your T-score down.

From where I'm standing, this is bad news for kids who struggle with Chinese. You see, unlike maths or science, I believe it's much more difficult to simply study your way into an A* for Chinese. In Lesley-Anne's GEP class last year, two very bright kids scored less than 245. Both have this in common - they are non-Chinese taking Chinese. It was the Chinese that pulled their scores down, despite having spent much more time on this subject than the other three put together.

I think this is such a shame and sends the wrong message. We should be applauding these kids for having the gumption to take up Chinese. Instead, we are basically penalising kids who for various reasons, their Chinese will never be on par as the Chinese nationals or those who speak Mandarin at home. There is another backlash - more and more parents, especially those who have been abroad, are trying to seek Chinese exemption for their kids for PSLE because they know it would be highly disadvantageous for their kids to sit for this dreaded exam. Our system is deterring them from even attempting to learn the language because unfortunately once you do, you will have to sit for the exam and God knows, your PSLE score can have such a great impact on your choice of schools and your future.

So here's my suggestion: if education authorities truly believe that Chinese cannot be "studied" so easily and want to promote the love of the language, then reduce its importance at the PSLE. Calculate the T-score based on either the four subjects OR the three subjects without Chinese, whichever is higher. The latter is what is currently being calculated for kids exempt from Chinese anyway so it's not new.

This system is fair for who can ace Chinese and for those who can't, without putting pressure either way. If the authorities are afraid that kids will then throw Chinese to the wind altogether, put a minimum requirement, ie you have to still pass Chinese. This is similar to the O level system. I think conversely, once the pressure to ace the exam is off, kids can focus on actually enjoying the language.

I think it could work - anyone from MOE listening?

Higher Chinese

We have been trying to inculcate a love of Chinese in our kids, which is no mean feat considering I can barely read a primary level Chinese textbook. Thankfully, despite our rather haphazard methods and many mistakes, Lesley-Anne has not developed an aversion to Chinese. In fact, she can even lay claim to having interest in the Chinese culture and language which is nothing short of a miracle, I think.

This interest will be of paramount importance to Lesley-Anne because *deep breath* she will be embarking on Higher Chinese in secondary school. It's a huge leap of faith for her, considering she didn't take it up in primary school (leaving a couple of our friends scratching their heads, thinking we're crazy). Let's just say, nothing ventured, nothing gained and if she truly can't cope with it, she can always choose to drop it later on. We're not putting pressure on her to ace the subject - as long as she can emerge from the experience with a greater love and appreciation for the language, I would consider the venture a success.

So anyway, we have been encouraging her to read more Chinese books over the holidays and as usual, interesting Chinese stories seem to be terribly hard to come by. After some trial and error, she found a series which was pretty interesting, so I decided to share it here, in case other parents face the same problem.

This is a book she found quite engaging. Once again, as per my previous observation with Totto-Chan and Les P'tite Poules, the interesting Chinese books tend to be those translated from another language. This is the Chinese version of Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert O'Brien, a Newbery Medal award-winning book which tells the tale of Mrs Frisby, a widowed field mouse, who enlist the help of a group of former laboratory rats in rescuing her home from destruction by a farmer's plow. The rats had previously escaped from the laboratory and developed into a literate and technological society. Fascinating story.

According to Lesley-Anne, the other titles released by this publisher are also generally quite good. This is another she borrowed but has yet to read. It's originally in French but I couldn't figure out the name and author of the book. I think it's Reynard the Fox (which is a famous wily character in French folklore).

Lesley-Anne picked these books because she loves reading about animals but there are also other types of stories. Do check them out! I would place the reading level at about 11 to 13 years old.

Totto-Chan - in Chinese, no less

I've mentioned before that we don't read enough Chinese books in this household. I'm always mindful that the habit needs to be instilled but you know, we just never get to it.

Part of the problem is picking the books. When we're at the library trying to sort through the ineligible (for me) shelves of books with Chinese squiggles, it's always "too hard", "too simple", "got hanyu pinyin", "too boring", "too history book", "too moralistic" or something else.

So when the Chinese tutor lent Lesley-Anne this Chinese book to read over the holidays, it was a welcome gesture.

It's actually the Chinese version of the famous Japanese children's book, Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window. For the uninitiated, the book is a memoir by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, a Japanese UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, who wrote about her unconventional education during World War II at Tomoe Gakuen, a Tokyo elementary school. The protaganist Totto-Chan was expelled from a regular school for disuptive behaviour but was recognised by Mr Kobayashi, the principal of Tomoe Gakuen, as an imaginative and curious child with a thirst for life's wonders. From her eyes, the reader sees the how Mr Kobayashi harnesses his unusual outlook towards learning and children to help his wards enjoy a happy childhood and appreciate the simple things in life despite the war.

Originally published in 1981, the book has been translated into numerous languages and remains the best selling book in Japanese history.

I've read the English version (in fact, I'm sure I have it somewhere but can't seem to locate it) and while it's a charming and heart-warming story, my frank opinion is that the style of writing is a little boring. I attribute this purely to the translated text - I'm pretty sure it's much more engaging in its original language.

The Chinese version holds more promise, probably because the Japanese and Chinese languages have more in common in terms of sentence structure and form than Japanese and English. Lesley-Anne is enjoying the Chinese version. To her, many Chinese books focus too much on the description of settings which is uninteresting whereas this book tells the story with much dialogue and in a more narrative manner.

So this is one of my rare recommendations for Chinese books. It's a fun story, though it's probably more suitable for girls. If you need some Chinese reading material for your kids, you might like to look this one up at the library.

Chinese composition part1

I'm going to do something very brave, go where I've not gone before... I'm going to post a Chinese composition!

I thought it was time, considering I've posted so many English compos and zero Chinese ones. The reason I've neglected doing so for so long is that Chinese doesn't come naturally in our household, even to Kenneth, who studied in a SAP school for 10 years. The best analogy I can give is that for us, using the Chinese language is like a very right-handed person attempting to write with his left hand. (For me, it's like using my left foot). My kids are definitely more adept at it than I am (which isn't saying much) but still, it requires lots of painstaking work and effort even to maintain a basic standard of efficacy.

It's a pity - the Chinese language is so rich in culture, I think we're losing a big chunk of our heritage due to our ineptness. So we try to encourage our kids to take an interest and hope that in time, they can see beyond the challenges of learning the language to appreciate its beauty.

Unfortunately, while I am adamant against memorising good phrases as a technique to teach English composition, both my kids do this for Chinese composition. The schools teach it this way and the Chinese language is such that so many of the nuances are so complex that they need to be learnt straight off. I suppose it's possible to develop your own style but my kids don't have strong enough a command of the language to do so effectively.

In p6, Lesley-Anne usually scored between 26/40 and 29/40, which is in the moderate range. For the composition below, she scored 32/40 which was her highest this year. The Chinese standard in her school isn't too hot, so probably pales in comparison with other schools, especially the SAP schools. Anyway, I'm just posting it here as a record of her work.

This is the picture:

Here's what she wrote (sorry, unable to type out - would take me a year):

"My tree bag is too heavy!"

Andre's SA1 results have been a hodge podge mixed bag. First, the good parts - he did well for his maths and English papers. In fact, he actually nearly gave me a heart attack for maths, coming home after his exam and wailing "so hard! I'm going to fail!" I was so concerned as maths is his best subject. False alarm, he scored 92/100, second highest in class. Woohoo! He did quite well for his English as well, except for composition. For doing well in these two subjects, he earned a McDonalds Happy Meal from his very generous form teacher.

Then the not so good parts. He missed his target of 80/100 for science. We were quite forgiving since this was the first time he'd sat for a science exam, but when I saw his paper, I was just baffled by some of the mistakes he made. Like this 3-mark giveaway question where he just had to look at the picture and fill in the labels:

When I asked Andre incredulously, "how is it you couldn't see that Plant A was IN the water, not floating on the water?", he replied, "I thought it was floating under water." Like huh?

But the subject that he scored lowest in was Chinese. I'm not sure if he even managed a Band 2. I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised, even though he came home and told me the paper was "a little bit easy" (he's completely off in his approximation!) He speaks Mandarin like an ang moh, the intonation seemingly random even for the simplest of words and phrases. For instance, instead of "吃鱼" (eat fish), he'll say "吃雨" (eat rain). My kids watch the Channel 8 Chinese drama 书包太重 but Andre will habitually say "树包", prompting me to ask, "what? you carry a tree bag?"

I was quite hopeful when he told me he got third for Chinese listening comprehension. He had scored 8/10.

"You mean no one scored 10/10?" I asked
"Have, some got 10."
"Huh? Then how did you get third?"
"Some got 10, some got 9. I'm the only one who got 8. One other boy got 7."
(Sound of me slapping forehead) "Alamak, so you didn't get third lah! You got second last!!"

During Chinese tuition, I've seen Andre place his head on the table like he's totally weary or stare gloomily at his book. His Chinese tutor is one of the nicest and most patient human beings I've ever met but lately, I've noticed that an edge sometimes creeps into her voice, possibly when she's explaining something to Andre for the thousandth time.

I don't envy her job. She's currently in China for a holiday, I think I'll spare her the bad news of Andre's results until she returns.

Are boys really better at math and girls at languages?

There's a common belief that boys are better at math than girls. Based on my personal experience with Lesley-Anne and Andre, I had accepted this old adage without question.

Well, guess what? A study by a team of scientists conducted on SAT and math scores from 7 million students in the US found that this belief is actually fiction, not fact. Whether they compared average performance, the scores of gifted children or students' ability to solve complex math problems, girls measured up to boys.

So why does this misconception persist? According to University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology professor Janet Hyde, the study’s leader, cultural beliefs like this are “incredibly influential.” “Because if your mom or your teacher thinks you can’t do math, that can have a big impact on your math self concept.”

It makes sense. Sometimes when a friend of mine says her daughter is struggling with math, I spout this glib reply, "Girls lah, they're not as good in math." So slap me now because apparently, not only am I wrong, I'm reinforcing the stereotype and adding to the self-fulfilling prophecy of these young girls - "I can't do this math paper because I'm a girl, I'm not as good in math. I'm not as good in math, so I won't be able to do this math paper." Doh!

I think it has partly to do with our eagerness to embrace the left brain-right brain theory, ie boys are more inclined towards left-brain work (logical, analytical) and girls are more right-brained (creative). That's why along with the boys-are-better-at-math belief, we have the girls-are-better-at-languages theory.

But you know what? The part about girls being better at languages IS true, at least in the early years. Researchers have found that this is due to the way words are processed. Girls use the language decoding portion of their brains, enabling them to decipher abstract information. Boys however, rely more on vision and hearing to process information.

Doug Burman, an aneuroscientist at Northwestern University’s Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory in Evanston explained, “For girls, it doesn’t matter whether you are reading or hearing the words, the information gets converted into an abstract meaning, an abstract thought. For boys, the research suggests it’s really going to be very important whether they’re hearing or reading words. That is going to determine how well they’re processing the language.” These results explain why girls consistently score higher than boys at language tests. But this advantage may taper off after secondary school.

While these findings warrant a separate post on catering to the different learning styles of boys and girls, for now, the lesson here is not to be so quick to dismiss your kids' learning difficulties as biological. Everyone is different. I guess I should have realised this from my own experience - I don't fall clearly under the right brian or left brain style. I'm reasonably good at math but suck at science. People tell me my English is pretty "powderful" but I couldn't learn Chinese to save my life.

So what does this mean? It means that human beings are so complex that we can't compartmentalise them into neat boxes. Even if something holds true for the vast majority, it may not hold true for us. We all have our unique strengths and weaknesses that are largely tied to our interests. If our kids are struggling in certain subjects, let's not be so quick to believe that these are beyond their abilities and instead, try to stir up interest in those subjects. Evidence has shown again and again that the kids who tend to do well eventually are not necessarily those who have the best talents but those who keep persevering.

Les P'tites Poules... in Chinese

This is another post on Chinese books. Lesley-Anne found this series of books in the library a few years ago and she thoroughly enjoyed them. It's actually a translation of the French series of books called Les P'tites Poules by Christian Jolibois (author) and Christian Heinrich (illustrator). The stories are of little effervescent chickens and their very funny adventures.

One of my quarrels with Chinese fiction books for children is that they either tend to be very moralistic or just plain boring. But this series is different (maybe because it's not originally written in Chinese!) The pictures are brilliantly animated, very reminiscent of the style of the Nicholas books (incidentally also by French author and illustrator). The storylines are so comical that you can't help laughing when you read them.

For instance, in Book 1, the story tells of Carmela the chicken who was not interested in learning how to lay eggs like all the other chickens in the coop.

She dreamed of going out to sea in search of magical creatures so she ran away one night. Unfortunately, she was caught by a pirate ship whose crew wanted to eat her, so she struck a bargain to provide them with eggs everyday if they would spare her life. Which she almost couldn't deliver since she never practised laying eggs! Hilarious.


Eventually she managed to find her way back to the coop with a rooster mate and they produced a little rebel of their own, Carmelito, who decided he wanted to own a star... and that's Book 2.

I estimate the books to be pitched at the lower primary level, so they're just right for Andre now. I have no idea what's the name of the series in Chinese but the title of the first book is 我想去看海 under the author Jolibois. I think there are 8 or 9 books in the series. At the library, if you find the first one, you should be able to find the rest.

Fun Chinese reading, thanks to Xiao Ding Dang

If you think Andre's English reading is dismal, wait till you hear about his Chinese. It's practically non-existent - limited to his school textbooks and assessment books. Once in three weeks, we go to the library and we'll borrow a whole armful of English books, plus the cursory Chinese book thrown in for good measure (and out of guilt). By the time the books are due, we'll be lucky if he even picked up the Chinese book, let alone read it.

Of course we parents are at fault too, Chinese is Kenneth's duty and he has so far only focused on getting homework and tuition work done. You probably can tell the lack of priority by the fact that this is the first and only post on Chinese since I started my blog half a year ago.

Chinese is just not my favourite topic - it's like a foreign language to me. This is despite having scored B grades at 'O' and 'AO' level Chinese, which only reinforces my belief that the Singapore system rewards those with exam skills because I say this in all honesty - that my pathetic standard of Chinese is somewhere between the p2 and p3 levels. I am a living example that the old methods of teaching Chinese HAVE FAILED. I sometimes hear people who complain about the new methods, that they place too much emphasis on hanyu pinyin or rely too much on English, yadda yadda. I think it's just the usual rejection of anything new and inclinations to hang on to tradition. To me, anything is an improvement on past methods which relied purely on rote learning, memorising and killed any love of the language. Kenneth took Chinese as a first language for 10 years, he was from a SAP school. Now, he communicates haltingly with the tuition teacher and his conversations are sprinkled with English. FAIL!

Just as I'm keen to improve Andre's standard of English through reading, I think it's important to foster his love of Chinese via reading Chinese books. The problem is Andre views this as work - reading + Chinese = double whammy. So when Adeline told me about the Xiao Ding Dang comics, I immediately grabbed at the opportunity to ask her to buy them for me.

Here they are, six volumes of Xiao Ding Dang comics for only about $4.80 each (why is it that Chinese books are generally so much cheaper than English books?) When I first showed them to Andre, he went "yay!" and then, "hah? why not in English?" At first, he only looked at the pictures, then later I made him read the Chinese and it wasn't too painful (after he'd gotten the hang of reading up and down, from right to left). The Chinese is pitched at just the right level - for lower primary so he knows most of the words (more than me *blush*). Plus the comics are in full colour and the stories are so funny. Here's one where everything from a book comes alive and Xiao Ding Dang and Da Xiong have to deal with a giant mammoth.


Of course I know that he can't just rely on reading comics forever but this is one small step towards cultivating an interest in the Chinese language. Thanks a million, Ad!