Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew says the way in which Mandarin is
taught in schools here is wrong.
Speaking at the official opening of the Singapore Centre for
Chinese Language, Mr Lee says the government has to change the way
in which Mandarin is taught in school.
And he says making it fun, is the way to go.
Claire Huang reports.
Capture the interest of the children.
This is Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's advice to all Chinese
language teachers.
During the half hour speech, he recounted his insistence on
bilingualism in the earlier years.
Mr Lee said it was this insistence that caused generations of
students to be put off by the language.
"Any language in the world began with speaking and
listening and we started the wrong way. We insisted on "ting xie,
me xie" (memorising paragraphs of text). Madness! We had teachers
teaching in completely Chinese schools and they didn't want to use
any English to teach English-speaking children Chinese! Turned them
off completely."
Mr Lee added that he's come to realize no one can master two
languages at the same level.
He also said that languages are best learnt in a person's
childhood.
Admitting candidly that he started on the wrong premise, Mr Lee
said he's now trying to set things right.
And the right way to do it is to capture the interest of
children.
"Use IT, use drama, use every possible method to
capture the interest of the children, and it doesn't matter what
level they reach, they will like the language, it's fun, and later
on in life, they'd use it."
The Singapore Centre for Chinese Language was set up in February to
train Chinese language teachers.
It also includes research on how to make the language more
appealing to an English-speaking audience.
And now, it will work with four local and overseas institutions to
offer degree programmes in teaching methods and curriculum
design.
--938Live