The Great Chinese Debate
I must say that I am intrigued by the recent letters to the ST Forum on the learning of Chinese. Many have argued against the rote learning style which teachers use now, and instead advocate for a 'free and easy' style of learning which caters to the students' individual needs, as well as enabling them to learn at their own pace. Through this, they argue that we will be able to cultivate the passion and love for Chinese in the students, and this is much more beneficial compared to stressing the economic advantages of learning Chinese.
To a large extent, I applaud the views of these writers. But then, I do wonder whether they themselves actually do know Chinese adequately. I must say that I totally agree that forcing students to mesmorize, and the stress on Chinese as a 'business language' is truly inadequate for the children - after all, they are still young so why will they worry about earning money and winning the 'rat race'? So yes, we should change that aspect of Chinese education.
However, I must profess that Chinese isn't like English, and that leisure learning isn't exactly that appropriate. For example, you don't need to mesmorise much in English except for the 26 alphabets and the grammar, but in Chinese knowing the strokes and how they are arranged are key. In my opinion, you need to know how to recognise the chinese characters first, before you can even attempt to use it.
Of course, many will defer by saying that that's just the reading and writing aspect of Chinese. There's still the verbal component after all. I don't deny that, but for verbal communication to work, you actually need to practise the language by constantly communicating to others in Chinese - that is the sad truth and it is same for English as well. However, for English, what we speak happens to be almost identical to what we write; but its not the case for Chinese. Yes, sad to say, Chinese as a spoken language is very different from Chinese as a written language. Because of this, it is often difficult to teach our students this, since English is still the main medium for all other subjects.
I have spoken to Chinese teachers about this issue of educating the students and raising their proficiency in Chinese, and many of them do understand the challenges. It is certainly not just the syllabus or the exams that teachers have to struggle with; it is actually the attitudes which the students themselves have. To motivate students in their studies is an intimidating chore - or at least that's what I feel so. It is certainly an arduous process, but it is definitely challenging. I haven't exactly spoken to my peers on their views of learning Chinese, but I suspect the same reasons will crop up - the teacher, Chinese being unglam, the lack of practise at home and of course the difficulty of it. Oh well, but I guess that's something that applies to almost all subjects, just that we don't exactly feel that in everyday life while Chinese is technically present.
I believe the debate will continue, and as usual people will argue about the pros and cons of having exams for the subject. Oh well, ideally of course I will say let's scrap exams (cause all students will be happy), but realistically I admit, exams are necessary, cause if there isn't any, how many students are truly that motivated to study on their own?
The bottomline that I want to stress is that for an effective Chinese education to work, we actually need to create an environment that constantly use and practise it. Mesmorising is definitely necessary - if not how do they write? But, parents can encourage their children to read chinese books, surf chinese webpages, read comics, etc. Ha, I advocate bringing cantonese dramas (with chinese subtitles) back cause in a way, it forces the person to learn Cantonese and also to read Chinese. Haha. But I guess this depends on individuals, as if you're totally averse to chinese, I guess you won't even tune in to a Chinese channel at all (unless your parents/grandparents do so).
P.S. I have no idea whether I am coherent at all. So please pardon me if I accidentally stepped on anyone's toes.
To a large extent, I applaud the views of these writers. But then, I do wonder whether they themselves actually do know Chinese adequately. I must say that I totally agree that forcing students to mesmorize, and the stress on Chinese as a 'business language' is truly inadequate for the children - after all, they are still young so why will they worry about earning money and winning the 'rat race'? So yes, we should change that aspect of Chinese education.
However, I must profess that Chinese isn't like English, and that leisure learning isn't exactly that appropriate. For example, you don't need to mesmorise much in English except for the 26 alphabets and the grammar, but in Chinese knowing the strokes and how they are arranged are key. In my opinion, you need to know how to recognise the chinese characters first, before you can even attempt to use it.
Of course, many will defer by saying that that's just the reading and writing aspect of Chinese. There's still the verbal component after all. I don't deny that, but for verbal communication to work, you actually need to practise the language by constantly communicating to others in Chinese - that is the sad truth and it is same for English as well. However, for English, what we speak happens to be almost identical to what we write; but its not the case for Chinese. Yes, sad to say, Chinese as a spoken language is very different from Chinese as a written language. Because of this, it is often difficult to teach our students this, since English is still the main medium for all other subjects.
I have spoken to Chinese teachers about this issue of educating the students and raising their proficiency in Chinese, and many of them do understand the challenges. It is certainly not just the syllabus or the exams that teachers have to struggle with; it is actually the attitudes which the students themselves have. To motivate students in their studies is an intimidating chore - or at least that's what I feel so. It is certainly an arduous process, but it is definitely challenging. I haven't exactly spoken to my peers on their views of learning Chinese, but I suspect the same reasons will crop up - the teacher, Chinese being unglam, the lack of practise at home and of course the difficulty of it. Oh well, but I guess that's something that applies to almost all subjects, just that we don't exactly feel that in everyday life while Chinese is technically present.
I believe the debate will continue, and as usual people will argue about the pros and cons of having exams for the subject. Oh well, ideally of course I will say let's scrap exams (cause all students will be happy), but realistically I admit, exams are necessary, cause if there isn't any, how many students are truly that motivated to study on their own?
The bottomline that I want to stress is that for an effective Chinese education to work, we actually need to create an environment that constantly use and practise it. Mesmorising is definitely necessary - if not how do they write? But, parents can encourage their children to read chinese books, surf chinese webpages, read comics, etc. Ha, I advocate bringing cantonese dramas (with chinese subtitles) back cause in a way, it forces the person to learn Cantonese and also to read Chinese. Haha. But I guess this depends on individuals, as if you're totally averse to chinese, I guess you won't even tune in to a Chinese channel at all (unless your parents/grandparents do so).
P.S. I have no idea whether I am coherent at all. So please pardon me if I accidentally stepped on anyone's toes.
1 Comments:
At 11:56 PM,
xiangZ said…
coherent or not, i do agree with you on many counts. esp. ur point on showing cantonese dramas with chinese subtitles! i think the learning of language has much to do with pride and assimilation. i remember liking chinese because i wanted to feel immersed into the chinese stories my parents and aunts used to read to me. similarly, my interest in cantonse now is so that i dun feel so left out in hk.
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