[lg policy] A former Singapore scholar speaks out about his bilingual education

[Harold Schiffman]

The Beauty of Singapore
Tag it:Written by Wen Bin Zu
Monday, 23 November 2009
 A former Singapore scholar speaks out about his bilingual education

I am a typical byproduct of Singapore: a Chinese who can speak
Mandarin, passed Mandarin classes but can still barely read and write
the language well enough to be considered proficient. Technically I am
illiterate. And, while that may not speak for all of us, there are
sufficient numbers to justify the label "typical." This has become an
issue because Singapore's founder, former prime minister and Minister
Mentor Lee Kuan Yew openly acknowledged last week that the 40 years of
bilingual language policy he put in place was "wrong." Today, he says,
that policy started out on the erroneous assumption that it was
possible to master two languages – English and Mandarin, the latter
for the majority Chinese community – equally well, and that Mandarin
was taught at a too difficult level that "turned students off
completely," he said. In retrospect, he said, Chinese language
teachers should now make learning the mother tongue fun.

That was quite an earthshaking statement. And, as has always been so
typical of Singapore, you can bet your mortgage that Chinese-language
teachers will find a way to turn their ever-so-routine and regimented
lessons into something seeking to approach fun almost overnight –
because Singaporean citizens and institutions almost never fail to
recognize the hidden message from the larger-than-life Lee senior: an
instruction has been delivered. Or have you not noticed the word
"now"?  The public acknowledgement blew my socks off. Since when was
Mandarin, also commonly known as Putonghua in other parts of Asia,
taught at a level considered too difficult? Chinese compatriots in
China, Hong Kong and Taiwan would certainly challenge that premise.
And why is the officially branded "second language," Mandarin for the
Chinese Singaporeans, (ethnic Indians and Malays receive language
training in their own native tongue) always termed the mother tongue
when English is the official first language and business language?

"What exactly is your mother tongue?" That is a long story, I thought,
and where should I start?  For starters, the bilingual policy was not
the only thing that went wrong. Let's shoot back a few decades, when
Singapore introduced several eye-catching policies that for decades
will affect its education system and the future of its human
resources, its only and most treasured "natural" resources according
to the government. There was the controversial streaming of students
in the late 1970s into three classes – Special, Express and Normal -
at the age of… 10!?

Debatable as it may have been, and it is still in practice today with
even more subdivisions, it pales in comparison with another more
daring stroke in the 1980s: the policy aimed to encourage and reward
the highly educated to have more offspring and to encourage the
less-educated to keep their children to a minimum. There were a few
short-lived experiments, such as one introduced in the mid-1980s
whereby the whole class got to wash school toilets during their
physical education lessons, simply because the then Minister of
Education was impressed during an official visit to Japan that
disciplined Japanese students did exactly that. This is perhaps one
education-related policy with the shortest shelf life but at least
manufacturers and sellers of toiletries and toilet-washing equipment
had a windfall.

But not all the social engineering policies were flawed, controversial
or in bad taste, at least to the rest of the world. The senior Lee
decided in the early 1980s to boost Mandarin proficiency and usage and
banned dialects on television and the movies for double dosage, and it
was perhaps seen as a master stroke in the present context. So
effective was this policy that the majority of those under the age of
30 today hardly know any of the multitudes of Chinese dialects. Did I
tell you that when the senior Lee gave instructions, he was always
taken very seriously?

Now back to this bilingualism fuss. What happened to the typical lot
-- me?  When I was in school, I knew all along that I needed at least
a pass in English to gain entry to the local universities although it
was fine to fail in Chinese. That has since changed to a mandatory
pass in both. Fine after all since the mother language is the only
class taught in a different, secondary medium – told you the mother
tongue issue was confusing!  And here is where Lee Senior missed the
point with what he said last week: motivation and not fun is the key
to learning a secondary language.  Look at Hong Kong in the mid-1990s.
Not only did few people speak or understand Putonghua then, most
scorned those who spoke it and labeled them as inferior. Ten years on,
as China has catapulted itself into a recognized, serious economic
power, the general public of this former British colony has suddenly,
successfully and openly embraced and learned the language.

The main driver is obviously motivation – driven by economic reality
and practicality. By the same token, if France were to become the next
super economic power, you could certainly expect to find "Bonjour" and
"Merci" commonplace in Hong Kong. And why else did so many of my
classmates and friends in Singapore learn Japanese in the 1980s? It
was again, motivation – pushed by the perception then that Japan was
to be the next super power. When I was in school, in fact we studied
but did not learn the Chinese language. Memorizing and dictating
Chinese phrases and idioms, often without emphasis or even a proper
introduction or explanation of the origins, are not only a rigid and
regimental approach to education (okay, this is true for many parts of
Asia as well) but a real turn off for me – so MM Lee was right on
this.

I was also always relieved I could replace Chinese words I could not
write with pinyin – officially HanYu PinYin, the romanized system for
the Chinese language and often used as a way to spell Chinese words in
foreign publications. Now was that not simply brilliant for the
typical me? The Chinese essays that I always dreaded in school became
somehow manageable – I have more romanized letters than Chinese
characters in my Chinese essay and I can still score a pass! Did I
tell you I love Singapore?  In my Singaporean school days there were
English-dominated schools and Chinese-dominated ones. The former meant
the school had strong English cultural roots, where almost all
students spoke English among themselves and most likely did at home.
Many of these schools are easily recognizable by their names, such as
"Saint" this and "Saint" that, "Convent" this and "Holy" that. The
latter, a minority, is where the Chinese language prevails. In my days
in school, one was scorned and outclassed if he or she spoke Mandarin
or dialects in an English school – you will often find a mixture of
languages these days – so again, where is the motivation?

So was the bilingual policy wrong after all? I certainly do not think
so. What Lee Kuan Yew did was to attempt to take a polyglot Chinese
community made up of Cantonese, Fujian and Hakka among others and, in
a bid to weld them into a single community to give them a common
mother tongue that basically belonged to all of them - Mandarin. He
reinforced the bilingual policy that started some 40 years ago by
encouraging the use of Mandarin and the avoidance of dialects within
the Chinese community. And he ordered a ban of dialect programs on
television and radio in the early 1980s – a move so effective it
explains why those under 30 now barely know much of these dialects.

On my part, I wish I had learned Mandarin well and to be as proficient
with it as I am in English since it is considered my mother tongue
after all. But what I experienced as a student, with only one subject
in Mandarin with the rest in English, as well as the other problems I
experienced above, was not motivating and perhaps a turn off.  So the
typical me is fluent in English, Singapore's first language, and able
to manage a decent conversation in my mother tongue. And I can
understand several dialects. That helps me a lot in my work,
especially where China comes into play, so long as I don't have to
read or write a Chinese document -- or read a menu, for that matter.
So I think I'm still blessed in some ways, as long as I don't speak
Singlish.  But that is another story, perhaps as a result of another
policy gone wrong.

http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2156&Itemid=195
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