李光耀承認推行雙語教學政策錯誤

papa_pop

My interpretation of Lee's confession about his bilingual policy remains - that is, he is NOT referring the bilingual policy as a failure in itself.  What Lee meant is, the "way" Singaporean have been taught Chinese in the past few decades does not work to his expectation. I reckon, what he's trying to say (to the Beijing government?) is that hehad never thought his bilingual policy would have led to a decline in theChinese proficiency of his fellow Singaporean.

He admitted his failure as the way English being put as their de facto first language has belittled the importance of Chinese (and other languages).  By the way, isn't the "dominance of the English language" in the city state what Lee has intended all along since Day 1?

Now that Lee has increasingly shown his respect for the Beijinggovernment, that's also the reason why I said his confession carried apolitical gesture.  He said he'd spend the rest of his life reinstating the interest in learning Chinese among Singaporean.  And he's talking about pedagogy, not the policy.

So, guys, don't take Lee's confession as a confession as such.

iamfine

原帖由 papa_pop 於 09-12-3 12:02 發表
My interpretation of Lee's confession about his bilingual policy remains - that is, he is NOT referring the bilingual policy as a failure in itself.  What Lee meant is, the "way" Singaporean have been ...

Great post. Brilliant. The MM's self-revelation is just a modern version of the Confession of Faith to the new power.

papa_pop

Well, whether it's a political gesture could be subjective or judgmental.  But the gist is that I don't think he admitted the bilingual policy - in itself - was a mistake (as the headline suggests), but the pedagogy and expectation - the way the Chinese language had been taught and the proficiency level students were expected to attain.  

Now he realised the importance of interest in the learning process, and that a compromise should be made - emphasising "pinyin" and "word recognition" and attaching little importance to "writing" which is deemed unnecessary in the Internet world. In short, he is 'lowering the bar' so as to stem the declining Chinese proficiency among the younger Singaporean. True that the bar would be lowered but I doubt if the students' Chinese proficiency (or their interest) would be upped.

I am not inclined to say that one can master perfectly -  and equally well - two languages, perhaps with the exception of those really gifted and fortunate ones. But one can definitely be bilingual or multilingual - as are most of the Europeans, esp Dutch, Swiss, Belgian and Finn. (Please don't bother with the accent issue of Singlish or Chinglish). And Lee is multilingual though he confessed he still cannot speak Mandarin perfectly.

By the way, I've sent my kid to a so-called bilingual school but I would not expect him to be equally good at both languages. A working level of both is what I'm after. So far, he's doing okay in terms of speaking, listening and reading in both, though a bit weak in Chinese writing (improving).

papa_pop

I think Lee set out his bilingual education policy such that all Singaporeans possess 兩種語言能達到差不多相同母語級水平: with English MADE their common language and keeping their mother tongue (Chinese, Malay, Indian, etc).  He opined that one can never master two languages equally perfect.  He launched the Speak Mandarin Campaign 30 years ago to unify the Chinese language spoken by Chinese Singaporeans, closing down all dialect programs on TV and radio and making Mandarin the mother tongue of all Chinese Singaporeans.  He even asked parents to speak Mandarin (instead of English) to their children lest their next generation will lose it.

By the way, Lee is still upholding his bilingual education policy though he's kind of refining it to make it more 'balanced', which most (himself included) would consider a feat of his.  stccmc's contribution of balanced bilingual is worth consideration.

You despise the so-called bilingual schools for claiming "強調中、英俱佳，其實是誤導父母以為入讀的子女能建立雙母語能力，即英文及得上國際學校，而中文及得上本地學校。其實只是給父母們一個不切實際、虛假的夢"  As you said, one cannot be equally good at two languages. So what? And what for?  If  the kid is good enough to get a decent grade in two languages in IBDP, the parents should be more than happy.

Perhaps you are looking to tooHIGH an expectation of 'being bilingual'.  When you look out to Belgian, Dutch, Finn and Singaporean, they can definitely claimthemselves as bilingual or even multilingual.  Even when you take a look at our kids in some of the better HK kindies, aiming bilingual is not toofar-fetched as you expect.  In fact, some of the IS in HK are doing more and more toencourage bilingualism.

iamfine

Very well said papa.pop.

Apparently, "bilingual" means different things to different people.  To me, I am perfectly happy with English A at HL and Chinese A or B at HL (or even SL, as long as it is not Chinese ab initio).  As far as I am aware, not a single school in Hong Kong (included those bilingual schools and international schools) has claimed that they are planning to train their students to do two language A at HL.  If schools like FIS, JIS and GSIS are truly bilingual schools (I am not saying that they are not; in fact they are), what's wrong with SIS, Victoria or ISF preferring English+Chinese and calling themselves bilingual schools?  Is English+French, English+Japanese or English+German superior to and more bilingual than English+Chinese?  What I can never understand is some Hong Kong's readiness to belittle Chinese and to blindly worship English, to the extent that they jump on those who want their kids learn both English and Chinese naive and ignorant.  I also fail to understand why some people will choose to think that their kids' brains are not big enough to learn both English and Chinese well.  It may well be that 10/10 in English and 10/10 in Chinese is too hard to many.  So what?  Is 10/10 in English and 3/10 in Chinese necessarily better than 9/10 in English and 8/10 or 7/10 in Chinese?  What's wrong those with parents who prefer the latter?

By the way, Mr. you know who you are, welcome back.

[ 本帖最後由 iamfine 於 09-12-4 21:03 編輯 ]