Chinese Learning

Learn to listen and speak, not just memorise and write. Make chinese learning fun and interesting.

Those were the basic outline of his speech at the opening of the new Chinese Learning Centre that provided a totally new module from the usual vocab memorizing and chinese word tests we are so used to in Primary School.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew emphasized the need to engage the student's interest at a young age. He quipped that learning a language starts from hearing, listening then speaking, the writing part comes at the later stage.

He is resolute to change the current module to fit in this teaching method. It will also be extremely handy in future conversations with Chinese especially in times of China's emergence as a market giant.

The minister mentor expressed his regret that in the old days, students were forced to read and write, and memorize many words without knowing why. This, he said, totally turned off the students at a very young age, causing them to lose their interest when learning Chinese in Secondary school and junior college. Some even turned off the language for life.

He was confident that the basic to learning a language is to first have interest in it. Only with interest, the students can be more actively involved and enthusiastic about learning the language.

On the other hand, will this new module affect the student's writing abilities?

Besides speaking, the government must make sure there is a healthy balance of lessons aimed to improve the students' writing and reading ability. The future trend of information transmission is no doubt, the internet, and emails will most likely hold an extremely important position in the students' lives in the future.

Chinese is just like English. Learning and memorizing new vocabulary is an inevitable process so that the students have enough word-bank to use when suitable as they grow up and work.

Reading is equally important, contracts, letters of request, reports, proposals etc. might turn out to actually be an significant part of the students' lives in the future.

The government's main concern is that writing and reading and learning new vocabulary is too difficult for the mediocre batch of students, resulting in total turn-off in the subject. This is a correct issue to tackle, but the government must take note not to cripple those not so verbally well-versed, but extremely talented in writing group of student's platform to further develop their talent.

It may be more difficult for the students to adapt from oral-speaking Primary School Module to a totally different secondary school module, where tests, memorizing and learning new vocabulary dominate the spotlight. If the government wishes to change the Primary School module, it must take note to smooth the transition between Primary School to secondary school.

There are also other ways to make lessons more interesting. For example, teachers can create fun and interactive flash games like the Freddie Fish game I enjoy tremendously when I was young, but include a academic content related to the syllabus where after the game, they learn a ten new words + a new sentence structure. At the end of the day, they learn what normal lessons can offer them yet have fun and find lessons interesting. Why not?