.Monday, May 17, 2010 ' 11:15 PM Y
The policy of Bilingualism should remain as important, as there is no need to lower the weighting of Mother Tongue and hinder the next generation who may be less fluent in their Mother Tongue. As such, Mother Tongue language should be changed to how they are being taught to entice the interest of students and help them relate to their daily life.
Regarding the issue of the weighting of Mother Tongue in primary school has pros and cons to it. Students who have stronger foundation on Mother Tongue language will be of beneficial as they are ahead of others. These students usually are more confident in their Mother Tongue which could pose as an advantage to them to pull up their overall results.
However, students who come from English-speaking family may find it difficult and make it hard for them to score well. Therefore, they are required to grasp the basics of Mother Tongue by practicing and reading books to understand the meaning of a word or phrase. Thus, if the weightage is slightly lower than other core subjects (English, Mathematics and Science) will they put in more effort for the subject? This would definitely be a case to further consider when decision is being made to reallocate the importance of the subjects taken into account.
Students may find Mother Tongue difficult to learn and make it hard for them to enter a reputable secondary school. Moreover, they can barely cope with the increase in the difficulty of the Mother Tongue as the language competency gap keeps increasing until they find it hard to catch up and eventually give up.
Mother Tongue is our origin as we learn and communicate since young. Without Mother Tongue it would encompass as a handicap to the communication with our elderly. This is the cultural background that Singapore has, which is the multi-racial society. If Singapore were to do away with Mother Tongue language, Singapore would remove its advantage to convey moral values and cultural traditions in each race.
However, the Mother Tongue will still become a mere requirement for academic progress, rather than a competitive advantage in our future careers. This should not be put across the mind of the current or prospecting students as it would diminish the focus on the subject itself.
In addition, this could be probably link to the upcoming China economy which the Singapore government has establish it a need for its own people to be versatile in both major languages such as English and Mother Tongue. Thus, this has also led on to the movement of the Singapore government to emphasize on the importance of Mother Tongue language which they have previously remove from the act.
In conclusion, standing by Mother Tongue language makes us proud of our ethnic-society.
-Jasmine-Labels: Singaporeans Spilt On Mother Tongue Weighting
