Just some questions: Do you think a man can get a degree from University with 4,000 words? can become a president? a doctor? a scientist? a language teacher? a CEO?........ With 4,000 Chinese characters, all above can be in China.
However, the western countries also have their own problems. There's currently a significant number of western children or even adults who cannot spell properly or have grammer problems. And that's their native tongue. And its not like this is happening because they are influenced by another language, but rather, by not bothering to study properly. So I guess every country has its own problems.
Well this is interesting if I got you correctly. Just to clarify for you in case you are not aware of our Singapore education system. In Kindergarten, our children spend 2 years learing very basic Chinese, the class is mainly for children of various races, Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian and sometimes American and European, to intermingle and socialize and play among themselves. This is basically a period to help both working parents to care for their children when they are working and to give the maids perhaps more time to clean the house, etc. The children then proceed to a more formal education in primary school, which is six years and another four years in secondary school (high school), by which time they are expected to be able to read and write Chinese adequately. I suppose they should be able to read the Chinese newspapers. During all this time, up to five or seven other subjects, sometimes more for the better students, in the English medium are also taught. As I've said, unlike the monolingual system in China, which I believe every subject is taught in Chinese or Mandarin except a foreign language, in Singapore the Chinese language is taught as a separate subject in the second language, English being the main language for most schools. So there is relatively less time for students to be exposed to the Chinese language except during Chinese class. Now, as I have said in my earlier post, the MOE is cutting down on the number of Chinese words to be learned during school, which seems to be in line with your thinking. Whether each word is taught in the four aspects (which I take it to mean the four different sounds/pronounciation), I'm not too sure, but I would expect a good teacher to cover this. But how many words do you think should be the ideal minimum to ensure that students have an adequate working knowledge of the Chinese language and be able to read the daily newspapers? How do you ensure that they will not forget what they learn? The old fashion rote method of repetition does not seem to interest many of our students here. The current thinking seems to be what I have stated earlier - to relate students to what they enjoy doing most like using the computer, playing internet games, singing and music, cartoons, etc. Unfortunately, you seem to convey to me that you prefer the old methods and are sure that they will work under all circumstances, which is not the case in the Singapore context. If you can devise a method(s) to help students taking Chinese as a second language to learn fast, remember for life and enjoy, you would have done a great service which even Confucius will approve and admire!
to me....learning chinese is harder than learning english...though i speak chinese at home.....i had forgotten almost 80% of the chinese i learnt from standard 1 - 6...now i'm 15....but i have forgotten 80% in just 3 yrs...
The MOE of Singapore has a kind of misunderstanding that concerns what makes for happiness during teaching Chinese. The aims of your present-day method of teaching Chinese are avowedly ease and material well-being: shouter hours; a shouter week; more return for less accomplishment; more softsoap excuse etc. Do you really believe that your softening standards on Chinese bring happiness? All progress, all development come from challege and a consequent response. Without challenge there is no response, no development. So first you owe to your children the most demaning, challenging curriculum that's within their capabilities. Michelangelo didn't learn to paint by spending his time dooding. Mozart wasn't an accomplished pianist at the age of eight as the result of spending his days in front of a TV. Like Eve Curie, like Helen Keller, they responded to the challenge of their lives by a discipined trainning: and they gained a NEW HAPPINESS. Language learning is a kind of hard work. It's no sweet without sweat because happiness comes after suffering. Effecting method is a good method in spite of "old" or "new". According to the trait of Chinese charaters, "concentrative" learning Chinese characters during of a short period is only way, otherwise the level of Chinese of Singapore is going to go down ceaselessly.
------------------------------------------- The more a society becomes, the more likely decadence will set in. Look at Western countries. I dont think the richer overseas Chinese can accept the type of hardship endured by East Asians. th esame thing will happen to China, already seen in Shanghai.
True, but whenver we see an untruth we should rebut, otherwise as they say in business, an untruth left unchallenged will eventually become the truth. That is what separates the first world from the third. of course there is also repression to consider.
mandarin language capability has been important factor in bussines world in indonesia, if you can speak (understand) mandarin, u will be easy to find a job