Learning Mandarin in Singapore is Soooo Soooo HARD!!

I did an informal survey with my colleagues on this topic. It seems that their nephews and nieces who are currently attending primary and secondary schools are not interested in Mandarin and simply pass the subject as part of the academic pursuit. When I look around at my own friends, I see those who scored A1 for Mandarin in school but have since turned into a "rusty" C5 now. Ask any Mandarin teachers if their children are doing just as well as them in their Mandarin grade and chances are, they will be a handful who detest the subject.

So to be fair and balanced, I think it's timely to call for new methods to re-invent the interest on this subject and preserve our culture. We should not change the weightage of Mandarin in school examinations because if a student can score "A1" in school for Mandarin and deteriorate into a "C5" in their work life, there wouldn't be any more safety net. Further, our human nature- often being practical, will dictate that students who are already not interested in Mandarin will simply stop learning, thus making the situation worse. I mean, of course the last thing that any bright student would want is to get the following grades in their examination (if they can have it their way....);

English- A1
Mathematics- A1
Science- A1
Geography- A1
History- A1
Chinese- F9

.... and kiss their scholarship goodbye!

Enough of me now, listen to Mr Brown's podcast as he present this hot topic in a hilarious way joking about the new initiative to teach Mandarin in Singapore.
Click Here to listen.