Abstract
<p>Bilingual education policy in Singapore permits the students learn both English as working language and mother tongues, such as Chinese, as L2 anchoring to culture heritage. Starting from historical and sociolinguistic reasons, this paper is intended to provide a panoramic view of Chinese education in Singapore, clarify and compare Chinese education syllabi on different levels from primary schools to pre-university schools, cover social movement support on promoting Chinese learning and use in this multilingual society. Meanwhile, Singapore’s success in bilingual education cannot hide its own problems. The status of Chinese dialects, the competitive role of English, the rational and practicality for proficient bilingual users, the choice of teaching methodologies between L1 and L2, are all remaining open to further discussing and probing for language policy making and modification in the future.</p>
Highlights
Singapore, a multicultural and multilingual society since its inception as an independent country, is comprised of three major ethnic groups in the following relatively stable proportions: 75% Chinese, 13.7% Malay, 8.7% India and 2.6% others (Department of Statistics, 2008)
We have explored Chinese education in Singapore’s bilingual education context, explained and compared the similarities and differences between syllabi on various levels
Should the Chinese dialects, such as Teochew, Hokkies, Cantonese, be wiped out of linguistic repertoire completely? The Chinese education policy and Speak Mandarin Campaign, which make Mandarin as the standard Chinese language learnt and used in schools and society, have made young generations of Mandarin speakers unable to communicate with their dialect-speaking grandparents
Summary
A multicultural and multilingual society since its inception as an independent country, is comprised of three major ethnic groups in the following relatively stable proportions: 75% Chinese, 13.7% Malay, 8.7% India and 2.6% others (Department of Statistics, 2008). It is one of the most developed and globally connected countries in the world, second only to the USA as the most competitive economy (World Competitiveness Yearbook, 2007). With regard to language education, Singapore is worldwide known because of its success in bilingual education, which demands Singaporean students study both English as the first language (L1) and their mother tongue (Chinese, Tamil or Malay) as the second language (L2). In this paper, we try to give a view of Chinese education in Singapore, explore the issues of Chinese linguistic environment and education in the context of bilingual policy, explain its historical and sociolinguistic reasons, clarify and compare Chinese education syllabi on different levels from primary schools to pre-university schools, cover social movement support on promoting Chinese learning and use in Singapore society, and some related issues and problems
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