It has since been announced by the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong, that there will not be any change in the weighting system. [2]

So why bring this issue of weighting to the table in the first place? At the outset, it is not Mother Tongue that gives the child a head start in his studies. We all know that. When a student fails his English language examination, he is doomed for the rest of his life at school. He can be great at Mathematics and Science subjects, but he gets nowhere near the next level without a pass in his English language; scoring D7 in English is worse than B4 in Mother Tongue. If you fail English, you fail as a student. If you fail your Mother Tongue Language, the system automatically kicks you out and into the less advanced group of students. Your child sees his grades and in the end he says, ‘I don’t like this subject?’. Any teacher will tell you, if you cannot win the hearts of the child to learn, you will never win their minds to learn it.

The working parents are also faced with the challenge to communicate only in English. The letters from the bank, bills and receipts are all printed in English. If you travel to Little India, Geylang Serai, Chinatown or Orchard Road on the train, passenger display screens in the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) stations are all written in English. When we tap the EZlink cards on those machines which seem to understand English, our balance is shown in numbers. Thanks for the invention of symbols and numerals, those who cannot read English is spared of the embarrassment of not understanding any English because the mind understands X means no entry or exit and a tick “✓” in green means ‘go or you are ok to go. A passenger who cannot read English is saved by just following others who go through the same route and listening to the friendly voices piping through public address systems speaking in four languages.

“Next station, Bishan Interchange. Passengers who are continuing their journey on the circle line please alight and transfer to Platform…..” If you do not understand the rest of the English used, at least you would have heard the name Bishan interchange. If it is your stop, you know you have to alight. Besides there are so many other passengers onboard you can turn to get directions from.

“对不起! Excuse me Miss ah. This one Orchard Lud?” (Singlish)

“Excuse me Miss. Is this Orchard Road Station?” (English)

“How come so long never come? Wait here for so long alleidy.” (Singlish)

“How come the bus is taking so long to arrive? I have waiting here for a long time already.” (English)

Highlighting the fact many Singaporeans speak Singlish (Singapore English) only results in young parents to keep encouraging their children to speak “better English” at home. Mother Tongue takes second place because it is not needed for them to cope with problem sums in Mathematics and Science experiments.

Children bring home lots of homework from school. It is so regular and constant that they cannot help but keep thinking only in English. Their jobs as students are done only when homework is finished. Children stay up every night finishing homework and preparing for the examinations at very young age, when they ought to be getting sleep. More homework means more time thinking in English. Parents are so anxious with their kids’ performance at school that they engage private tutors or send their kids to tuition centers, for English enrichment programmes. Again, more English is used.

Whenever Mother Tongue Language homework is brought back, it feels as if they have just fetched a distant relative from overseas at the airport.

Grandparents also start to join in the education process. When they take their grandkids to the playground, they too speak Singlish to their children. “If don’t speak English, dey don’t understand.”

Children learn very early at pre-school that of all the different languages spoken by people in Singapore, English is the most important.

Flashback: When Learning Was So Much Fun

When I was a kid, my neighbourhood friends do not speak English or Mandarin when we went out to play. together. We left our English at school. By interacting with other kids and their parents who do not speak English at home, we learn a few more words of Malay, Hokkien, Cantonese and Tamil. Our childhood is as colourful as the number of different languages we could speak and tease one another in.

Television, radio and the textbooks were our resources to get to know the English language better from home. Television programmes such as “Mind Your Language’, “Donny and Marie Show” and “The Brady Bunch” were great to watch because they showed native English actors and actresses. When the shows ended, we are back to speaking dialects and Mother Tongue with our parents and neighbours. We switched languages just as often as we transit from one activity to another. To get a storybook in English as a present is like receiving the Nintendo DS or Wii games.

At that time, my parents were already having issues with us speaking more English and Chinese (Mandarin and Hokkien) at home.  We did Mandarin! One could only imagine the frustration our parents felt when they had to deal with us in Malay. Thankfully, their spirits remained strong and they only spoke the language they know best, Malay. They left the teaching of these foreign languages to the others who know better.

What can we do to promote and encourage more people to speak in their Mother Tongue?

There can only be one answer. Start using the Mother Tongue more often and leave the English  to the schools and workplaces. Post your messages on Twitter, Facebook and on your mobile phones in your Mother Tongue. People from China post in Mandarin, people from India post in Hindi, people from Malaysia and Indonesia post in Bahasa Melayu and Indonesia respectively. So why won’t Singapore Malays, Chinese and Indians post in their respective Mother Tongue Languages?

When local Singaporeans post messages using their Mother Tongue, they make a mess of the language by typing in slangs, colloquial Singlish and acronyms.

“Cantik seh! Very de nice.”

“Wah! Where you got dat from? You come my house tonite sing want or not?”

Strangely enough, social networking is boosted because of such languages being used online. There is a sense of connection and belonging when you read your friends’ messages written in such a form. “From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Someone used to say this to me. That is so true with language. If you really need to make your point across, use the language that you are most comfortable with, not what people are most comfortable to listen to from you. At least if your language is broken, you still would have put your point across.

The wheel that spins to keep the social circle active is powered by the behaviour of the culture. It is what we do in groups. As individuals we are able to remove ourselves from behaving informally. Rather than writing in our Mother Tongue Langauges which we feel less confident in, we write in the English language which we have spent years studying and receiving certificates for passing it at schools.

Parents ought to encourage their children to continue speaking in their Mother Tongue Languages. In mixed marriages especially, it is important for the Asian spouse to uphold the roots of their native tongue by passing it down to their children at will. English is important but with language comes culture, and Asian culture is far too rich and remote to be described in just English language. There are many instances in Asian culture (food, fashion, style of doing things for business etc) that only Asian languages can be used to describe and explain.

[1] Google Results On This Topic : Mother Tongue Weighting in PSLE

[2]“Mother Tongue, the way forward”: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sketches out the Government’s thinking on the issue

There are several ways how the the man on the street is literally converted to think in English, irregardless of ethnic or racial background. The way the environment has taught man how to develop his own language skills becomes so common that Singaporeans only realise the value when they visit other countries like Arab, Thailand, Indonesia, France or Malaysia, where English is not the official language for state administration. Some of the common ways are highlighted below.

Road or street names.

Palembang (no longer found), Bugis, Geylang, Kandahar, Bedok, Serangoon, Toa Payoh or Pasir Ris. You know these names are unique because they cannot be heard anywhere else around the world except in the country you are visiting. To recognize them as street names, the word “road”,“street’, “central’ or “avenue” in English is used together. Hencforth Bugis Street, Kandahar Street, Bedok Road, Serangoon Road, and Pasir Ris Avenue. To name a few. Many locations still retain the Malay names: “Kampong Glam” – Kampong for Village, “Jalan Sultan” – not Sultan Road. History. “Istana Kampong Glam”.

Apartment blocks.

Residential apartments are marked by numbers and for each apartment block, the term ‘Block” is used. This is not the same as the ‘block’ used in American English. In America, block means a cluster of buildings, usually rectangle area, surrounded by many streets. “He lives in the next block” in America means “He lives in one of the buildings across the street ahead or next to this block.” “He lives in the next block.” in Singapore means “He lives in the block of apartments next to this one.” Be careful though, it does not mean that the block numbers are running numbers. So if you giving directions, be sure to qualify that you are not referring to a running number for “next block” but literally meaning ‘the block beside’. This is not Singlish but English.

Here is what Mr Sedlev thinks about Singlish:

“Regarding Singlish… The difference between Singlish and *Standard* English doesn’t exceed the difference between so-called normal Arabic and various dialects. Grammar of textbook Arabic also has nothing in common with the language spoken in the street. However both are regarded as two forms of one tongue. Given that language is nothing more than a tool of communication, it is absolutely acceptable that Singaporeans tend to accommodate foreign grammar to their mother language. At least, they speak for each other and basically not for foreigners.

But I think that those who love to deride Singlish simply don’t understand that it is a result of imposing a foreign language as a state one at national level. People may have different opinions on Singaporean Government policies, but its way of solving the language problem that has reduced inter-ethnic tensions is a good example for some newly independent states in Eastern Europe.”

Public address (P.A.) system in elevators and trains.

The regular announcements on p.a. systems are repetitive, regular and clear. It is one of the best ways to train our ears to listen and learn how words are pronounced because only voices with good diction will be used in p.a. systems. In the elevators, only English is used: “10^th storey”, “Going up.” Or “Going Down”. In trains, there are four different languages used: English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil – uniquely Singapore.

Utility and telephone bills.

The monthly bills every person receives in his letter boxes or mailboxes are written in English. If there were any literature attached like brochures, promotion materials or special offers, it is not uncommon to receive them in different other languages like Mandarin, Tamil or Malay. The ordinary folks who do not know how to pay their bills on the internet, with autoteller machines or giro (automatic debit) can still go to the general post office ( I used to do the same when I was a kid.) and the kind cashier takes cash for payment like the good old days. Many old folks do not read, write or speak English but they can read the fine print at the end the numbers they have to pay. Smart!

Food packagings.

Here’s a slideshow of some the common food items where English words can be found written on the packagings. (At this point, tears are beginning to well up in my eyes thinking how hard it must have been for my mother who had to learn to read English and still managed to put food on the table for over 80 years. So I created this small slide to show you what she might have learned. There must have been hundreds of food items she has picked up at grocery stores and supermarkets in her lifetime. I have only managed to add 6 to this slide.)

How do you think the old man who has been drinking ‘Kopi’ all his life understands how to say ‘coffee’ in English? From condensed milk to fresh coffee beans, words like coffee, noodles, tea, drink, milk, chocolate and bread have become sight words for grocery shoppers who never had a chance in their lifetime to attend English schools, my mum included. She knew exactly what Liption Tea should look like from their yellow carton boxes. After over 80 years, she knows how to read tea as ‘tea’ not ‘teh’, ‘milk’ not ‘susu’. Clever? I call it practical.  Since you need  to eat the food, you will want to know about it, and ultimately you will learn the word.

The ubiquitous television.

Life without a radio at home before the 50s was unexciting without the radio. Now we so many channels on high definition television. It is still The News and commercials that are more commonly translated into different languages. Try changing channels for news on the International F1 Singapore Night Race. You will certainly find it reported in your native language at your home country. If ‘race’ is in English, what would that be in Bahasa Indonesia or Spanish. Look it up here. Download this translator for free on your desktop and try it for a few days.

Numbers.

Numbers are spoken everyday when people look for the bus service number they have to board, the right platform they have to go to board the train, the amount of money they have to pay for their groceries at the cashier’s counter, and the price tags on sales items, to name a few. These numbers may speak to them in their native tongue but ultimately, when they hear it from a third party asking for directions from someone else or the taxi driver tells them how much their fare is, they will have start to learn to say it in English. It is interesting to watch how an old taxi driver turns around and says something like, “You got $2.00 or not? Small change. I don’t have small.” I let you work out what that really means in English. If you understand it at all, what do you think that sentence mean?

Indeed, we can find so many ways to improve our language skills; perhaps we just need be to take a second at our environment and surroundings. Do you want to know how Singapore English really sound like? Watch this video.