Woes of Mother Tongue

I wonder how many parents face the problem of Mother Tongue (MT) with their kids. Both of mine have major problems with it. Hubby is not Chinese & so his family certainly doesn't speak Chinese. My family too doesn't speak Mandarin having taken Malay as a second language. Then my Mandarin is just as terok. Never use it in work. Ya sure I speak basic Mandarin to some colleagues but have never used it in written communication.

So why let our kids take Mandarin ? Cos we were told it would be more useful. Little did we know that our kids couldn't cope or didn't want to cope with it. Plus grandparents, aunties, uncles etc etc all speak English. So even as little kids, they weren't exposed. We sent them to PAP kindy, but that also didn't work.

With our daughter, well we didn't know DUH, that we could write to MOE & appeal for an exemption. So she sat for her PSLE & miraculously didn't get a U grade. Still pulled her grades down but she got into the secondary school she wanted.

So with our son, we sent in an appeal. Which was rejected. So we wrote to our MP. Our son's grades in other subjects are pretty good but is likely to achieve a U grade for MT. We didn't want his total results to be affected badly by a U grade or worse kena stay back cos of one subject. MP sent letter along to MOE. Our letter included his results from P1 to P5.

Our hopes were raised when his MT teacher called & said that an officer from MOE was coming down to meet with him & his teachers. We were all under the impression that the officer was going to evaluate our son.

Hopes shortlived. I almost choked on my indian rojak dinner when I read the letter from MOE which said that they had considered our request "carefully" but had been rejected.

I was like HAH ??? Nevermind, we took time off to attend the meeting with the officer who spent two hours at the school. Nice young man, tried to be helpful. He tested our son on his writing and reading skills. Then suggested some 'strategic' methods to help our son improve MT.

Sorry lah but we weren't inspired cos these are things which we have tried already. Plus his MT teachers were already doing some of the things suggested & spending extra time with him. We were told that unless our son has joined the Singapore school system midway or has a certified learning disability then he can be exempted.

Okay so he has disabled himself from trying to learn that subject. Wonder if that counts ??

Why test our son on his written & spoken skills when the appeal has already been rejected ? I don't get it.

Maybe so that the officer can suggest a strategic programme ? I was hoping to hear a tailored programme but no leh, it was generic. So I still dun geddit !

What upset us even more was that the letter said appeal was considered "carefully" but rejected.

I suggested to the authorities that it should have been phrased such :-
“we have considered your appeal carefully and an officer from the Ministry will be meeting your son and his teachers for an assessment. Thereafter we will revert with our decision” .

This would have been much more palatable. At least, more believeable that our request was indeed considered carefully. And we also questioned what's on the Ministry's website. Ah well...

So at the end of the day. Fine. Our son will take MT for PSLE. And, we don't need another officer to come by again as the MT teachers have been absolutely wonderful with our son and would know his abilities and lack of abilities better than someone who has made just a passing acquaintance.

I know, the guy is doing is job. But it was such a farce. We can't say we wasted our time as we were trying to do good for our son. I'll just say it, sadly, opened our eyes quite abit.