This results a separate controversy regarding the assigned weightage of mother tongue in major examinations such as the PSLE and GCE Ordinary Level as parents worry that children who are taught English as a first language and who are brought up in English-speaking families are at a disadvantage for not knowing their mother tongue well.
[3] Singapore is a racially and linguistically diverse city-state, with four official languages: English, Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil.
The primary school syllabus aims to develop speaking and listening skills, as well as to nurture students into independent readers who can express their ideas in writing.
In secondary school, students are expected to speak and write in grammatically correct English tailored to purpose, audience and context.
Hence, at this level English as an academic subject is replaced by General Paper, where students formulate analysis and arguments about current issues.
[11] English language teaching originally focused on grammar (primary school students were taught over a hundred sentence structures) and oral skills (there were frequent speech drills).
A syllabus review in 1981 removed many enrichment activities to enable more students to develop functional literacy in English.
However, the increasing prevalence of Singlish sparked concerns about declining English standards, leading to a renewed focus on "systematic and explicit instruction of grammar" in subsequent syllabus reviews.
In secondary school, interested students may study a third language, such as Mandarin (for non-Chinese); Malay or Indonesian (for non-Malays); Arabic, Japanese, French, and German (the last three are restricted to the top 10% of the PSLE cohort).
Policymakers assumed a correlation between intelligence and language learning,[9] to the extent that the only difference between EM1 and EM2 was that the former offered Higher Mother Tongue (likewise for Special and Express).
After Singapore gained independence, the government has maintained continuous efforts to promote the language at the expense of other Chinese varieties in an effort to benefit from China's increasing importance on the world stage, although they claimed that it is to ensure that Chinese Singaporeans know about their ethnic roots, culture and maintain traditional Asian values.
The basic aims of the Chinese syllabus are the master of a specific number of characters from a designated list for each level.
[25][26] The new Chinese-language curriculum aims to make language learning more enjoyable, in hope that the students would take Mandarin beyond the classroom.
[22] During the period of British colonisation, instilling basic literacy and numeracy were the aims of the then available Malay-medium primary schools built by the government, in addition to maintaining the Malay culture.
Students are also expected to speak with correct intonation and pronunciation, and achieve fluency in reading and writing the language.
Lessons are held outside school hours at special centres run by seven Indian community groups, who employ their own teachers and design their own syllabuses.
[41] Higher Mother Tongue is an optional subject offered to eligible students at primary and secondary school levels.
The Ministry of Education aims to help students with the ability, aptitude and interest in MTL to achieve higher levels of language proficiency and cultural knowledge through HMTL.
Over the years, there has been an increase in the percentage of students taking Higher Mother Tongue Languages (HMTL) at PSLE and 'O' level.
[47] Students reading Chinese as a Higher Mother Tongue would be assessed in only 2 separate formats: Composition and comprehension, with no oral and listening components.
Hence, the examination format is as follows: Malay ( O Levels) : Students are expected to be familiar with a list of proverbs which are more extensive than that for Mother Tongue.
Students reading Higher Mother Tongue (Malay) are assessed in Written examination through 2 papers, consisting of: Tamil (PSLE): There is a focus on the learning of basic language skills in listening, writing and talking.
Students are taught a variety or proverbs and seyyul (a type of poem), which include Thirukkural, Moothurai, Nalvazhi, Athichoodi, kondraivaenthan, and vetrivaerkkai.
Tamil (O Level) : There is a focus on proverbs, grammar, syntax, specifically, learning how to add connective words to sentences and phrases.
The mother tongue languages have always been regarded as cultural markers, with English as the key to the door of international opportunities (Wee, 2004).
In the past, with constant review of the curriculum, the government has admitted the flaws lying in their bilingual policy, pointed out by Lionel Wee:[2] Mother tongue lessons are aimed at being more interactive and fun for the student, in the hope of increasing interest in the language rather than perceiving it to be an academic subject.
The Ministry of Education constantly reviews curricula and policies to ensure their students develop their languages to the best of their ability with a more customised and differentiated approach.
Parents have complained that their children can possibly be excluded from further progression and disadvantaged in their education path if they are unable to excel in their mother tongue, despite doing well in the other subjects.
These parents are worried that the act of reducing the weightage will undermine the importance of Chinese, or the Mother Tongue, and also encourage a defeatist attitude towards language learning.
Chinese community leaders, as well as parents, are afraid that students will view and learn the Mother Tongue merely as an examinable subject, and not as a living language with social relevance.