Basic foundation in a second language is important: MM Lee
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- Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 08:32:53 +0800
Basic foundation in a second language is important: MM Lee
By May Wong, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 14 July 2007 2224 hrs
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Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew
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Basic foundation in a second language is important: MM Lee
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew says it is important for parents to give their
children the basic foundation in a second language.
This is so that when a situation arises, they will be able to make use of their
knowledge to converse.
Mr Lee was speaking at the opening of the Nanyang Technological University's
Confucius Institute at One North on Saturday evening.
Many young Singaporeans use English more frequently than their mother tongue.
That is why Mr Lee suggests parents allow their children to pick up on the tones
and words used in a second language.
Using a computer analogy, he says, the child can then store it for life, in the
hard disc or brain.
MM Lee said: "My Chinese is inside the megabytes so when I'm using it, it comes
out it's hyper-linked. When I'm not using it, I must put down control F to look
for the word."
Mr Lee says learning two languages is not easy, something these students can
identify with.
He acknowledges that one may face problems with many words and phrases in a
second language like Chinese.
But he says at least they will learn the basic sentence structure and be able to
convey ideas across.
MM Lee said: "So my advice to all parents is: never mind how much trouble your
children are having in primary school and in secondary school. Get them to catch
the sounds, sentence structure, words. They don't have to score A or A star,
even a B or a C, but they've got as sense of the language, they can talk, they
can listen."
Mr Lee says when he was prime minister, he encouraged the Chinese children to
learn their mother tongue and Confucian values.
This was to act as ballast against the increasing influence of western values
and culture because English is the first language in Singapore schools and
workplaces.
But emphasis on retaining the second language is not lost.
Mr Lee said: "So for the Malays, we want them to keep their Malay language alive
then when we do business with Malaysia, with Indonesia is easy and we want some
of our non-Malay officers also to understand Malay. For the Indians, they've got
to keep the languages alive, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, and even our Arabs, we're
trying to get our Arabs to revive their Arabic so that they can connect with the
Gulf states and we can do business with them. So two languages for Singaporeans
will gives us a cultural and an economic advantage."
Mr Lee adds Singapore still has a Chinese-speaking population in the heartlands,
while some students watch and understand Chinese features.
So he says do not lose touch with the language or something precious will be
lost. - CNA/ch
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