Learning Chinese has become too difficult for kids today, and that’s not okay

[mummynew]

Then what's the point of making the exams harder?

Hoping that iron can become steel with harder exams (铁能成钢）.

 

[JohannSu1864]

I am prepping materials for niece's tuition during this school holidays.

Will be spending time doing practice of comprehending below kind of non-fiction content:



*dry but ROI better as compared to 词语替代 and so have to 'drill' = classified as "lower hanging fruit".

This very hard to teach. Many words they cannot read. Is ur niece like mine, good in math n science?

 

[TopGun]

Hoping that iron can become steel with harder exams (铁能成钢）.

Lol. I doubt so. Most ain't not going to be anywhere near the level of native Chinese speakers no matter how the curriculum is changed as long as English remains the working language.

 

[mummynew]

This very hard to teach. Many words they cannot read. Is ur niece like mine, good in math n science?

She is weak in Math and Science but strong in her humanities subjects.


*mildly special needs child (dyslexic) and so need to guide her carefully else she may give up.

 

[mummynew]

Lol. I doubt so. Most ain't not going to be anywhere near the level of native Chinese speakers no matter how the curriculum is changed as long as English remains the working language.

You know, I know, and many others know, but MOE chose to 'try' to see how far kids can go.

 

[TopGun]

You know, I know, and many others know, but MOE chose to 'try' to see how far kids can go.

This will just push more away from the language and I have no disagreement with the outcome.

 

[BBClone]

It’s harder and harder for a child to grow up happily in Singapore.

 

[OralMaster]

you can ask those Ang moh pai singaporeans that went thru elite education, most of them took higher mother tongue but they cannot string a sentence in chinese. something is wrong with our education system.

 

[OralMaster]

the best way to encourage kids to appreciate the beauty of chinese language is to introduce them sex novels in chinese. that was when i realize the intricacy of chinese language.

 

[TopGun]

you can ask those Ang moh pai singaporeans that went thru elite education, most of them took higher mother tongue but they cannot string a sentence in chinese. something is wrong with our education system.

Raw cognitive horsepower can help to pass examinations and even score. But does not mean that the person wants to continue beyond that milestone.

 

[JohannSu1864]

She is weak in Math and Science but strong in her humanities subjects.


*mildly special needs child (dyslexic) and so need to guide her carefully else she may give up.

My niece is weak in Chinese n she got E8 for Geo elective. Her previous WA, her Geo elective also barely pass so was surprise her Geo final grade is C6. I was thinking probably the rest of her cohort didn't do well for Geo so they moderate the score. So like instead of getting 50 is a pass, now 40 is a pass.

Good is humanities. You can share that Asean got new 11th member. Maybe she will be interested.

 

[mummynew]

This very hard to teach. Many words they cannot read. Is ur niece like mine, good in math n science?

if you read the passage, only the below few words are out of S3 word list:

砂、械、鲸、蚀

The issue with Chinese is even one can read every word doesn't equate with comprehension coz vocab can be massive with different word combination, similar for a 3 years old maybe able to read a newspaper article via phonics but the child has zero comprehension of the text.

 

[mummynew]

My niece is weak in Chinese n she got E8 for Geo elective. Her previous WA, her Geo elective also barely pass so was surprise her Geo final grade is C6. I was thinking probably the rest of her cohort didn't do well for Geo so they moderate the score. So like instead of getting 50 is a pass, now 40 is a pass.

Good is humanities. You can share that Asean got new 11th member. Maybe she will be interested.

I got my niece to drop Social Studies/History (skip going for O level exam) in order to focus on the other six (Chinese needs quite a bit of time).

You may consider taking this 'strategy'. Really 不用那么辛苦.

*she needs one Humans subject and so keeping her A1 Lit and dropping SS (about B3).

 

[JohannSu1864]

I got my niece to drop Social Studies/History (skip going for O level exam) in order to focus on the other six (Chinese needs quite a bit of time).

You may consider taking this 'strategy'. Really 不用那么辛苦.

*she needs one Humans subject and so keeping her A1 Lit and dropping SS (about B3).

I already told my niece to absent for Geo elective Olevel n focus on her good subjects. She ask can meh, I say u hv diarrhea on that day, we take mc.

She basically gv up on Geo n didn't evenvstudy for her EOY.

For maths n sciences, she did 3 full practise paper each before her exam.

 

[JohannSu1864]

if you read the passage, only the below few words are out of S3 word list:

砂、械、鲸、蚀

The issue with Chinese is even one can read every word doesn't equate with comprehension coz vocab can be massive with different word combination, similar for a 3 years old maybe able to read a newspaper article via phonics but the child has zero comprehension of the text.

Ya, but my niece can understand 80% of the text she will just try her best to attempt the qn. If it's mcq, even better cause some of the choices are quite ridiculous, she can eliminate it accordingly.

Thanks for sharing studying tips. Really appreciate it.

 

[zoossh]

its too bad that it will only get worse and worse for singaporeans

as more chinese companies enter and will only hire those who are already exposed to companies in china. eventually these jobs will go to foreigners 100% since we are not exposed to the level of chinese that they expect at all. all forms of work in sg, apac, usa/eu/aus are all in english

alot of chinese companies also work mostly in english but require you to be able to read and write chinese to converse with their main office in china

one company i learnt of recently, only has customer service here and require them all to speak and write chinese cus again, main team are all in china and the headcount for these companies are extremely tiny

u say they pay tax, but the money doesn't even come to sg so what tax r u even talking about

like mihoyo in japan is the best example. they're there only for marketing purposes so its a place where money is spent, not earned

i think the gov is recongising this fact so they are making chinese exams harder but thats completely not the point since we will never see or hear many words that they use, and wont understand their slang or memes

its the same way we wont understand UK slang

No amount of chinese proficiency is going to put you ahead of their own race. Unless they need Singaporean front as facade like Tik tok. But that is only one person needed.

 

[dry_county]

Learning Chinese has become too difficult for kids today, and that’s not okay​

Is it just too hard for kids to learn Chinese in Singapore schools? This mum-of-two explains why she thinks the answer might be yes – and why that bodes ill for young Singaporeans trying to develop a love for their mother tongue.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/tod...e-education-schools-learning-students-5419631

Recently, while revising for her end-of-year exams, my 15-year-old daughter came to me with a list of Chinese words, asking me to test her on them.

It had been a while since she'd asked for help. Ever since starting secondary school, she has mostly managed her studies on her own. But when she handed me the list, I wasn't surprised by the request. Rather, I was caught off-guard by what was on it.

Now, I consider myself fairly proficient in my mother tongue. Not only did I grow up in a Chinese-speaking family, I consistently scored As in Chinese throughout my schooling years.

The list of words my daughter handed me was meant for her Secondary 3 cohort (she's in the International Baccalaureate programme, but the Chinese textbook they use is the same as the O-Level track). But I found myself unable to read a number of them, let alone understand them.

Even my husband, who had studied Higher Mother Tongue (HMT) back in school, found some of the words unfamiliar and difficult.

Watching my daughter struggle to recall how to write certain words or their meanings, I felt her frustration deeply. This is a child who has always been academically focused and motivated, and used to have perfect scores for Chinese spelling tests (or tingxie) in primary school.

That frustration led me to post the list on social media, wondering aloud why secondary school students were now expected to learn such advanced vocabulary.

The response was overwhelming.

Many parents messaged me about similar struggles their children face learning Chinese in school. Many more said that they themselves couldn't understand some of the words on the list I had posted.

CAN WE AIM "TOO" HIGH?​

A friend who is a Chinese writer explained that many of the words are advanced versions of simpler terms. The advanced versions are more poetic and beautiful, great for literature – but not quite practical for everyday use.

"In reality, we'd just use the simpler forms," she said.

Can Singapore’s educators and parents hope that we are nurturing some children to one day become acclaimed Singaporean Chinese authors or poets like You Jin or Dan Ying? Sure, but let's be honest: Most of our kids are just trying to pass their exams.

One parent told me the words in the list are considered primary school level in China. That may be true, but Mandarin is the dominant language there.

Meanwhile, Singaporeans of all races and ethnicities are increasingly more comfortable in English than in their mother tongue. Many of my own Singaporean Chinese friends struggle to hold a full conversation in our mother tongue without inserting English words.

I'm not saying that our academic standards should remain frozen at what they were 30 years ago when I was a secondary school student.

But our Chinese standards are clearly not as high as our China counterparts. Why make that the baseline for comparison?

KILLING THE JOY OF LEARNING​

Academic pressures are part and parcel of Singapore schooling life, but I worry that the current language expectations in secondary school are so high that they’re killing students' interest in their mother tongue.

My daughter used to enjoy writing Chinese compositions in primary school. Her stories were unique, with hooks and bittersweet endings, and her teacher often used them as model essays, even though she didn’t rely on flowery language or colourful idioms. She was always excited to write in her mother tongue.

But in secondary school, the focus shifted.

Her creativity was no longer enough. The emphasis turned to writing within strict parameters and memorising idioms to meet grading rubrics.

She put in the same effort, but received only lukewarm results, both in terms of grades and feedback from her teachers that made her feel like she was always falling short.

She stopped enjoying writing in Chinese altogether. Now, she no longer looks forward to Mother Tongue as a subject at all. This isn't just our experience.

Another parent told me that her daughter, despite putting in tremendous effort for HMT, failed a weighted assessment for the first time. "She just hopes to pass,” the mother said. "It doesn't help that the school sets such difficult papers."

One secondary school student told me that revising for his end-of-year Chinese exams was "absolute torture".

My husband and I have, like many parents in the same boat, started telling our daughter it’s okay not to score well in Chinese – just aim to pass.

After all, when our kids are working so hard but still falling short of impossible expectations, sometimes the kindest advice is to aim to clear the lowest possible bar. Perhaps they're better off spending their limited time working on subjects where they have a much higher chance of seeing better returns.

ENCOURAGE INSTEAD OF DISCOURAGE​

Instead of pushing our kids to match their counterparts in China or expecting them to become Chinese classicists and poets, can we first help them develop a love – or at least a tolerance – for the language?

Another Chinese writer friend of mine noted that such unnecessary stumbling blocks can demotivate kids in their learning journey.

"It really takes the joy out of learning when students have to memorise terms they’ll never use in daily writing or conversation," he said. And I couldn't agree more.

So instead of asking children to memorise obscure and poetic terms they'll rarely use in daily life, why not let them learn the kind of Chinese that feels relevant to their world.
This might come from local news reports, TV shows, songs or novels, even if these are considered primary school level in China.

Rather than restricting students to rigid rubrics, could we give them more opportunities to use the language in more creative ways – such as writing informal journals or performing skits – which can make learning feel less like a test and more like an exploration?

Instead of focusing on students' inability to meet inflexible standards, it could also be beneficial to give them small wins and encouragement. Feedback like "This is a great story idea" or: "You’ve improved" can go a long way towards affirming a child’s effort, and inspiring them to want to put in even more.

In contrast, constantly failing them or reminding them they're not meeting an arbitrary standard only chips away at their self-worth. It teaches them that no matter how hard they try, they'll never be good enough.

And when that message is repeated often enough, the love for learning fades – not just for Chinese, but any subject where joy is overtaken by dread.

If we truly want our children to grow – not just as students, but as confident, curious individuals – then it's worth rethinking how we support their learning.

Recently, Singapore’s new Education Minister Desmond Lee signalled a shift away from the "education arms race", calling in parliament for reforms that reduce exam pressure and broaden definitions of success.

In 2024, Singapore’s Ministry of Education announced initiatives – including more opportunities for secondary school students to take up HMT and a mother tongue language reading programme in primary schools – to "uphold bilingualism" in the education system, and help students learn and use their mother tongue as a "living language".

While we are rethinking how students learn and grow, surely we can also rethink how we nurture their relationship with their mother tongue – not just through grades and memorisation, but through relevance, creativity and connection.

Vivian Teo is a mum of two. She is also a freelance writer, children’s book author and owner of a parenting and lifestyle blog.

I stopped reading when she said her kids are in IB program.

 

[zoossh]

Hoping that iron can become steel with harder exams (铁能成钢）.

Making exams harder has only one intention
to differentiate those better vs the rest

but it is not going to make a difference in the real world as the proficiency has not much of value.

In the end the debate will be just between those who want to score it just for making the grades pretty and having an advantage over others due to exam policies, versus an older age group in their 40-60s with sentiments tied to race and ethnic chauvinism- something that the younger people give no hoots about because we see ourselves as Singaporeans first and values next, rather than race.

Neither group is going to agree with each other, so I can only foresee that the situation is just going to continue the same way with the young just going to score it as an exam subject with no love and little real world use

 

[pwongkk]

What to do, import so many tiongs in, even teachers also import tiongs, how to make learning Chinese easy?

Moreover, past few generations have been given the impression English is very important.

 

[ramlee]

I always explain in English. Like recently I explain 平庸 to my niece。I told her it's mediocre, average. To describe a person. She said 你lor. I said yes.

You should tell her 近墨者黑