Thu, Jun 22, 2023 page8

• Singapore lessons in bilingualism

  • By Liao Hsien-hao 廖咸浩
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  In promoting the Bilingual 2030 plan, its two main advocates — Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman and presidential candidate Vice President William Lai (賴清德) and Taiwan People’s Party founder, chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) — regard Singapore’s language education as a model.

  However, it remains highly doubtful that they have a complete understanding of Singapore’s bilingual policy.

  Under the terms of the Anglo-Dutch treaty in 1824, Singapore was under British rule for nearly 200 years. After gaining its independence from the British Empire in 1965, it established the linguistic goal of reaching “proficient bilingualism.”

  Yet in 1979, then-Singaporean deputy prime minister Goh Keng Swee (吳慶瑞) said in a report that most students could not master two languages simultaneously.

  Since then, which was 44 years ago, Singapore gave up its goal of achieving proficient bilingualism, and switched to English as the lingua franca, with Mandarin, Malay and Tamil as additional languages. The policy aimed to ensure that students at least graduated with a proficiency in English, instead of mastering no languages. As a result, schools focused on teaching English so that students’ English would reach the standard of a mother tongue, while letting their Mandarin slide.

  Put simply, Singapore strove for proficient bilingualism for 14 years before it announced to the world that the bilingual policy was unfeasible. Singapore has since embarked on the road to becoming a full-on English-speaking country instead of a bilingual one, and the government let people’s Mandarin proficiency slide.

  In 1992, former Singaporean president Ong Teng Cheong (王鼎昌) in a report proposed phasing out Chinese writing, and having people only focus on Mandarin listening, speaking and reading.

  Former director-general of education Huang Qingxin (黃慶新) in 2004 suggested that universities drop students’ native language proficiency certificates during admission, where students’ mother tongue level eventually became a side note on the admission documents.

  In 2011, former Singaporean director-general of education Ho Peng (何平) proposed that it would be sufficient if people could only communicate orally in their mother tongue.

  So far, Singapore’s Mandarin teaching seems to be set at junior-high-school level. Mandarin courses start in kindergarten, followed by 5.2 teaching hours on average per week in elementary school and three hours per week in junior high school. As English remains the language of instruction, Singaporeans’ Mandarin level in general is at most equivalent to that of Taiwanese elementary-school students.

  Former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀) said in his memoir that Singaporeans should not become “pseudo-Westerners” once they have mastered English, forgetting the cultural values that render them more invaluable than the West.

  Nonetheless, Singapore has continued on its slow yet irrevocable path to becoming an English-speaking country.

  However, Lee was clear about Singaporeans’ English proficiency in his book: By 2006, a staggering 40 percent of students still found English to be their most difficult subject.

  Only one nation has successfully transformed from a non-English speaking country to an English-speaking one. As Ireland was invaded by the Normans as early as the 12th century, and was later put under the influence of the English, resulting in centuries of intercommunity cultural exchanges and intermarriages, it possessed all of the conditions needed to transform into an English-speaking country. In contrast, for a nation that does not have as much of a connection to English, it is likely to take Singapore much longer to achieve the same result.

  Lee said in his memoir that Singapore’s ideal language policy sould cultivate bilingual talent that makes up 5 to 10 percent of the population. About 50 percent of the population should possess the ability to use Mandarin — meaning they would be able to listen to, speak and read Mandarin. With the help of technology, they should be able to write in Mandarin, while the remainder of the population should, more or less, possess certain levels of bilingual competency.

  The bilingual talent that Lee expected to cultivate now only makes up a small percentage of the population. These elites are mostly from the long-existing “English class,” composed of families of higher socio-economic status, instead of the result of the language policy. It is nearly impossible to ask these people to boost their Mandarin level beyond elementary-school level.

  As for the 90 percent of the population from non-traditional English families, even if their Mandarin reached elementary-school level, they would be hard-pressed to hone their English skills to the level of first-language speakers. Is this the kind of ideal that Lai and Ko are looking for?

  Judging by Singapore’s example, it is clear as day that the government’s bilingual 2030 plan is a pipe dream.

  The policy would eventually lead to people using English as their main language, while English and Chinese language abilities of the remainder of the population would suffer, not to mention the detrimental impact their declining Chinese and English would have on their knowledge acquisition.

  Liao Hsien-hao is a distinguished professor and dean of National Taiwan University’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

  Translated by Rita Wang
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