Relate lessons to everyday life

THE most interesting Chinese lessons I've ever had relate otherwise boring words and phrases to everyday life.

Once, in Secondary 2, I had a Chinese lesson where my teacher brought bamboo leaves and glutinous rice to teach the class how to wrap rice dumplings just before the dumpling festival.

The activity helped us relate better to words and phrases taught, such as what glutinous rice and rice dumplings are in Chinese; this spiced up what would have otherwise been a boring lesson.

Just telling us to learn Chinese so that we can do business in China when we grow up does not really concern us when we are still in secondary school.

Instead, why not focus on Chinese culture, such as Chinese New Year practices, which would interest us at that age?

Stephanie Song, 23, is a student at the National Institute of Education.

Offer relevant elective modules

DESPITE having studied Malay for 19 years, as compared to French for two, the latter has intrigued me more.

The Alliance Fran?aise de Singapour, where I am learning French, has an elective system where students can choose courses that teach them more than just the practical uses of the language.

We can choose courses such as business, translation or current affairs. I am pursuing the latter. We can specialise in subjects as diverse as ecology and the arts, on top of honing our French.

This way, the language becomes more relevant to us.

After all, once the basics of a language such as grammar and phonetics are developed, a structured system which has to cater to everyone runs the risk of missing out on individual needs and interests.

Why not take a leaf from this system and introduce specialised courses for Malay: Malay business, for example, to teach students business ethics in a globalised world; or Malay film and literature, for those who love the arts.

Aisha Mostafa, 24, graduated with honours from the University of Huddersfield. She works in the arts.

Pop concerts can be a start

MOTHER tongue lessons granted me the ability to speak and write Chinese, but they were a necessary chore, a rite of passage where memorisation of idioms and archaic stories bored me no end.

One way lessons can be made more relevant is by making them more current.

Excursions to pop concerts by JJ Lin, Jay Chou and, say, Siti Nurhaliza for Malays can be a start.

Having Twitter-like portals for students to post their views in Chinese, Malay and Tamil on popular topics like relationships can possibly go a long way in fostering passion for our mother tongues.

After all, short 140-character excerpts are considerably less intimidating than churning out long essays.

Finally, students can play teacher for one or two days a week and introduce their own creative approaches to teaching mother tongues.

For example, cooking classes where the recipe and menu are in the different mother tongues.

Teachers will then get an insight into what might make mother tongue lessons more engaging for students.

Alex Liam, 20, has a place to read business administration at the National University of Singapore.

Turn movies into teaching tools

MY CHINESE proficiency is poor to begin with, but lessons in my secondary school only increased my hatred for it.

My teacher constantly picked on me to read aloud passages from the textbook and would belittle me when I got the words wrong.

Once, she even said I was a disgrace to the Chinese language. Her methods were both degrading and unsuccessful.

Making students learn a language from a book is bound to make them dislike it. My suggestion to make Chinese lessons more exciting and relevant would be to screen contemporary Chinese movies or TV shows in class.

A Taiwanese movie that I personally enjoyed was Eternal Summer because it was very compelling. As it was centred on three teenagers, I could relate to the characters.

Hearing Mandarin spoken in a casual, conversational way in the movie lessened my dislike of the language, and I found myself trying out some of the phrases in conversation with other Chinese-speaking people.

My sister, who is usually averse to the Chinese language, is hooked on Taiwanese variety shows.

Teachers could start out by including the subtitles, and once the students' vocabulary has expanded, they can slowly phase out the subtitles.

Students can take down words and phrases they do not understand while watching the film, and get their teacher to explain them later.

Elise Chia, 18, is a second-year student in mass communications at Ngee Ann Polytechnic.

Rote lessons worked for me

PERHAPS for some, at least, learning their mother tongue the hard way may still be the most appropriate and long-lasting method.

I grew up in an English-speaking environment, so if not for Chinese lessons in school, I would probably have not learnt the language at all.

I remember being forced to learn Chinese by rote. I had to memorise Chinese idioms, model sentences in our Ci Yu Shou Ce (vocabulary handbook), and be able to regurgitate them on command.

Worse, as punishment, I had to write those same sentences repeatedly if I got them wrong. It was an understatement to describe it as a painful experience.

But all that tough love from my teachers has, at least, given me a reasonable grasp of the language.

I am still surprised at how I can summon certain idioms and phrases when speaking with friends today. I did not face a steep learning curve for Chinese.

In hindsight, I am thankful for being forced to learn Chinese when I was young.

Jason Zhou, 23, is a final-year economics student at the Singapore Management University - and still loves his mother tongue.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.