By Kenny Chee

PRE-SCHOOL educators will be given a boost to better teach the Chinese language to young kids, especially children from English-speaking families.

An autonomous school, the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, is developing a part-time degree course for preschool Chinese teachers.

The degree will be offered jointly by the centre, the National Trades Union Congress' Seed Institute - which trains and upgrades pre-school educators - and a yet-to-be-confirmed university.

This is one of four collaborations announced by the school yesterday, in line with its goal to improve the teaching of Chinese in Singapore among teachers.

The centre was set up by the Education Ministry and the National Institute of Education in February as part of efforts to help foster bilingualism here.

Since the school started its short courses on Chinese teaching and learning in June, it has trained more than 1,000 teachers.

It will be officially opened by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew today.

Dr Chin Chee Kuen, the centre's executive director, said that it is vital to raise the Chinese proficiency and teaching skills of the 4,000 pre-school Chinese teachers here to better teach young children the language since they learn languages best before six years of age.

"So if we can strengthen the teaching of (the Chinese) language during this time, it would greatly improve their ability to be bilingual," he said.

Other collaborations by the centre are a part-time degree programme with SIM University to upgrade Chinese teachers who are diploma holders, who make up about 800 of the 4,200 primary-school to junior-college Chinese teachers here.

The course will start next July.

A part-time master's course, offered with the University of Hong Kong, to train senior-level Chinese educators, like subject heads, will also be available through the centre next year.

The centre is also working with the Media Development Authority of Singapore to use information technology to teach Chinese. Projects for this year include developing teaching materials to teach on the go.

kennyc@sph.com.sg

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