THE call to overhaul the methodology used to teach Chinese in schools is timely, seeing how the immense amount of generated angst spent studying, yet not mastering, the language has sadly led to frustration and then capitulation by many students.

Through sheer slogging and expending an inordinate amount of time, my daughters managed to cope with the system and scored O-level distinctions.

Coping with everything in the textbooks and passing was never a problem, needing no more time than that expended on other subjects. Conversely, doing well in examinations was a big obstacle as schools often set questions in depth, way beyond the syllabus content.

Educationists should consider broadening the syllabus, incorporating more vocabulary, idioms, synonyms, antonyms and proverbs into a manageable 'all you need to study and no more' text for every standard.

This will clearly define the scope that one needs to master in that year and avoid the ambiguity of how much more beyond that into the abyss to venture.

Such uniformity will not lead to the development of a liberal and erudite Chinese literati but will serve its purpose in educating students to a proficient level without leaving so many frustrated souls behind.

For the totally inept, there is no way for a teacher to adequately explain unfathomable text in an already incomprehensible language.

As most of us frame our thoughts in English, it is only intuitive that the teaching medium should switch between the two languages to facilitate learning.

Indeed, all commercially available self-study language material will instruct in the language one is familiar with, before an equivalent translation is given in the language one wishes to learn.

Finally, students in Hong Kong and Taiwan seem to have better facility with Mandarin than students here, despite the prevalence and dominance of Cantonese and Hokkien respectively.

Contrary to expectation, since Chinese script is universal, dialect may not be detrimental to the study of Mandarin and may in fact stimulate interest in it.

Dr Yik Keng Yeong

This article was first published in The Straits Times.