Chinese Language Instruction in Singapore Primary School Classrooms: A Comparative Study

Abstract

In this article, we describe Chinese language instruction in Singapore primary school classrooms and discuss its relationship with the official discourse in Chinese education. We use a classroom coding approach to examine whether there are similarities and differences between the classroom instructional practices in 2 streams and to explore whether the goals and principles of the official discourse are achieved at the level of implementation. Specifically, we examine how Chinese classrooms of the 2 different streams are organised socially, what pedagogical activities are carried out, what knowledge or capabilities are emphasised and how they are classified. Based on the findings, we discuss the major features of Chinese language instructional practices in the 2 streams in relation to the goals and principles of the official discourse and highlight some implications for curricular and pedagogic reform in Singapore and internationally.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This report is drawn from the Panel 3 data of the Core Project carried out by the Center for Research in Pedagogy and Practice National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. The Core Project is fully funded by the Ministry of Education. We thank all the principals, teachers, and students of the schools we observed for their full support. We also thank Yean Bee Lee for providing the statistics and the external reviewers for their valuable comments and corrections on earlier drafts.

Notes

¹The acronym EM1 represents “English and Mandarin are both taught as first languages.” The acronym EM2 represents “English is taught as a first language and Mandarin is taught as a second language.” The acronym EM3 refers to “Both English and Mandarin are taught as foundational programmes where more emphasis is laid on listening and speaking than on reading and writing.” However, the use of “first language” here is specific to Singapore, different from what is normally defined in the international literature. It refers to the language proficiency level rather than acquisition order, for Mandarin is the first language for more than half the cohort, as noted in this article. This kind of streaming is based on the examination results after students finish the first 3 years of primary school (for details, refer to Goh, 2004, and MOE, 2002). It should be noted that at the time of writing this article, the EM3 stream had been merged into EM2, and a module approach is being experimented with for the Chinese curriculum reform in 2008 (for details, refer to Liu, Zhao, Gan, Toh, & Zhao, 2007).