IAMnot a member of the Chinese elite. At best, I am a middle-of-the-road B-student from a Special Assistance Plan (SAP) school known for churning out effectively bilingual all-female graduates.

I dream in English, and write exclusively in it.

Yet, with the recent debate that has arisen over the teaching and learning of Chinese on our shores, friends with Chinese more powerful than mine have been posting indignant updates, links and comments on Facebook for the past two weeks.

I feel compelled to speak up on how grateful and proud I feel to have been given the opportunity to take Higher Chinese as a school subject when I studied at CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School.

While I have nothing against using English in the classroom to explain and reinforce Chinese terms to students who hail from English-speaking families and who may be weaker in Chinese, I do find it a pity if the subject is given lower weightage – as some parents have suggested – or standards are lowered for struggling students, so that being able to speak the language decently is all that is expected of them.

True, it was tiring to wade through endless lists of Chinese characters set for “ting xie” (spelling tests) and memorise pages of “su yu” (proverbs).

It was a chore to half-read tomes of Chinese classics like Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, and muddle through pages of barely-competent compositions.

I confess: As soon as I could drop Chinese as a subject in junior college, I did so with glee.

But, I have since realised that my 10 years as a mediocre student in the exacting Chinese- learning environment of my former primary and secondary school laid a foundation for me to use the language competently when I need to.

Such as when I go on holiday in Beijing and need to haggle with stallowners at the Dongwuyuan Wholesale Market. And, while traipsing around remote Japanese villages with no English road signs, I could find my way around by reading Japanese kanji, borrowed from Chinese characters.

Like muscle-memory, the Chinese drilled into me has never left my subconscious, merely lying dormant for years. I’ve found that learning a language is akin to raising a child: You put in what may initially seem like an inordinate amount of effort, but don’t see any returns on your investment over a relatively long period of time.

And then, one day, hopefully, you are pleasantly surprised.

The key ingredients that help determine success are patience and a positive, open attitude.

A while ago, I wrote about how I was starting to worry about my three-year-old Julian’s monolingual tendencies, given that English was the primary mode of communication in our household.

Since then, he has enrolled in a weekly programme at a Chinese enrichment school which harnesses games, story-telling, activity sheets and flash cards to inculcate Chinese character-recognition and reading. Julian’s confidence to use the words in everyday life has grown. What has made the difference, I feel, is that the programme materials encourage the involvement of parents.

The programme provides English translations of the words and activities to enable Englisheducated parents to follow the lesson plan and revise it with their kids at home.

Thanks to this approach, even my husband – who missed the Chinese-learning boat owing to a childhood spent in Australia – has improved his Mandarin.

The road ahead, however, is long. While I agree that it’s worth exploring different strokes for different folks in the road ahead for Chinese education here, it is also worth remembering that it is better to shoot for the skies and fall like an arrow not too far from the target.

Otherwise, one might just be skittering along, earth-bound and only skimming the surface.

myp@sph.com.sg

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