my kids are younger than yours so I don't have any experience to offer but to say the above list is useful/thoughtful and I'd have a similar set of aims/concerns in a few years to come. I think one key point is as parents you still have a massive influence in the way you guide, motivate and give context to your child's learning which can go a long way to offset a lot of these environmental factors that are of concernsingapore eagle wrote: - I want my daughters to be able to write and speak perfect English. It seems only the top 1% of the population actually manage this.
- I want my daughters to do more than rote learn. I want them to be imaginative, inquisitive and even distrust what they see and hear around them until they have thought about matters for themselves.
- I don’t want my kids to be doing hours of homework at age 7/8/9.
- I don’t want them to feel pressure to get good grades, certainly not until O-levels. But I also want them to be strong academically and have a range of options at 16/18.
- I don’t want to get sucked into a mentality where we as parents feel pressure and get sucked into tuition and ‘enrichment’. This applies especially to my Singaporean wife who is, shall we say, easily influenced by peers.
Agree with these points.sundaymorningstaple wrote:Stay involved with your children from the get go. They will pick up both Singlish and English at the same time. If you all make a point to use good English at home and not allow Singlish, they will learn to code switch unconsciously depending on their audience like a second language, which it is, for all intents and purposes. I'm not sure what you will be doing for the 2nd language or if you will be getting an exemption from it. As they are Singaporean, I suggest as they are still young enough, have them do the second language and frankly, regardless of your race, I'd suggest Mandarin, although it's hard if there is not any spoken Mandarin in the home. However, in time to come, there will only be two International Business languages, English and Mandarin. We probably won't be around to see Mandarin become the business language, but I've been around long enough to see the old International Business language disappear and English replace it (French).
Both of my children went through the local system from K1 to their tertiary educations with varied success. Both are, however, fluent in Mandarin and English and understand Tamil (but don't speak it). My son goes over big time in his band, that he fronts, when he tours China (2x) as he can rap with the crowd and being totally non-Chinese he gets huge face with the crowds. My daughter used to work with an international advertising agency who's initials were S&S. She was the one who always ended up on the phone to their main offices overseas because of her "English" capabilities.
It is essential that you both stay involved with their schooling all the time and also provide the "English" basis you want them to have. That in itself is probably the hardest thing to do, especially after you have been here a few years, you will find that your own English will have been dumbed down so as to make yourself understood to the general population.
For the first time a couple of weeks ago I had to try and dust off my high school French in Israel. Two instances, never had to do it before despite visiting the country many times in the last 3 years.sundaymorningstaple wrote:Had to laugh. I took frog speak in high school for three years and oddly enough, the only place in my entire life I've used it was in Asia (VN during the war where a lot of the elder VN spoke broken frog speak. After 1968 when I returned, I've never used it since and have forgotten every bit of it. They say, if you don't use it, you lose it. I lost it.
For starters, I am currently putting my kids through the local educational system, so we are on the same boat. Of course cost is a factor, but for us the most important thing at the moment is... MANDARIN. I really want my kids to grasp the basics of this language, only after that will I consider moving to an International School... in turn simply to SAVE their English.singapore eagle wrote:- I want my daughters to be able to write and speak perfect English. It seems only the top 1% of the population actually manage this.
- I don’t want my kids to be doing hours of homework at age 7/8/9.
- I don’t want to get sucked into a mentality where we as parents feel pressure and get sucked into tuition and ‘enrichment’. This applies especially to my Singaporean wife who is, shall we say, easily influenced by peers.
Does anyone who has taken their kids through the local system have any advice for us?
Indeed, is there anything that I should be worried about that I’m not worried about?
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests