A Research On Singapore’s Primary School Chinese Language Instructional Materials

During the 33 years spanning from 1979 to 2012, Singapore’s Chinese Language educational policies have undergone several major changes. As an important component of Chinese Language Education, the Primary School Chinese Language Curriculum has also experienced regular reviews to cater to changes in the guidelines of educational policies during the different phases.During this period of 33 years, the Ministry of Education of Singapore developed four sets of Primary School Chinese Curriculums which were used in 180 Primary Schools across Singapore. These four sets of textbooks were published in 1979,1994, 2001 and 2007. This thesis will look at the differences between the themes, design, presentation of information, assessment rubrics and skills taught in these four sets of curriculums. These differences will then be collated, analyzed and researched upon to seek out areas of improvement before the implementation of a new curriculum in years to come.This thesis looks into the shift in content, changes in terms and lexicology used, similarities and differences, advantages and disadvantages of the 4 curriculums and aims to research on the problems observed and improve on the existing issues to develop more methods of creating a new and effective curriculum.This thesis is divided into 7 chapters. The first chapter introduces the structure of the Singapore society and her language policies. It gives a brief summary of the educational revamp and societal language shift in Singapore and states the objectives, research methods and literature review of this thesis to substantiate the research methods and findings used in this thesis. The second chapter describes the structural design and features of the current curriculum to illustrate the effects that setting clear objectives will have on the development of the curriculum. The third chapter consists of statistical data of the difficulty of words that are taught and the repetition of words within the texts of the 4 curriculums. Then the fourth chapter compares the data obtained from the previous chapter with a standard list of commonly used words and collates a list of words in the curriculum that correspond with words from the standard list. The fifth chapter includes a compilation of a list of authors who participated in the development of the four curriculums, survey results of teachers who have taught these curriculums before and survey responses containing students’views regarding a test which consists of texts chosen from each of the 4 curriculums. The following sixth chapter discusses about the features of the curriculums according to the difference in "Hanyu Pinyin" and the introduction of oral interaction in newer curriculums. In conclusion, the final chapter advocates the creative learning in the hope of increasing the self-directed learning ability of students. The writer speaks about recommendations and expectations and hopes that this thesis will be useful in the future implementation of education policies and of research value to other co-workers in the educational field.Conclusion and Main findings of this thesis:1. This thesis is the first research done on the Primary School Chinese Language Curriculum in Singapore. It places emphasis on the analysis of the background of Singapore’s Chinese education structure, the uniqueness of Singapore’s multi-cultural society and the effects of the Chinese Curriculum.2. Singapore’s Primary School Chinese Language Curriculum has to be based on the teaching of the Chinese Language as a second language and not using the teaching methods for teaching the language as a first language.3. With reference to themes, the 4 sets of curriculums are different in their own ways. The 1979 curriculum places emphasis on sentence formation and grammar. The texts from the 1994 curriculum are selected from a wider range and of higher difficulty levels. The 2001 curriculum has lesser content, lowered difficulty and divided into clearer themes. The 2007 curriculum is categorized into units to cater to the different learning styles of students. This thesis is of the opinion that the 4 sets of curriculums should have clear themes, unique designs and interesting content to evoke the thinking of students and motivate them to become self-directed learners.4. The thesis emphasizes on the relevance and flexibility of the curriculum. Based on the current primary school Chinese Language education structure and societal background, this thesis discusses about the effectiveness of the Chinese Language as a tool and analyzing issues within the current Chinese Language structure to come up with suggestions for improvements.5. In line with the introduction of the Bilingual Policy, the Chinese Language assessment has undergone a change in examination formats and there are also the inclusion of new segments like conversational Chinese and methods to enhance the writing ability of students.6. Technological advancement in the 21st century has influenced teaching methods. Information technology has to be integrated with Chinese language teaching and consists of more interactive resources and activities to engage and motivate students of different abilities.With reference to the issues listed above, the writer has carried out relevant research projects and surveys. Coupled with the action research projects of a few primary schools on the teaching of reading and speaking, the writer has analyzed the 4 sets of Primary School Chinese Language curriculum and has proposed methods to motivate the learning interests of students. This thesis also shares the views and feedback of teachers, with their responses gathered through surveys and interviews.