教育不能采用一刀切做法

文章标题：教育不能采用一刀切做法
文章作者：李玮玲
发表日期：2010年5月19日
发表媒体：《联合早报•言论》

　　我行医已经32年，接受我多年治疗的病人往往同我建立起亲密的关系。

　　那天，一名我照顾了13年的印度病人，来见我时带了一束花和一张写着“给李教授，真高兴看到妳回来”的卡片。这是因为我前一段时间请了病假。我非常感动。

　　我向她表示谢意后，转向她妈妈说：“妳并不富有，不应该浪费钱（给我买花）。”

　　她回答：“我们对所拥有的感到满足，也很感激妳和妳的家人。”

　　因为没有其他的病人在等候，我便同她闲聊起来。她的先生在多年前去世。他生前在一家华人工程公司当技工，工作了29年后被辞推，公司给了他一个月的遣散费。

　　她同她先生去见了老板。老板用广东话对她说：“别白费气力了。妳老公（对“先生”的不客气称呼）既不能用英语交谈，也不能用英文书写。”她用流利的广东话回答，让老板目瞪口呆。

　　她后来用英文写了封信给老板，并复印了一份给我爸爸李光耀。之后，她收到政府的回信，告诉她有关部门将进行调查。几个月后，公司多支付他先生28个月的薪水作为遣散费。

　　我好奇地想知道她怎么会说广东话。她在一间英文源流学校念到中三。淡米尔文是她的母语，但她在同邻居交谈时也学会了广东话、福建话和马来文。

　　她先生去世后，便与生病的女儿及儿子住在一起。她儿子也是名技工，已婚并有两个孩子。一家六口的生活就靠他的薪水。他会说福建、潮洲和客家话。

　　妈妈和女儿的关系非常密切。我的病人因为智力障碍而不能上学校。但她能够说英语。她知道自己需要妈妈的照顾，也曾告诉妈妈：“妈妈，不要比我先死。”妈妈的回答是：“别担心，上帝会先带妳走。”

　　我向我爸爸转述这件事，告诉他我对病人的妈妈能够掌握这么多几乎完全不同的语言感到惊讶。

　　除非她也有学过广东话，一个懂得福建话的人不会自然而然地明白广东话。不同的方言有自身特殊的词汇，而且同样词汇的发音也可以很不同。

　　爸爸的反应很简单，“她是个印度妇女，”他说。

　　和我一样，爸爸的看法是印度人对语言有特殊的天份。此外，一般人也相信女人比男人对语言有更好的掌握能力。这大概是正确的，虽然语言有不同的方面，而两性之间也只在一些地方有差异。

　　我讲述这个故事不只是为了读者的兴趣，也是为了激发他们思考最近因小六会考母语比重所引发的争议。

　　我们必须紧记，个人掌握语言的能力不同。基因肯定是决定语言能力的一个因素。我没有获得卓越语言能力的基因，我的兄弟却都得到了遗传。

　　在学校的所有科目中，我最需要刻苦努力的是华文。但即使是在幼儿园时，我也愿意努力学习华文，因为我知道我父母是在用我兄弟和我来证明我的爸爸——一个在剑桥受教育、在刚踏入政坛时几乎完全不能讲华语的律师——并不是反华文的。

　　我们并没有明确的被告知，但我们清楚的知道，爸爸是在用自己的孩子向选民传达双语，尤其是华文的重要性。比如，虽然爸爸时常忙得不能同我们一起庆祝生日，他却会出席我们的毕业礼——包括我在南洋幼稚园和后来在南洋小学的毕业礼——这些报章都报道了。

　　但根据我本身的经验，在学习语言上，环境也扮演了一个角色。我天赋的语言能力比不上我兄弟，但决心和努力让我在华校的中四会试中，在华文、英文和马来文取得和他们一样好的成绩。

　　小六会考的母语比重，将决定孩子能不能够升上自己所选择的中学。我对精英学校的看法，向来是学生虽然可能会在这些学校获得更好的教育，但一个聪慧和有决心的学生不管在那一所学校上课，都会有杰出的表现。因此，那些对小六会考母语比重问题感到非常不安的人，我觉得他们的忧虑是不必要的。

　　我关心的，是聪明和用功但在语言上相对不具天份的学生，就像我这样，不应该因此而受到阻碍。他们应该还是能够在学校和大学脱颖而出，并享受他们的童年。

　　目前和接下来的大概50年，英语会是主要的国际语言。科学知识还是继续会用英语传播。

　　作为一名对研究学习障碍有特别兴趣的儿科脑神经医生，我看过太多病人因为花费大量时间准备母语考试，而让其他科目受到影响。我也知道一些家庭因为孩子没有办法应付母语而选择移民。这些家庭的成员往往是专业人士或者成功的企业家——正是我们想要从其他国家吸引的人才。受影响的主要是华人，但新加坡印度学生也面对类似问题。我听说学校教的淡米儿文不但太难，甚至是晦涩的。

　　我们应该鼓励国人尽力掌握双语，但这却不应该影响他们学习其他领域的相关知识。教育不能够采取一刀切的做法。

　　可以肯定的，是目前的母语课程，尤其是华文和淡米尔文，带给孩子不必要的负担。一个考虑到不同语言能力，深思熟虑的母语课程内容和考试制度改革，是我们迫切需要的。

作者是国立脑神经医学院院长。原载《海峡时报》，叶琦保译。

（附上刊于《海峡时报》英文原文）

No one-size-fits-all approach to education
A revamp of mother tongue subjects should consider different linguistic abilities
By Lee Wei Ling

I have been a doctor for 32 years. Patients who have been under my care for decades often develop a close relationship with me.

The other day, an Indian patient who has been with me for 13 years came with a bouquet of flowers and a card that said 'To Prof Lee WL, nice to see you back', for I had been away on medical leave. I was very touched.

After I thanked her, I turned to her mother and told her: 'You are not well off; you should not waste money (buying me flowers).'

She replied: 'We are contented with what we have and we are grateful to you and your family.'

Since there were no other patients waiting to see me, I sat back and chatted with her. Apparently, her husband had died some years ago. He had been working as a mechanic for a Chinese-owned engineering company when he was sacked, with one month's severance pay, after working for 29 years.

The mum had then gone with her husband to see the boss. The boss told her in Cantonese: 'Don't bother. Your loukong ('husband' in Cantonese) can neither speak nor write English.' Mum replied to him in fluent Cantonese. The boss was stunned.

Mum had subsequently written to the boss in English, and copied the letter to my father Lee Kuan Yew. She then received a reply from the Government, saying that it would look into the matter. A few months later, the company paid her husband an additional 28 months' salary as severance pay.

I was curious to find out how mum could speak Cantonese. She studied in an English medium school up to Secondary 3. Tamil was her mother tongue, but she also picked up Cantonese, Hokkien and Malay by chatting with her neighbours.

After her husband passed away, mum and her daughter stayed with the patient's brother. He is a technician, married with two children. He supports the family of six on his technician's salary. He can speak Hokkien, Teochew and Hakka.

Mum and daughter are very close. My patient could not attend school as she was mentally slow. But she speaks English. She is aware that she needs her mother to look after her and has told her: 'Ma, you don't die before me.' Mum's reply was: 'Don't worry, God will take you first.'

I recounted this story to my father, telling him how surprised I was that the mother had mastered so many different languages, languages that bore little resemblance to each other.

Someone who understood Hokkien would not understand Cantonese automatically unless she had studied Cantonese too. There are words peculiar to each dialect; moreover, the same words can have very different pronunciations.

My father's response to my story was simple. 'She is an Indian woman,' he said.

He, like me, has a theory that Indians have a special talent for languages. In addition, it is believed that women are better at languages than men; this is probably true, although there are different aspects to language and the sexes probably differ only in certain aspects.

I am writing this story not just to amuse my readers but also to provoke them into thinking about the recent controversy over the weighting of the mother tongue languages in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).

We must remember that language ability varies from individual to individual. There is certainly a genetic component in linguistic ability. The genes for superior linguistic ability bypassed me but were transmitted to both my brothers.

Of all the subjects in school, Chinese language was the one I swotted over the most. But I was willing to work hard on Chinese, even in kindergarten, because I knew my parents were using my brothers and me as proof that my father - a Cambridge-educated lawyer who, when he first entered politics, was barely able to speak Chinese - was not anti-Chinese.

While we were never explicitly told so, it was obvious to us that he was using his own children to signal to the electorate the importance of the Chinese language in particular and of bilingualism in general. For example, even though my father was often too busy to join us for our birthdays, he would come to all our graduation ceremonies - including mine from Nanyang Kindergarten and subsequently from Nanyang Primary School - and these events were reported in the newspapers.

But my own experience is that the environment also plays a role in language learning. My innate linguistic ability is inferior to that of my brothers but determination and hard work allowed me to score as well as they did for Chinese, English and Malay in the Secondary 4 school leaving examination for Chinese schools.

How much weight is given to the mother tongue languages in PSLE will determine whether or not a child can make it to a secondary school of his or her choice. My attitude towards elite schools has always been that although students may receive a better education in such schools, a bright and determined student will make it regardless of the school he or she attends. So regarding people who feel a great deal of angst over the weighting of the mother tongue languages in PSLE, I think their anxiety is unwarranted.

My own concern is that intelligent and hardworking students who are relatively untalented linguistically, as I am, should not be impeded as a result. They must still be able to thrive in school and university, and also enjoy their childhoods.

For now and probably the next 50 years, English will be the main global language. Scientific knowledge will continue to be expressed in English.

As a paediatric neurologist with a special interest in learning disabilities, I have seen too many patients spend an inordinate amount of their time swotting for examinations in their mother tongue at the expense of other subjects. I know of families who have emigrated because their children could not cope with the mother tongue. These families often consist of professionals or successful entrepreneurs - precisely the sort of talent we are trying to attract from other countries. Those affected are mainly Chinese, but Indian Singaporean students also face similar problems, for the Tamil that is taught in our schools, I am told, is too difficult and even arcane.

Our citizens should be encouraged to be as bilingual as they can be, but not at the expense of acquiring relevant knowledge in other fields. There cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to education.

What is certain is that the curriculum for the mother tongue languages as it stands now, especially for Chinese and Tamil, puts an unnecessary burden on our children. A carefully planned revamp of the curriculum and examination system for the mother tongue languages - a revamp that takes into account different linguistic abilities - is needed urgently.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute.