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Huamin Primary School teaches pupils of different races to interact using each other’s mother tongue language through their Conversational Mother Tongue Language (CMTL) Programme.
Huamin Primary School launched the CMTL Programme—aimed at fostering better understanding while building relationships between students of different races—when they celebrated Racial Harmony Day in 2006. The school
chose the tag-line, ‘To Love It Is To Know It’, in hopes of cultivating an appreciation of
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| A Chinese Language teacher ‘doing the rounds’ and sharing some of the selected conversation words. |
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cultures amongst pupils of different races.
Introducing the Mother Tongue
The School Management Committee first discussed the objectives and various plausible strategies that could be adopted to run the CMTL Programme effectively. Our school believed that pupils from different ethnic groups would interact better if they were familiar with some of the commonly-used mother tongue words or phrases used by their friends of other races.
Hence, the CMTL committee, comprising all Mother Tongue Language (MTL) teachers, was tasked to design the Programme. Due to the complexity of the Tamil Language, the committee agreed to come up with a set of conversation words in Tamil first, followed by the Malay Language and Chinese Language. Based on the 26 words selected, lessons were delivered via PowerPoint slides in Chinese, Malay and Tamil. Some of the words included: ‘Good morning—Zao An’ (Chinese), ‘Selamat Pagi’ (Malay), ‘Kaalai Vanakkem’ (Tamil), ‘Thank you—Xie Xie’ (Chinese), ‘Terima Kasih’ (Malay) and ‘Nandri’ (Tamil).
Playing with Language
This whole-school approach kicked off in Term 3. Once a week, pupils from Primary 1 to 5 learnt 12 new words during the 15-minute slot in the mother tongue periods. The respective language teachers went to different classes to teach the basic communication words. Students thus had the chance to learn two other languages apart from their own Mother Tongue. To reinforce their newly learnt knowledge, pupils engaged in card games and ‘Language Hopscotch’. In Term 4, 16 more new words were added to the ‘curriculum’.
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| Pupils also engaged in interactive learning of a new language by playing a game of ‘Language Hopscotch’. |
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| Huamin pupils look forward to enjoying more CMTL lessons in the new school year of 2007. |
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After their PSLE examinations, the Primary 6 pupils also got a chance to participate in the CMTL Programme. Before the end of Term 4, we conducted a survey, which showed that 98% of the students enjoyed the Programme and had used the new languages learnt to communicate with friends of other races. According to Nur Shafif, a Malay student from Primary 1 Michaelangelo, he enjoyed learning Chinese and Tamil Language and looked forward to learning even more. We ended the CMTL Programme with an interactive quiz that was held during the last week of Term 4. The positive feedback and enthusiasm of the pupils motivated the committee to continue with the Programme in 2007.
Teachers Learn Too!
This being a school programme, all the teachers, together with the pupils, learnt each other’s conversational words. They made it a point to greet and converse with their colleagues in the different languages. Pupils also greeted their teachers in the new languages.
As the CMTL lessons were conducted during mother tongue periods, the other subject teachers were not able to sit in. However, posters were put up in various parts of the school for their learning convenience. Through this experience, the MTL teachers got closer to the pupils of other races. There was a newfound warmth amongst the pupils and teachers of the school as a result of the CMTL Programme. |
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