Huh? Go to western countries to pick up ideas on how Chinese is taught there? Haven't our leaders being trumpeting that our bilingual education is the best in the world? World highest salaries would attract the best talents to the civil service like the education ministry - so said the PAP leaders. So now we have to pack our education officers to US and Australia to copy ideas from them about learning Chinese language? 
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_534596.html
MOTHER TONGUE LANGUAGE REVIEW
Panel gets ideas overseas
By Maria Almenoar
MEMBERS of the panel reviewing the way mother tongue is taught and learnt here have gone on study trips to several countries to pick up ideas.
The director-general of education, Madam Ho Peng, making her first remarks on the subject since being named as head of the panel, said her team has been to the United States and Australia.
It has also been examining the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, a standardised examination set in China to test non-native speakers' proficiency in Chinese.
These moves will give the team a good idea of what needs to be done in the area of mother tongue instruction, she said.
However, she added that several good initiatives implemented here since a 2007 review are already yielding good results, so the focus going forward is to improve on these.
Madam Ho was speaking on Wednesday at the 14th Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education. Among the recent effective initiatives she mentioned are the use of handheld tablet PCs in class and the greater emphasis on speaking and listening.
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_534596.html
MOTHER TONGUE LANGUAGE REVIEW
Panel gets ideas overseas
By Maria Almenoar
MEMBERS of the panel reviewing the way mother tongue is taught and learnt here have gone on study trips to several countries to pick up ideas.
The director-general of education, Madam Ho Peng, making her first remarks on the subject since being named as head of the panel, said her team has been to the United States and Australia.
It has also been examining the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, a standardised examination set in China to test non-native speakers' proficiency in Chinese.
These moves will give the team a good idea of what needs to be done in the area of mother tongue instruction, she said.
However, she added that several good initiatives implemented here since a 2007 review are already yielding good results, so the focus going forward is to improve on these.
Madam Ho was speaking on Wednesday at the 14th Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education. Among the recent effective initiatives she mentioned are the use of handheld tablet PCs in class and the greater emphasis on speaking and listening.
