teaching in English in Malaysia

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In my previous entry I mentioned how in Malaysia students are taught math and science in English. Recently a few adjustments have been made to this policy, which began about three years ago. Here’s a little more information about this, especially as it pertains to schools in that country for ethnic Chinese.

Upper primary school pupils in Chinese schools will learn Mathematics and Science in English for two periods each.

“After discussions with all parties concerned, we have decided on a 4-2-2 formula – that is, four periods of English, two periods of Mathematics and two periods of Science in English for upper primary pupils,” said Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

He added that to accommodate the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English, there would be one period less for Moral Education.

Chinese-medium schools have adopted a bilingual approach, teaching Mathematics and Science in both Chinese and English.

For the lower primary level, a 2-4-3 formula has been used since the policy was implemented in 2003 – two periods for English, four for Mathematics and three for Science per week.

With the announcement, upper primary pupils now have eight periods of Mathematics per week – six periods will be taught in Chinese and two periods in English.

Previously, only seven periods were allocated for Mathematics.

To make room in the timetable for the additional period, Moral Education now will be taught in four periods instead of five.

For Science, of the five periods allocated for the subject, three will be in Chinese and two in English.

The idea of using English to teach Science and Mathematics was proposed to arrest the declining command of the language among students. The policy was implemented from January 2003.

Unhappiness with this, however, apparently extends beyond the ethnic Chinese community, as four students have asked Malaysia’s High Court to declare that the teaching of math and science in English is “unconstitutional, invalid and ineffective.”

For a scholarly examination of related issues, see the work of Wong Ting-Hong (English PDF), such as his book Hegemonies Compared: State Formation and Chinese School Politics in Postwar Singapore and Hong Kong.

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pushing Mandarin in Xinjiang preschools

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Mandarin (a.k.a. Putonghua) will be pushed even in nursery schools in rural Xinjiang, according to an article originally in the South China Morning Post. Money is being offered to those who participate in the program. It’s interesting, too, that this comes at a time when lots of education officials in China have been complaining that nursery schools in the Han parts of China have been offering too much language instruction, especially in terms of literacy.

Also, in primary and secondary schools Mandarin will be used for the teaching of math and science, while the local languages will be used for humanities courses. This is somewhat similar to the situation in Malaysia, where English is used for math and science but not necessarily for other subjects. The attitudes toward the native languages of these respective areas, however, are very different.

Note, too, that few teachers in the area are capable of teaching in Mandarin. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Starting this year, children from seven agricultural prefectures in Xinjiang will start learning Putonghua in nursery schools to strengthen the hold of the national language in the autonomous region.

The move is part of an ongoing effort to implement what the government calls a “bilingual” education system in primary and secondary schools. Putonghua is to be the medium of instruction for mathematics and science, while minority languages such as Uygur will continue to be used in humanities classes.

Xinhua quoted Deputy Secretary Nuer Baikeli as saying the only way to solve the problem and improve the quality of education was to start from the “golden period” -toddlers.

To entice pre-schoolers and teachers to join the programme, students will receive a subsidy of 1.5 yuan a day and teachers 400 yuan a month.

According to the PRC’s statistics, the per capita income of farmers and herdsmen in Xinjiang is about 2,300 yuan per year. Elementary school teachers in Xinjiang make about 1,200 yuan per month. So, relatively speaking, we’re talking about a lot of money as an incentive.

The subsidies will not be offered for bilingual education in primary and secondary schools.

The policy has raised questions about the survival of the native culture of Xinjiang, where the largest ethnic group are the Uygurs (45 per cent), followed by Han (41 per cent) and Kazakhs (7 per cent).

“This is a well-planned strategy by the Chinese government to permanently assimilate the Uygur people into the Chinese culture or dilute the Uygur culture,” said Nury Turkel, president of the Uyghur American Association, a non-profit organization based in Washington DC.

“The Uygur language is one of the most important compositions of the Uygur culture. Taking away that right would create another type of Uygur culture.”

About 70 per cent of schools in the region are ethnic minority schools, which -until recently -started teaching Putonghua as a second language in the third grade. The other 30 per cent teach all classes in Putonghua and introduce English as a second language in the third grade.

Ma Wenhua, deputy director of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Education Department, said the goal was to implement bilingual teaching in all minority schools so students would speak fluent Putonghua when they finished secondary school.

“We plan to have all minority schools use bilingual teaching from the first grade in 10 to 20 years,” he told the South China Morning Post. “We think that if these children are not fluent in Putonghua, it could affect their job opportunities. It would also be difficult for them to continue their education.”

The only thing that was stopping the government from moving faster was a lack of qualified teachers, Mr Ma said. Most ethnic minority teachers do not know enough Putonghua to teach in that medium.

Mr Ma estimated that only 5 per cent of ethnic minority primary schools had started teaching in Putonghua. The level of participation varied depending on the number of qualified teachers.

One teacher from an ethnic minority school in Urumqi said her school planned to start teaching mathematics in Putonghua next year.

Most teachers did not know Putonghua and had started training in the language.

The teacher would not say whether she thought bilingual education was better.

“We’ll have to see how it goes,” she said.

China: Mandarin Introduced in Uygur Nursery Schools, South China Morning Post (via the BBC via another site), February 2, 2006

Hunan plans law requiring Mandarin of civil servants

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China’s Hunan Province plans to introduce a law that would require all civil servants to speak Mandarin. Under this law, those who fail examinations in Mandarin would not be promoted and could even be “removed from their posts.” (Demoted? Fired?)

If the law is approved, the province will be the first to enforce such a law. The law was planned after the authorities received many complaints about civil servants with poor language skills.

source: Civil servants urged to brush up Mandarin, China Daily, January 13, 2006

books on Chinese-character etymologies

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An acquaintance of mine who goes by the Net name of Dragonbones (because of his interest in Chinese oracle bones, of course) recently responded to a query on Forumosa on works on the history and background of Chinese characters.

I assume you want to read a non-scholarly introduction, in English. Unfortunately, many mass-marketed books on this topic (nicely produced coffee table books or cartoon-illustrated paperbacks) are full of erroneous general characterizations of the language, and the etymologies of individual characters are based on out-of-date works, failing to incorporate the last 100 years of scholarship and bronze and oracle bone research, or are cartoon-illustrated spin-ups of folk etymology, weaving enjoyable but VERY often inaccurate stories which seem suitable only ideal for teaching children, or for mnemonic purposes.

Other works, by expert paleographers, are too technical for the laity, and the best information on individual characters is scattered throughout hundreds of journal articles, conference papers or monographs, or expensive scholarly books in Chinese. As a result, it’s hard to recommend good books to you.

After praising The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, which would also be my recommendation for the book to read first, he provides a list of other books:

  • for individual etymologies: 謝光輝 Xìe Guānghuī Ed., (1997). The Composition of Common Chinese Characters: An Illustrated Account
  • for an introduction to oracle bones: Keightley, David N. (1978). Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China
  • early pottery inscriptions: Woon, Wee Lee (1987). Chinese Writing: Its Origin and Evolution
  • 裘錫圭 Qiú Xīguī (2000). Chinese Writing. Translation of 文字學概論 by Gilbert L. Mattos and Jerry Norman

Dragonbones also cautions against some works:

  • Harbaugh, Rick (1998). Chinese Characters: a Genealogy and Dictionary (This is the work that forms the basis of the popular Zhongwen.com Web site.)
  • 李乐毅 Lǐ Lèyì, Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases, 汉字演变五百例
  • Peng, Tan Huay (1980). Fun with Chinese Characters
  • Wáng Hóngyuán (1993). 漢字字源入門 The Origins of Chinese Characters
  • Wieger, Dr. L., S.J. (1927) Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification
  • Wilder, G.D. & Ingram, J.H. (1974 reprint of 1934 2nd ed.) Analysis of Chinese Characters
  • anything by 許進雄 Xu Jìnxióng (James Chin-hsiung Hsu)

For comments on each of these works, see Dragonbones’ original post.

Also, Pinyin Info offers a number of readings related to this topic.

The ‘g’ in Ang Lee

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Ang Lee (李安), the director of Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, Sense and Sensibility, Eat Drink Man Woman, and many other films, was recently back here in his homeland of Taiwan.

I’ve long wondered how Lee ended up with such an odd form for the romanization of his name. I’m not referring to the spelling of his family name, Lee. Although the Anglicization of “Lee” for 李 is not standard in any of the main romanization systems, that particular spelling is almost certainly more common in Taiwan than “Li,” which is the form in most romanization systems other than Gwoyeu Romatzyh. In Gwoyeu Romatzyh, which nominally was Taiwan’s official romanization system until 1986 — long after Lee acquired a passport and had gone to the United States — Lǐ is written Lii; but I’ve never seen that spelling used for a name here.

No, what puzzles me is the g in his given name of “Ang.” In Mandarin, this is one of those relatively rare syllables spelled the same in basically all of the main romanization systems: an. So where is that g from? (Please don’t read through the rest of this message in any kind of suspense, because I still don’t know the answer to that question, though I’m hoping one of my readers will.)

For those unfamiliar with Mandarin, Ang Lee’s given name is not originally pronounced like American English’s bang without the b or sang without the s. Rather, the a is similar to that in the English word father; the n is about as you’d expect; and there’s no g. So the name is pronounced something like the French (not English) version of Anne or the end of the German Autobahn.

The Ang spelling doesn’t appear to come from Taiwanese. Even in Taiwanese 安 would be romanized as an, not ang, in the dominant systems. (Correct me if I’m wrong, please. I know almost no Taiwanese.) Also, at the time Lee would have adopted the Ang spelling, the use of Taiwanese romanization for names would most certainly have been intensely frowned upon by the authorities if not forbidden outright. Moreover, I don’t think Lee is even ethnically Taiwanese/Hokkien.

Of course, he may have chosen to use a spelling other than what he was made to use on his passport. But people in Taiwan seldom do that unless they adopt an “English” name, which “Ang” is certainly not. The g might be there to help prevent people from thinking he’s a woman named Ann. But if that were the concern, why not simply adopt an English name?

Poagao, who met Ang Lee in Taipei last week, met back in September with Lee’s little brother, who’s known as Khan (or perhaps Kan) Lee. As Poagao notes, there’s something strange with that name, too:

One thing I’d like to know is why “Ang” gets an unneccesary ‘g’ (it should be “An”), while “Kan” is one ‘g’ short (it should be “Kang”). Did Ang steal his little brother’s ‘g’ at some point?

Ang Lee’s brother’s name is Lǐ Gǎng in Hanyu Pinyin. (Theoretically, it could also be Lǐ Gàng or Lǐ Gāng because 崗 is one of many Chinese characters with multiple pronunciations.) The use of k rather than g comes from the Wade-Giles romanization system. In Taiwan, most people’s passports have names romanized using improper, bastardized Wade-Giles, which helps create a lot of confusion — as if Wade-Giles itself weren’t confusing enough already. Moreover, Taiwan’s passport office operates on the principle of chabuduo jiu keyi, which in this context is a close approximation of the English saying “close enough for government work.” In other words, if a spelling looks more or less correct it will probably pass — unless, that is, it has Hanyu Pinyin’s x or q in it, in which case it would probably be rejected. (I’m not making this up. I’ve spoken with people in the passport office about this.)

In looking through Lee Ang’s biography I noticed that he has two sons, one of whom is named “Haan,” at least according to the Internet Movie Database’s credits for Pushing Hands, one of Lee’s early movies. At first, I thought this might be a two-syllable given name that had been run together: Ha’an (or Ha-an, following the style used in Taiwan). Could this be the same an as in Ang Lee’s name — just this time without the mysterious g? But it turns out that Haan is a one-syllable name.

Here’s the character: 涵.

A doubled vowel in romanized Mandarin usually indicates the use of Gwoyeu Romatzyh’s tonal spelling. But the “Haan” spelling would be for third tone, while Haan’s name should be pronounced with a second tone. (This would be written “Harn” in Gwoyeu Romatzyh.)

So perhaps the IMDB entry is a typo, and the real spelling should be Han, as expected. Or maybe those in the Lee family just like funny spellings.

Some say ‘no 3Q’ to Net slang in Chinese test

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Internet slang and emoticons were included in the Chinese-language section of this year’s college-entrance exam for Taiwan, to the dismay and confusion of many.

Examples of this in the exam include

  • ::>_< ::
  • 3Q
  • Orz

::>_< :: is supposed to represent crying. (The colons are tears, the underscore is the mouth, and the others are the eyes.)

For "3Q," the three is pronounced san and the Q is pronounced as in English, yielding "san Q," which is meant to represent the English phrase "thank you."

"Orz" is intended to be a pictograph of a person bowing down on the floor, with the O as the head, the vertical line of the r as the arms, and the z as the legs.

This test is crucial to the lives of those seeking to enter post-secondary education. Many students spend years studying for this exam. The nation's parents, stressed-out from worry about how their children will do on this test, will probably go ballistic over this. I'll be surprised if those questions end up being counted toward the final score.

On the other hand, I can't help but think that given how much Classical Chinese is certain to be on the test, a few questions about modern Internet slang might not be inappropriate. After all, the latter is likely to have more relevance to the majority of today's college students and even possibly more a part of modern Mandarin than some parts of literary Sinitic.

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Taiwan’s Chinese character of the year

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For those who were disappointed with Japan’s choice of 愛 (ài in Mandarin — love) for the 2005 kanji of the year, there’s always Taiwan’s watered-down, copycat version, in which some 30,000 votes were registed on a Web site.

And the winner is

瞎

This character represents the Mandarin word xiā, which means “blind.”

Xia (瞎, the character meaning blind in Mandarin Chinese) beat sha (殺, kill), men (悶, frustration) and xian (鮮, fresh or weird) as the word of the year for 2005,” Liang Hsiang-yi (連祥一), deputy manager of yam.com, told a news conference.

Heavy and frequent use of the word “xia” to mean “reckless” by Taiwanese pop singer and teen idol Jay Chou’s (周杰倫) has meant the word “xia” has come to mean more than just “blind” among the nation’s young people.

“This shows many people are dissatisfied with the social and political chaos in Taiwan last year,” Liang said.

For me, the linguistically interesting part of this is the use of the word “chaos.” This is often the translation of Mandarin’s luàn (亂 / 乱). Luàn, however, can also mean “disorderly” and “messy,” which are the more appropriate translations in most instances.

A little more on the meanings that have come to be associated in Taiwan’s pop culture with xia:

「瞎」字泛指白目、無厘頭、亂搞等的意思，某種程度代表嘲諷與無奈，對照網友票選出來2005年度最「瞎」的幾個事件，則是由「王靜瑩家暴案」、「職棒打假球」、「王育誠腳尾飯事件」分別奪得前三名，顯見網友對去年發生的社會事件有霧裡看花、甚至被耍的無奈感受。

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