SHE may not know a lick of Mandarin but Nur Aslinda Mohd Nasir is determined that her seven-year-old son will be fluent.
Nur Aslinda strongly believes that mastering another language, specifically Mandarin, will give her son, Mat Ausyaff Adam Mat Rozman, better job prospects when he grows up, propelling her decision to send him to a Chinese primary school.
Crucially, she adds, he is interested in learning the Chinese language.
“I can feel that my son enjoys learning Mandarin,” she says, her face lighting up with a happy and hopeful smile.
Ausyaff started learning simple Mandarin in kindergarten. This year marks his first year at SJKC On Pong 2 in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, an urban school with a predominantly Chinese population.
Nur Aslinda says she had decided to send Ausyaff to a Chinese kindergarten to “test the waters”.
“When Ausyaff came home from kindergarten every day, he would excitedly write on the walls.
“I couldn’t understand the Chinese characters he wrote, so I asked him what they meant.
“He told me they were the Chinese characters he learned in school. At that moment, I felt his interest in learning Mandarin,” she says.
When he met Chinese neighbours outside the house, Ausyaff would even greet them warmly in Chinese.
Ausyaff seems to be enjoying learning Mandarin, says his mother Nur Aslinda.
Without a Chinese language environment at home, how does she help her child adapt to a Chinese primary school?
Nur Aslinda frankly admits that is not easy: “It is a big challenge.”
However, she is optimistic and positive that he will be able to master Mandarin and leaves the freedom of learning to her child.
Still, she also worries about what to do if Ausyaff can’t keep up with his lessons at school.
“I can’t understand Chinese, so I have some difficulty supervising Ausyaff’s studies.
“Therefore, I consult my Chinese friends or use Google Translate to try to remember the shapes of Chinese characters,” she says, noting that she will not force him to continue if Ausyaff finds it too difficult to keep up in class or if his learning progress at the Chinese school is too slow.
“We are not going to burden our child,” says Nur Aslinda.
Many parents believe that mastering an additional language can open doors to better opportunities and provide their children with a competitive edge later in life.
Apart from the language, non-Chinese parents are also drawn to what they perceive as a quality teaching and learning environment, the pupils’ exemplary disciplinary traits, and proximity, when such schools are located closest to home.
According to the Dong Jiao Zong (United Chinese School Committees Association and the United Chinese School Teachers’ Association of Malaysia) non-Chinese pupils make up approximately 20% of the total enrolment in Chinese primary schools nationwide.
Mother Kuning Saidatul Izween, who runs an F&B business with husband Zam Azmir Ngah Rashlim, sends four of her children – Namira Madina, 12; Zaydeen Izz Qaiser, 11; Zarith Izz Qaiser, 10; and Nura Sumayyah, seven – to study in SKJC Pin Hwa 1 in Setia Alam, Selangor.
Kuning, 37, says she strongly believes that learning Mandarin will provide better future opportunities for her children, while the training in discipline at Chinese primary schools can help to build their character – “Chinese schools are strict about pupils’ discipline,” she says, adding that she is grateful for the school’s efforts to inculcate discipline in its pupils.
“For me it is good. Because my children now know how to do housework. If I ask them to sweep the floor, they will do it. National schools don’t do this.”
To prepare her children for a vernacular primary education, Kuning sent her children to a Chinese preschool, which is located in the same Chinese primary school.
“I enrolled my kids in a Chinese pre-school before sending them to the Chinese primary school. This is to teach them the basics of Mandarin so that they can at least understand the language, which is the teaching medium in the class.
“Even then, for Namira, her Year One at the school was a bit difficult due to the language barrier. And I do not speak Mandarin to help her practice at home.
“What makes it more difficult is the syllabus. It is not like your normal national school standard. At the Chinese school, the syllabus’s progress is always way ahead and at a faster pace.”
However, Kuning lauds the teachers’ dedication to teaching Namira Mandarin.
“Whenever I do not understand something, I will call the teacher and she will help me understand the pinyin so that I can teach her,” Kuning says, referring to the romanised spelling for transliterating Mandarin.
“But now, that is no longer an issue because since I sent Namira, and later the other siblings, they all now can speak Mandarin at home, creating a Mandarin language environment. They now teach each other how to speak better.” – Sin Chew/The Star/MIA
