Mother-tongue teachers reinforce cultural roots in lessons

SINGAPORE — Her determination to challenge herself prompted Madam Norhaizahwati Mohd Said to take up teaching pre-schoolers the Malay language after serving as an English teacher at childcare centres for about 10 years.

With more families, including her own, speaking mainly English at home, the mother of three wanted to see how she could help the young ones develop a love for their mother tongue.

“I wanted to bridge the gap (in the teaching of Malay) between pre-school and primary school education,” said the 40-year-old.

Mdm Norhaizahwati will be one of 13 recipients of the Outstanding Pre-school Mother Tongue Language (MTL) Teacher Award on Saturday (Aug 19). The awards will be given out during the 6th Mother Tongue Languages Symposium, which will be held at Suntec Singapore Exhibition and Convention Centre.

Mdm Norhaizahwati recalled that when she first started teaching the Malay language about 10 years ago, she was used to speaking only “bahasa rojak”, Malay for mixed languages, and found it awkward giving lessons using formal Malay. She also struggled to ensure language consistency during class.

“I was a bit shocked, because when I spoke to them in Malay, they (the pre-schoolers) kept responding to me in English. I had to keep reminding them that it was a Malay class. In the end, they became very cautious with their words and most of them just kept quiet,” said the teacher at PCF Sparkletots Bukit Panjang (Blk 111).

Mdm Norhaizahwati then sought advice from a colleague and turned up for the latter’s classes to observe her teaching style, which included singalongs and traditional Malay poems, or pantun.

She then introduced these elements to her own classes, which proved to be a success. Mdm Norhaizahwati now makes it a point to do a song-and-dance item before every lesson, including the dikir barat (rhythmic singing and dancing) and pantun, to help her students expand their vocabulary.

“I had a sore throat one time, and I couldn’t join them in the singing, so they asked me to sit down while they sang for me. They made the first move,” said Mdm Norhaizahwati.

Another Outstanding Award recipient, Ms Luo Yan Yan, who teaches Mandarin, also believes in reinforcing cultural roots in education.

Hailing from China, the 30-year-old preschool teacher is now a Singaporean citizen, after moving here to pursue a secondary school education.

Ms Luo has been teaching at My First Skool at Choa Chu Kang Central (Blk 212) for about three years now, after spending eight years at another pre-school.

“I love the Chinese culture because of my family background. When I was in secondary school, my classmates were not very interested in Chinese and found it difficult to study,” she said. “Inculcating the love for the language should start from young.”

Using role-play games to engage her students, she would create an environment in class to resemble the outdoors, such as an underwater world. She would then ask the students to take on the role of divers by wearing goggles or diving flippers to hunt for hidden word cards.

To instill a sense of responsibility in her students, Ms Luo would ask her students to act as if they were cleaning the fish tank and feeding the fish.

Teaching students traditional Chinese values, such as respect and responsibility, through in-class games helps them in character-building, Ms Luo said.