Benefits of Studying Chinese

Studying Chinese well has tremendous benefits from childhood all the way to adulthood. Here is a short list of the benefits of studying Chinese at all stages of life (with focus on the Singapore education system).

Preschool

•  Children fluent in Chinese learn to count much faster. According to famous author and researcher Malcolm Gladwell, four year old Chinese children can count, on average, up to forty. American children, at that age, can only count to fifteen, and don’t reach forty until they’re five: by the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian counterparts in the most fundamental of math skills.
• Bilingual children have a better ‘working memory’ than monolingual children. A study conducted at the University of Granada and the University of York in Toronto, Canada, has revealed that bilingual children develop a better working memory -which holds, processes and updates information over short periods of time- than monolingual children. The working memory plays a major role in the execution of a wide range of activities, such as mental calculation (since we have to remember numbers and operate with them) or reading comprehension (given that it requires associating the successive concepts in a text).

Primary School (PSLE)

• Students good at Chinese will naturally have an advantage when it comes to the PSLE, especially under the new system (without T-score). Grade system means ‘one subject can’t save another’. In the past, students who are exceptionally strong at English, Math and Science, but weak at Chinese still have a good chance of entering the top schools, as their strengths can more than compensate for their weak Chinese scores. However, now under the new system, pupils who are weaker in certain subjects may lose out under a new grades-based scoring system to be introduced.

 Secondary School (O Level)

• Students good at Chinese will have a double advantage in scoring As for Higher Chinese and Chinese. Since the two subjects are closely related, studying for those two subjects is like killing two birds with one stone. Students of Higher Mother Tongue languages are allowed to have up to two points taken off their O-level scoring, and two points makes a big difference.

Junior College (A Level)

• Students who have taken the Higher Mother Tongue language paper at the O-level and have obtained a minimum grade of ‘D7’ are exempted from taking formal MTL lessons and examinations. JC life is very busy and hectic, and the extra hours from being exempted from Mother Tongue lessons could be put to good use for studying other subjects.

University

• Students who are fluent in Chinese have the added option of studying in universities in China under scholarships, or under an exchange program. Chinese universities usually have a language requirement, especially for those courses taught in Chinese.

Career

• China is a major trading partner of Singapore. Singapore is China’s 9th largest trading partner, while China is Singapore’s 3rd largest trading partner which consisted of 10.1 percent of Singapore’s total external trade from the previous year. (Wikipedia)