PISA exam revisited – Part 2

 

My post yesterday was prompted by an article written by Syed Akbar Ali. LINK.

Here are extracts from that article:

Dear Malay brothers and sisters, there is a big difference in understanding, opinion and approach between the Chinese and the Malay-Muslims regarding education.

This is one of the main reasons why young Chinese people grow up to become towkays, managers and owners of companies and businesses, but Muslim Malay children will be chronically dependent on Malay political power to earn a living.

PISA exam revisited – Part 1

 

                                                              Anuar Ahmad from UKM

Here is my Facebook post about Anuar Ahmad dated 23.2.24.

I have been reading some articles by Anuar in Utusan Malaysia. He raises many valid points.

Here is an excerpt from one such article.

Anuar Ahmad 23.2.24

When I give views, isn't my real duty as an academician assigned to conduct research and provide views on implementing the country's education system?

They told me to shut up. I say ok, I'll keep my mouth shut. It's not because I'm afraid, but because I want to fully focus my attention, time, and energy on understanding education issues. I don't want to argue with anyone.

Even my views focus only on the education system issues, not an 'attack' on any individual. I'm silent because I don't want to lose focus to continue sharing education issues with the community.

We all have a collective responsibility to provide sincere ideas and views for improving children's education.

Literacy Architects and their silly notions

 

Here is a post by the Literacy Architects. On their website, they boast that they promote the use of evidence-based literacy routines in grades PreK-12.

Literacy Architects:

Traditionally, high-frequency and irregular words have been taught through memorization, a method that often falls short of promoting genuine literacy skills.

My comment:

What memorisation are they talking about? Is it the same memorisation method mentioned by the Dyslexia Proponents? Many of the Dyslexia Proponents talk about visual memorisation which is absolute nonsense. LINK and LINK. 

Where did these teachers learn to teach kids this way of memorisation is beyond me? 

Dyslexia Training Institute

 

In 2004 when I started researching dyslexia, I read a few online articles each week stating that dyslexia is a result of a phonological awareness deficit. I wrote several articles intermittently for several years until finally, that theory was debunked.

I recently discovered that dyslexia proponents have started to write the same nonsense that was written for more than 40 years before I started my research in 2010.

Here is a post by Dr. Kelli Sandman-Hurley, Dyslexia Training Institute in 2011 shared on Twitter today, 22.8.2024. LINK.

Alphabetic and syllabic system

 

For an alphabetic system, the beginner has to first become aware of individual phonemes in spoken words to subsequently learn that those phonemes are represented by letters.

Mandarin does not use an alphabetic system. It is syllabic. The learner has to be aware that spoken words are comprised of syllables. 

Similarly, when teaching kids Pinyin we should teach them syllables as illustrated in the Pinyin chart on my post at LINK

Benefits of Using Pinyin Chart for Teaching Syllables

 

Many teachers teaching Pinyin and websites promoting Pinyin charts use initial sounds as under Bopomofo system. This confuses kids who shut down from learning to read in Pinyin.

I recommend using the Pinyin chart with no Bopomofo initial sounds.

The Pinyin chart provided by Yoyo Chinese is the best Pinyin Chart I have seen online.

Listed below are the advantages of this Pinyin Chart. 

Tones in Mandarin

 

At the onset, I want to say that I want to learn to speak Mandarin the way it is intended to be spoken. I want to learn to speak it with the correct tones.

Recently, I joined several groups on Facebook to share experiences learning Chinese.

In most groups, beginners and intermediate learners complain about tones being the most difficult to learn in Mandarin.

Pinyin syllables

 

Here are my questions and answers from AI about the way Pinyin is taught.

My statement and questions: 

You have addressed some of the common mistakes in teaching children Pinyin in China.

What you have stated will result in many kids being unable to read Pinyin. These however do not cause kids to shut down/disengage from learning to read Pinyin.

What causes kids to shut down is teaching them the sounds represented by the initial letters wrongly. LINK

Pinyin has408 syllables and any kid will be able to learn these syllables with easy. Why do teachers complicate issues by teaching Zhong as zhe oh ng?

No, in Pinyin a child just learns the syllable Zhong. He will combine that with guo to get zhongguo.

Why are teachers teaching the initial sounds as bo,po,mo,fo etc? This is where intelligent kids shut down from learning as it does not make sense. They can’t understand why bo + an = ban. They cannot understand why fo+ ei is fei. They then shut down from learning and will be classified as stupid/lazy or dyslexic.

Dig Mandarin - another Pinyin Chart

 

On 30.7.24 I wrote to Digmandarin.com and they replied as follows:

From: caojing.digmandarin@gmail.com

To: luqmanmichel52@yahoo.com

Fri, 2 Aug at 16:35

Hi Luqman Michel,

Thank you for bringing these concerns to our attention.

We would like to clarify that all the text instructions provided in our guide are general descriptions of the corresponding initials. We understand that sometimes these descriptions might be hard to grasp, which is why we have created corresponding tutorial Pinyin videos to aid learners. You can find these videos on our website at Chinese Pronunciation Courses (https://www.digmandarin.com/chinese-language-courses/chinese-pronunciation-courses?pinyin).

To make the instructions clearer and more acceptable to learners, we often add a vowel afterward when pronouncing the initials to strengthen the pronunciation in our traditional Pinyin teaching method. For example, "b" is pronounced as "b+o" and "p" as "p+o." This method does not affect the spelling of Pinyin syllables but helps learners better understand the pronunciation.

We appreciate your feedback and hope this explanation helps clarify our approach.

Best regards,

Cao Jing

How liars create the ‘illusion of truth’

 

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels.

I was thinking about what to write after my previous post.  This morning I received an email from Du Chinese to which I have a free subscription. The first story I read that an unpaid subscriber can read was an idiom entitled, “If a third person said that there are tigers on the street, would the King believe it?” You may read the Chinese story and its translation into English. LINK

Pīnyīn Rìjì Duǎnwén by Zhāng Lìqīng

                                                                    

To follow up on my previous post I decided to check on books in Pinyin and immediately found one written in 2010.

This book of short stories is entirely in Pinyin. It does not contain even one Chinese character.

The entire book is available for free on this site. LINK 

I read the first chapter - Dàshuǐ Guòhòu. I could read and comprehend the entire chapter. Anyone who has attained HSK level 4 will be able to read it.

Bridget Nee and her silly notion that Pinyin is not for comprehension.

 

Bridget Nee is from Shanghai and now living in NZ. In Shanghai, she was a teacher.

On 22.7.24 Bridget Nee said the following:

'Forget the news from someone outside of China. Written Characters are the only formal ones in everyday language usage. Pinyin is for the Young kids, mainly as a bridge from oral to written. Don’t blame the teachers!'

I then commented:

I have heard this before. Someone says such silly things on social media and others jump on the bandwagon and repeat it as if it is the Gospel truth.

Is there anyone who thinks that Pinyin is only for young kids?

There were no comments from Bridget Nee or her friends from Shanghai. She said they are all busy making a living.

A teacher from Beijing teaching Pinyin wrongly.

Yan Yue (Blue Cat) is a teacher from Beijing, China. Her introduction on Facebook says she is a teacher who teaches the Chinese language.

Here is her Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093718062022

I was pleasantly surprised when I received a message on my Facebook messenger that stated:

Hi, I read your blog. What you said is correct. The Pinyin they teach is problematic. Seeing your blog, I plan to go to YouTube, to teach Chinese. I hope you can check. I think you are a very responsible person.  Nice to meet you.

I replied:

I would be happy to comment on your YouTube videos when they are uploaded. Nice to meet you too.

Pinyin Chart - Purple Culture

 

 

Click for a clear view of one of the many Pinyin charts above online. LINK

Click on the sound files of any of the letters on the first line. b p m f d t n etc. 

This is how many teachers in China and Taiwan teach kids to read in Pinyin. Like kids who are taught English letters with extraneous sounds the intelligent kids who cannot make sense of how ‘bwo-ai’ combines to make bai; ‘mwo- an’ combines to make man; ‘fwo-ang’ combines to become fang; ‘lur-ei’ combines to make lei, shut down/disengage from learning to read.

Don't Know Nothing 不知道人

This morning, 3.8.24, I saw a Face Book post with the name ‘Don’t know Nothing.’

The introduction on Face Book is as follows:

Intro

The true wisdom of the East: The mechanism of Heaven and Earth is to make people “not know”; it is called Nature. To make people know the unknown, it is also called Nature. The beauty of Nature is because of knowing, but more beauty lies in “not knowing”.

I then commented on one of his posts: 

"Dyslexia is just a label" Tom Cruise.

                                                               

Here is a recent interview with Tom Cruise where he says that dyslexia is just a label. LINK.

The part about Dyslexia starts at minute 6.42.

Interviewer: It is interesting too that you had this problem with dyslexia when you were a child.  How bad was that?

Tom Cruise: It was fascinating. Something that they wanted to put me on medication when I was young. My mother said no. Unfortunately, now in the US, they can tell you not to go to school unless you are medicated. I was fortunate that I didn’t and I did everything that I could and then when I became a Scientologist there was a study technology that Ron Hubbard developed and I started applying that and I realized that it (dyslexia) is just a label – dyslexia, attention deficit disorder- there is no science behind these things whatsoever.

Interviewer: Is it curable?

Tom Cruise: Yes, what it is, is that it is just knowing the proper tools to educate yourself.

Why would kids taught pinyin with Bopomofo sounds shut down

                                                            

A Chinese friend says he does not understand why I say that kids taught pinyin using Bopomofo sounds may cause them to shut down from learning to read in Pinyin and English.

I have explained this in detail in my book Shut Down Kids. This post is for those who have not read my book or the posts in this blog.

Many of the kids who are classified as dyslexic are intelligent kids who disengage/shut down from learning to read. They shut down from learning to read due to confusion. The main reason for their confusion is the teaching of consonants with extraneous sounds. This means the sound that is not part of the consonants but added by teachers.