Singapore has a strong education system, with proven track records as assessed on PISA 2022. During the assessment, Singapore managed to score as the top-performing students among 64 participating countries. This result shows how Singapore has successfully developed a robust education framework to increase understanding and critical thinking. Managed by the Ministry of Education, Singapore has been implementing a curriculum focusing on children’s holistic development. Throughout this article, we will be discussing MOE Chinese Curriculum, specifically on Chinese language learning and a few tips to help your child succeed!

As previously mentioned, MOE curriculum refers to the official syllabus given by the Ministry of Education in Singapore to ensure that formal learning can assist in developing a good sense of self-awareness, a sound moral compass, and the skills needed to face any existing challenges in the future. With a well-structured curriculum, Singapore’s MOE has settled 4 main desired outcomes for young learners. 

1. Confident person who is equipped with a strong sense of judgment and critical thinking. This confidence should be able to encourage students to communicate effectively on different occasions. 
2. Self directed learner with high curiosity that is willing to hold accountability of their own learning journey. 
3. Active contributors that can collaborate actively in society while managing an empathetic and open-minded thinking.  
4. Concerned citizens who have a strong civic consciousness while living in a community with others. 

MOE curriculum can be broken down into a few subjects, one of them being MOE Chinese which covers the use of Mandarin as a second language. While its main goal is still in line with MOE’s desired of outcomes, MOE Chinese has its separate objectives as the following: 

1. Developing Language Skills
   This objective focuses on how students can show proficiency in Chinese language. With the MOE curriculum, students are expected to be able to communicate and utilize Chinese in daily life while developing a love for its language and culture.
2. Cultivating Humanistic Qualities
   Humanistic qualities’ main concern is regarding how students can develop their emotional and cultural qualities through everyday learning. This objective expects students to be able to exhibit good morals, appreciate and develop cultural belongings, including diversity.
3. Fostering Generic Competencies
   This objective refers to the ability of students to apply knowledge and critical thinking in different fields. The expectation of generic competencies include creativity, adaptability, flexibility, taking initiative, socializing, and showing effective communication.

The Chinese curriculum for primary students in Singapore can be divided into two different groups, foundation stage which is targeted for primary 1 through primary 4 students and orientation stage for primary 5 and primary 6 students. To ensure that the curriculum implemented can cater to everyone’s need, MOE Chinese Curriculum is divided into 5 type of units as the following: 

• Core units – This unit is mandatory for all to ensure that all main learning objectives can be completed to achieve the desired outcomes. 

• Introductory units – Optional lessons designed for lower grade students that serve as a foundation to assist them in core units learnings. 

• Enhanced units – Optional lessons designed for higher grade students that serve as a foundation to assist them in core units learnings. 

• School-based units – Lessons that are tailored specifically for students with intermediate abilities that are looking for a deeper explanation of the introductory and enhanced units. 

• In-depth units – Lessons that are tailored for students who are interested in learning more about Chinese language. 

MOE Chinese curriculum designed for Singaporean students usually consists of four different learning objectives that is constantly taught throughout primary and secondary school. Here’s a quick overview of each learning objective!

• Listening
  As one of the earliest skills developed, learning objectives for listening include understanding phonetic features, understanding audio cues, analyzing keywords, listening and repeating phrases.

• Reading
  Learning objectives for reading include skills such as recognizing meaning of words, comprehending reading sections, analyzing and evaluating reading sections.

• Writing
  Written communication is equally important in Chinese learning and includes several different skills such as writing Chinese characters and arranging paragraphs.

• Speaking
  Speaking is one of the important foundations especially for daily interactions. This includes several skills such as the ability to answer questions, quote and paraphrase others, offering opinions, and expressing emotions.

As the official curriculum used in Singapore’s schools, understanding the MOE Chinese lessons is important to help students improve their proficiency. Some kids, especially those who come from non-native backgrounds, might find MOE Chinese curriculum difficult – though the curriculum itself is designed to be progressive and age-appropriate. With how much skills that need to be mastered while learning in primary school, here are a few steps to help your child successfully learn MOE Chinese. 

• Incorporating technology into learning process
  With how developed technology lately, incorporating this into your child’s learning journey can help create a better learning environment with expanded resources to start with. From interactive apps to online Chinese games and ebooks, these resources provide engaging ways to reinforce vocabulary, pronunciation, and comprehension.

• Find relation with daily activities
  Familiarity is an important part of learning. With a familiar context, kids will most likely be able to retain information better. Therefore, a simple way to help your child is by finding relations between daily activities and the materials they are currently learning. For example, you can try reading Chinese Storybooks or conversing in Chinese with simple topics.

• Practice consistently
  Practice is the best teacher–this single quote remains relevant in different fields, including learning Chinese. Building consistency can help your brain become more used to Chinese phrases and saying, making things like memorizing vocabulary flow more naturally than before.

• Join extra lessons
  If your child seems to be struggling to catch up with in-class teaching, another solution that can be offered is signing up to courses that can help boost Chinese proficiency for young learners. Try finding a tuition centre that can offer well structured lessons focusing around MOE Chinese.

As previously mentioned, joining extra lessons is highly recommended for learning MOE Chinese. While home practice and school lessons lay the groundwork, many students might need extra support to understand unit lessons. The existence of structured courses play a crucial role in bridging the gaps between learned objectives and students’ capabilities. With many different courses offered, it is important for you to understand which one can help your child succeed in learning MOE Chinese effectively.

With EliteKid, your child will be offered a structured program in accordance with the MOE Chinese Syllabus. MOE Chinese course by EliteKid will offer you the following benefits.

1. A focus on learning vocabulary for language acquisition to be able to apply it in daily conversation. 
2. Interactive teaching with qualified native trainers to improve oral skills.
3. Engaging learning that incorporates technology and lively presentation to encourage active participation from students. 
4. Detailed feedback on homework paired with a personalised assessment report at the end of the term. 

To learn more about how to help your child succeed with MOE Chinese Curriculum, contact us and get started with your kid’s Chinese learning journey!