Research On Malaysian Chinese Teaching

Chinese language education in Malaysia has been developed over the past two centuries. This paper, probes into Malaysian Chinese teaching trying to provide a series of recommendations in order to improve the quality of Malaysian Chinese educational system. To some extent, the proposal hereby submitted will be useful to spread more extensively Chinese language and culture in Malaysia.This paper makes use of such methods as literature study, comprehensive analysis and interviews conducted with experts and outstanding scholars to sort out and provide an in-depth and systematic overview on Chinese teaching in Malaysia. By pointing out some existing problems and extracting a theoretical approach from the peculiar development of Chinese teaching in Malaysia, the author presents an understanding and possible models for a further promotion of Chinese teaching in Malaysia.Besides, the present research aims to analyze from a macro-perspective Chinese teaching in Malaysia; this will be useful for enlarging and completing the research status about Chinese education in Malaysia as a whole. The paper does not only investigate the theoretical significance of the transmission mode of Malaysian Chinese teaching, but will also be valuable for Chinese teaching in other countries and regions.The thesis firstly describes the relationship between Chinese education in Malaysia and its national education system. Secondly, it explores the structural characteristics of Chinese education within the context of national education policies, its development and the impact of such national education policies; then, it probes into the contents of Chinese course, Chinese syllabus and other teaching materials, providing some useful comments on their main features and the existing problems; finally, it makes further analysis on the training of Chinese language teachers and their qualifications, personnel structure and training mode.Research findings show that although Chinese language education is part of the national education system, there is a lack of institutional arrangement; teaching materials and classes for elementary schools' Chinese curricula are too simple and cannot properly match the requirements for the Chinese courses undergoing in middle school at further level of education; in elementary school, there are students with different ethnic background and each ethnic group starts learning the languages from a different starting point. In such a condition, using the same teaching materials and syllabus is totally inappropriate. In addition, the way the government arranges training courses shows a lot of discrepancies; Chinese primary schools and ''reformed" middle school suffered for a long time from a shortage of Chinese qualified teachers, while teachers working in national elementary school exceed the number that the actual situation demands. On the basis of the above findings, the author believes that the features of Chinese language status in Malaysia might be summed up as "language enclave" and "language and cultural heritage contrastive power". China's support is a necessary requisite for the spreading of Chinese language, at the same time particular attention should be paid to the need of diversifying channels and strategies for local Chinese language teaching according to the country's need, in order to achieve the desired social effects.By "language enclave" we imply that in the field of Chinese teaching, Malaysia, next to Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, is the country with the most appropriate and complete system. In Malaysia a complete education system has been set up ranging from primary school to universities; moreover, there are assessment and examination systems at various school levels, with its own syllabus, teaching materials and teachers'training team. Besides these few aspects, there are also some educational administrative organizations, everyone with its own well-defined regulations.On the basis of previous findings, the author summarizes the main characteristics of Malaysia Chinese language today and its development in the near future making use of two new concepts:"language enclave" and "language and cultural heritage contrastive power". In addition, he goes further assuming that Chinese education in Malaysia won't be possible without Mainland China's support, and warns also language policy planners to pay particular attention to local Chinese teaching in order to in order to have a better implementation of the communication policies and achieve the desired social effects."Language enclave" shows Chinese teaching in Malaysia as the continuation of a phenomena which already took place in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, from primary school to university levels in a most comprehensive educational system with high overall teaching level. While "Language and cultural heritage contrastive power" reveals how the government has to face another phenomenon:the so-called "seesaw game" related to the determination of Malaysian Chinese to defend local Chinese education and maintain their own language and culture. This means resist to assimilation policies and ask for new and more diversified educational methods. With these efforts, Chinese language education could better deal with local resistance, develop in a more friendly environment and assure a long-standing perspective to language and cultural relay and inherit.