Bilingualism at Fault?

Read with interest (3Nov'09)today’s article which reported that MM Lee discovered that intelligence does not equate to language ability. I was happy that he voiced out.

There are many facets to intelligence. According to Harvard Don Howard Gardner, there are seven types of intelligences. They are Linguistic, Logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence.

Current intelligence tests only take into account the logical-mathematical portion of intelligence. A high IQ person simply means that person did well in the logical-mathematical type of intelligence. He may be poor linguistically or musically. Conversely, a musically talented prodigy may be poor at reciting multiplication tables.

I am not surprised at all that the bilingual policy made students suffer when students are taught by the direct method, using only Mandarin. Of course the English speaking children will feel demoralized and lose interest because they simply do not understand the lesson. Who wouldn't? I think this happens because the school system and the teachers may not understand their target audience. A cardinal rule in communication is you must understand your audience. To the English speaking students, the way to teach should be something they can understand, something they can relate to and most importantly, something interesting and fun. In addition, Dr John Medina’s book “Brain rules” says our brains cannot and do not pay attention to boring things. How true. That is communication 101, commonsense, right?

John Yong