Effects of translation strategies on the teaching of Mandarin to bilingual children

• Main Author: Evangelyn, Stephen
• Other Authors: Helena Gao Hong
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/72425
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The changing demographics of Singapore sees her attracting residents from nearby Asian countries to even the further European countries, be it for visit, or to build a permanent home. Hence, it is not a surprise to see the mother tongue classrooms in Singapore filled with more and more foreigners who see the mother tongue, specifically Mandarin as a useful tool in tomorrow’s society. Translating by students in classrooms and lessons is a natural process in second and foreign language learning. This is particularly so for learners of lower competency and is true to higher levels as well. For translation to be included in the Singapore education system and be used as a pedagogical tool, there must be more research and theory to support this cause, especially in a learning environment like Singapore where only one language can exist in the classroom. This study has the view that translation in the classroom can and should be an aid for both teachers and students where there is balanced use of the common language to teach the other language. The focus of this study is on the effectiveness of translation strategies when teaching students Mandarin with the aim of helping teachers to plan lesson plans that can effectively suit their students’ language abilities and maximize the time spent in classrooms. These findings through an experimental study, answers research questions such as whether students would benefit from learning Mandarin through English translation. It was observed that students who underwent lessons featuring translation strategies showed an increase in confidence levels consistently throughout the study as compared to those who did not. The results of the study also show that students in the main groups that featured English and translation techniques in learning, fared better in the assessments as compared to their corresponding control groups. As the study conducted is experimental in nature and hopes to be the start of even bigger and more accurate studies, the limitations of the study were its limited sample size and duration of conducted study which could not answer fully the hypothesis of whether children with low competencies in Mandarin would benefit most when learning through these translation techniques. It is hoped that schools and teachers with sizable classes who craft lesson plans and curriculum schedules can use the findings in this study as a reference and starting point to decide on how using translation in the language classroom can further shape and help students grow into confident users of their mother tongue. Keywords: Bilingualism, mother tongue, translation. competency, teaching