Singapore launched the first Innovative Chinese Language Portal Thursday, aiming to enhance the teaching and learning of the Chinese language in the city state.

 

"Essentially, what we have in this portal is a virtual environment to facilitate new and innovative approaches by teachers themselves, to enhance the learning of the Chinese language," said Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the launching ceremony.

 

Teachers can also network with each other, share their lesson plans and create new techniques through this online platform, which is expected to be connected to a similar Innovative Chinese Teachers' Portal in China later.

 

A joint effort of the Singapore Chinese Teachers' Union, Microsoft Singapore and the Education Ministry's Schools East Branch, the portal is part of Microsoft Singapore's Partners In Learning project.

 

Currently available to teachers in the East Zone and part of the South Zone in the city state, the portal will eventually be made accessible to all local Chinese language teachers, according to the minister.

 

Singapore, with about 78 percent of its population being ethnically Chinese, has been attaching increasing importance to the Chinese Language education in the past few years.

 

The Education Ministry launched several initiatives last year to introduce experimentation in teaching techniques and try new curriculum in selected primary schools, which placed more emphasis on character recognition than on script writing.

 

The annual Speak Mandarin Campaign, launched in 1979, also helps encourage Chinese ethnics with English education background to get familiar with Chinese culture and speak the Chinese language as much as possible in their daily life.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2006)