Mother Tongue

MTL Reading Programme

To enrich our students’ general knowledge the MTL Reading Programme was held every Thursday morning. Short and meaningful articles were distributed for students’ reading pleasure.

Chinese Language Unit Programmes

Lunar New Year E-Celebration

The Whitley Mother Tongue Languages Department (Chinese Language Unit) wanted the whole school to be in a festive atmosphere so that Whitleyans may better appreciate and understand Chinese heritage and Lunar New Year practices and traditions.

Lunar New Year is celebrated by all Whitleyans, regardless of race, language or religion. For 2021, the Unit organized a special festive marathon.

Prior to the actual day of celebration, we had card-making and classroom decoration competitions. We also embarked on “Create a food bag!” (a VIA activity) to affirm our school cleaners and support needy students.

On the actual day, the school enjoyed fantastic performances recorded and put up by our aesthetics CCAs and interactive quizzes were introduced to engage the audience.

Chinese Language Mother Tongue Fortnight

To help our students to actively learn the Chinese Language and culture and help them experience it as ‘a living language’. The Unit organized activities to provide authentic learning opportunities for students. In April 2021, the department held our CL Fortnight programme. Our theme was “Live out Chinese in daily lives”. An array of interesting activities ranging from calligraphy to traditional game, were planned and customised to each level.

Cultural Performance Exposure Scheme

To promote the learning of Chinese Language beyond the classroom. The Unit started an inaugural programme to engage our Secondary 3 students through interactive drama. “Body X 㗝呸 The Culprit” set our students back to time, solving a murder crime scene happening in a 80s Kopitiam. The students enjoyed the experience tremendously.

CL Unit Talent Management Programme

To stretch the students’ potential to the fullest, the Unit makes use of every opportunity to prepare our students for competitions such as the 19th National Secondary School Chinese Creative Writing Competition, National Chinese Challenge 2021, National English-Mandarin Translation Competition 2021 and the National Pen Calligraphy Competition 2021.

13th National Chinese Short Film Competition

Congratulations to 6 of our Secondary 3 HCL students for clinching 3rd prize for the 13th National Short Film Competition! They have learnt valuable media production skills during the pre-competition workshops and applied what they learnt to produce an original short video clip, titled "丹顶鹤”. The video touches on the issue of bullying and the importance of peer support. See video at https://youtu.be/cL4mLHwERFU #whitleysec #whitleyinspires

National Pen Calligraphy Competition 2021

Congratulations to Ye Rangqu (1E) for achieving the Merit award in the 2021 National Schools Chinese Stiff Pen Calligraphy Competition.

Chinese Language Professional Learning Team Project

To help our students be more confident with their communication skills and to share an opinion in a more organized and persuasive manner, the Unit created an Oral conversation lesson package to help students confidently tackle the various categories of commonly asked questions during oral exams. The Unit experimented with ICT tools to increase student engagement, and support collaborative learning.

Malay Language Unit

Malay Language Mother Tongue Fortnight

To help our students to actively learn the Malay Language and culture and help them experience it as ‘a living language’. The Unit organized activities to provide authentic learning opportunities for students. In April 2021, the Unit held our ML Fortnight programme. The Malay Language Unit wanted to expose students to Malay culture and traditional Malay delicacies. Activities such as the playing of traditional games and the preparation of traditional Malay delicacies were organized and it was very popular among the students.

Malay Language Professional Learning Team Project

To help our students be more confident with their communication skills and to improve the students’ written literacy, the Unit tried to leverage ICT tools. The Unit created an E-Pedagogy on Narrative Writing package to achieve these aims.

Tamil Language Unit

Tamil Language Mother Tongue Fortnight

To help our students to actively learn the Malay Language and culture and help them experience it as ‘a living language’. The Unit organized activities to provide authentic learning opportunities for students. In April 2021, the Unit held our TL Fortnight programme. The Tamil Language Unit wanted to expose students to Indian culture with a customised programme for every level. The Secondary 1 students did Puppet Making where students created their own puppets based on an Indian epic and acted out a puppetry scene from it using the puppets made. The Secondary 2 students had to learn 2 types of Indian traditional dance steps and the history behind them. They also had to do a little performance of the steps learnt after the activity. Our Secondary 3 students participated in traditional Indian games, students learnt 3 types of Indian traditional games and the values and practices of the games.

TL Unit Talent Management Programme

To stretch the students’ potential to the fullest, the Unit made use of every opportunity to prepare our students for various competitions and events, such as the North Zone Tamil Literacy Character Fancy Dress and Speech Competition, Vodcast Competition organised by Media Corp (Tamil News Section), Video Making Competition organised by UPTLC and the Quotes Recital organised by Periyar Community Service Singapore. The students really enjoyed these opportunities.

S7-Tamil/Common Interest Group

To learn and share best practices in pedagogy and lesson design among the various Tamil Language Units in the various cluster schools, our Senior Teacher, Mrs Amutha Mani led in the sharing of good Teaching and Learning practices and teaching resources across primary and secondary schools in S7 cluster.v