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SINGAPORE : St Nicholas Girls' School wants to offer a course on translation as an 'O' Level subject come 2012, provided the Ministry of Education approves its proposal submitted on Thursday.
As part of the pilot programme, secondary two students at the school learn to translate a speech in the Chinese news broadcast into English.
Zhou Qian, a teacher at St Nicholas Girls' School said: "After this translation programme, they will think, 'hey, what's the Chinese word for this English word - for example, Orchard Road, the Paragon, parliament and civil servant'.
"Now they've become more interested to know what's the correct Chinese word for the English one. They're also more competent and confident when using the Chinese language."
Students are also given English passages to translate into Chinese.
"My (command of) English is stronger than Chinese, so I realised that I could not express many of the Chinese terms. For example, 'parliament' is 'guo hui' in Chinese. I didn't know this before because I don't read the Chinese newspapers," said Soh Si Min, a student at St Nicholas Girls' School.
"Sometimes my parents receive a letter in English, and they've only studied Chinese in the past, I can help to translate and explain to them the details of the letter. The lessons are very interesting and engaging... and it's really practical and useful where you can apply it to real life situation," said Moo Lee Yin, another student at the school.
The course is also aimed at helping to cultivate the students' analytical and critical thinking skills.
Currently, all secondary two students at St Nicholas Girls' School go through the 10-hour translation course. But next year, the school will have all its 400 secondary one students do the same.
The school hopes that the course will encourage the students to appreciate Chinese and not to fear the language. - CNA /ls
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