Extensive Reading Programme

Extensive Reading Programme
3 b) Recall an incident that required mastery of your mother tongue, and what the incident revealed about your appreciation of your own culture.
“TianYi! Would you please pay attention?” yelled Miss Lim, my Mother Tongue teacher. I grunted and placed my textbook on the table covering my head, and went back to dream land when her eyes were off me. I had always pictured Mother Tongue to be useless. In such a modern society which is connecting to the outer world, nobody speaks in a language other than English, which is rightfully defined as the universal language. However, my perception changed, on that day.

A beautiful day, it is. Not a piece of dark cloud in the sky. I should be enjoying myself in the pool or playing football, but now I have to finish my History project with my group. We had to take a video of the heritage of Ang Mo Kio, and we are trying to find a place called the ‘Bird Singing Area’, where people are supposed to bring their pet birds together and let them chirp.

There is only one problem. We could not find where it is! The map we got at the entrance probably has a wrong scale. Either that or we picked up some map of Sentosa instead of Bishan Park. “Hear any chirping?” I asked Daryl, who was standing beside me, looking as raggedy as me. “Nope” was the answer. We had already gone round the park for what seemed like ten times, and once we even wandered out of the park, but we still could not locate it.

“Let’s ask somebody. Maybe they know where it is” suggested Melvin. “Worth a try”, I sighed. We approached a man sitting on a bench who was playing a flute. “Hello sir, do you know where is the bird singing area?” I asked politely. Without even taking his lips off the flute, he shook his head, and looked at us in a sort of way that seemed to say “Do not disturb me”. We walked off, muttering a soft ‘Thank you’.

Undaunted, we went forward to an elderly couple. “Uhh, hello, do you know where the bird singing area is?” They replied in Hokkien dialect, which we could not comprehend at all. Desperately, I repeated the word bird, and Melvin flapped his arms furiously. Seeming to understand us, they shook their head.

“This is not working!” Daryl said. Although I hate it, I had to agree with him. “Let’s just try one more, just one. If we still get no answer, I suggest we go home”, I said. As they nodded in agreement, we walked to a man reading a book. “Good afternoon, sir. Do you know, uhh, where the, uhh, bird singing area is?” Afraid that he could not understand me, we attempted what we did just now, flapping our arms. To our delight, we saw a nod.



However, our excitement was drenched immediately, as he replied in Chinese! None of us did very well in our Mother Tongue, and Adharsh who was Indian, was of no help. I struggled to understand what he said, but to no avail. Looking into each other’s blank faces, we did not know what to do. We understood this is probably the only chance we have left to know where the place is, and I know I have to take the chance. With great difficulty, I tried to understand his words. Finally, with much sweat, frustration and hand signals, we managed to clarify our directions.

We received top marks for the project, and were commended for our efforts to capture the sight of the birds singing. Through this incident, I realized the importance of my Mother Tongue, for if we failed to understand his words, we would have never completed the project. Since then, I made an effort to read more and speak more in my Mother Tongue, and pay more attention in Mother Tongue lessons.