As a homegrown Chinese Singaporean who attended a regular local primary and secondary school, I’m sure that there are many out there whose memories coincide with mine.

Daily xi zi (writing) homework, zuo wen (essays) and ting xie (tests) were just some of the aspects of Chinese lessons which my classmates and I dreaded most in our childhood years. I vaguely remember getting a lashing at home whenever I scored less than 70 per cent for the weekly tests in primary school, which gradually led me to master the art of ‘wandering eyes’: deftly stealing glances at my neighbor’s test paper without anyone ever noticing.

This was the only ‘skill’ which allowed me to advance from EM1 to the Higher Chinese Language stream when I went on to secondary school, which I eventually dropped right before my GCE ‘O’ levels in order to focus on other subjects. It was a massive load off my shoulders the day I graduated from junior college – the first joyful thought that came to mind was that I never had to fret over an upcoming ting xie in class again, or strain my eyes to peep at the adjacent table.

Today, I am barely able to decipher what’s on the front page of Lianhe Zaobao. Occasionally speaking basic, staggered Mandarin back at home with my Chinese-educated mother in a painfully-awkward manner, I often wonder how many out there were raised like me: forcefully trained in two languages, but a monolinguist at heart. It is harrowing at times whenever I cross paths with a Mandarin-speaking friend, but I have yet to consider myself ‘handicapped’ because of my linguistic inability, and would shudder to think of ever having to sit through a Chinese lesson again.

Nearly five decades have passed since Singapore established itself as the leading supplier of multilingual citizens through the compulsory bilingual policy of its education system, otherwise known as the Mother Tongue Language (MTL). But how many who have been raised under this policy actually enjoyed learning to speak and write their mother tongue, or any other language?

Introducing a second language to your child doesn’t always have to be a tedious and burdensome challenge. Young children have the advantage of starting off on a clean slate, so that in most instances, they are even unaware of themselves learning more than one language: they simply mimic what they hear and see during their formative years.