Mother Tongue

Vision:
Confident Deyians who embrace their own ethnic identity.

Mission:
To develop and deepen students’ Mother Tongue language skills and appreciation of their roots and cultures through a wide range of programmes and activities, which allow them to apply their language skills as well as to connect with their own cultural heritage.

Approach:
The Mother Tongue syllabus aims to engage students in joyful learning and develop them to become active and proficient users of MTL, with the three broad objectives: Communication, Culture and Connection. Teachers will build on students’ prior knowledge and skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing, as well as spoken and written interaction to enhance their communication skills; guide them to understand and appreciate various cultural and literary materials to strengthen their global and cross-cultural awareness; and create opportunities for them to learn and use the various language skills in authentic situations beyond the classroom.

This year, the Mother Tongue Languages Department organised many activities and festive celebrations, with the addition of refreshing elements such as the Dragon Dance and Mask Changing performances during the Chinese New Year Concert; the Mother Tongue teachers’ Chinese New Year Music Video; the Kompang Training Workshop in conjunction with the Hari Raya Celebration; as well as mask making and bamboo slip writing during the Mother Tongue Languages Fortnight. During the Mid-Autumn Festival Night, new cultural experience booths and traditional food booths like the Dragon Beard Candy and Ding Ding Candy were introduced. For Deepavali, there was a photo booth with the provision of Indian costumes and oil lamp painting as fringe activities. In addition, the Mother Tongue Language students enjoyed cultural performances at the theatres. They also had the opportunity to participate in different workshops and national competitions to acquire new knowledge and skills, as well as to hone their language skills. Based on the positive feedback from the students and the bright smiles on their faces, it was evident that they had benefitted from all these learning opportunities.

Key Programmes:

	Mother Tongue Fortnight Students participate in activities such as calligraphy, opera mask making, traditional food tasting, and more to deepen their understanding of their mother tongue languages and other cultures.
	ALP (Journalism and Broadcasting): Students participate in radio drama production, current affairs video clip production, and BookTuber projects.
	Celebration of traditional festivals: The department celebrates Lunar New Year, Hari Raya, Mid Autumn Festival, and Deepavali.

Competitions / Achievements:

• National Secondary Schools Malay Debate Competition 2024-Semi Finalists

• Video Tik Tok National P. Ramlee Competition (2nd Place)

• Create Your Own Newspaper Competition 2023 (Certificate of Participation)

• National Chinese Riddle Workshop 2023 (Certificate of Participation)

• National Chinese Challenge 2023 (Certificate of Participation)

• “Xin Lei Jiang” 21st National Secondary School Chinese Creative Writing Competition (Certificate of Participation)

• Raffles Instituition Literary Competition 2023 Category – Monologue (1st Prize)

• Raffles Instituition Literary Competition 2023 Category – Singing (3rd Prize)

• NPS Imayam Tamil Language Festival Competition (Motivational Prize)

• Kavimaalai Singapore - Poetry Translation Workshop (Certificate of Recognition)

• Kavimaalai Singapore - Poetry Writing Workshop (Certificate of Recognition)

• Naanum Oru Padaipaali - Budding Writers (Certificate of Participation)

• Malay Teevers Competition 2023 (1st Prize)

• Malay Language Fiesta 2023 – Aksi 1, 2, 3 ! Malay Short Skit Competition (2nd Prize)

Highlights:

National Secondary Schools Malay Debate Competition 2024-Semi Finalists	2nd Place for Video Tik Tok National P. Ramlee Competition
Chinese culture workshop: Mask painting	Malay students, winners of 1-2-3 Action!
Deepavali Oil Lamp Painting workshop