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Higher Mother tongue

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:50 pm
by QueenB
Does Higher Mother Tongue help a Primary school student in anyway? Does it give extra points for PSLE or gain entry into secondary school with a better positioning? What are the benefits? :?

Can anyone help shed some light? Thanks in advance! :thankyou:

Re: Higher Mother tongue

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 10:00 pm
by szepinge
HMT carries bonus points that can be added to their
T score.
It's only useful when a student wants
to go to a SAP school eg NYGH, river valley
To go to a SAP school, their other results
must be good too. So to take HMT, not only chinese must be
good, preferably, other subjects must be good too.
the student are also doing very well in other subjects.
If not, frankly, it's a waste of time
It's not easy to score distinction
And the results "passed" or "passed with merit"
etc... Will be reflected in the PSLE cert.

Re: Higher Mother tongue

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 10:07 pm
by fightingmom
Just to add:

The range of marks as follows:

Distinction : 80 - 100 (3 points can be added to the T-Score)
Merit : 65 - 79 (2 points)
Pass : 50 - 64 (1 point)

As szepinge has mentioned earlier, it is only applicable for SAP schools. For example, if your dd (assume yours is a dd) wants to go to RGS (non-SAP), HMT marks cannot be used.

Hope it helps. :smile:

Re: Higher Mother tongue

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:40 am
by jedamum
This is my understanding, correct me if I am wrong.
Benefit of taking higher mother tongue in secondary school is that if you attain a certain grade in hmt in olevel, you can skip mt exams in A level. Correct me if I am wrong. Wrt this, how does it work for IP stream?
Hence to qualify for hmt in secondary school, your kid has to be in top ten percent of psle cohort, or if she is top 11-30%, she need to have merit for psle hmt to qualify to take up hmt in secondary school. Right?

Re: Higher Mother tongue

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:55 am
by jtoh
jedamum wrote:This is my understanding, correct me if I am wrong.
Benefit of taking higher mother tongue in secondary school is that if you attain a certain grade in hmt in olevel, you can skip mt exams in A level. Correct me if I am wrong. Wrt this, how does it work for IP stream?
Hence to qualify for hmt in secondary school, your kid has to be in top ten percent of psle cohort, or if she is top 11-30%, she need to have merit for psle hmt to qualify to take up hmt in secondary school. Right?
Yes, if you pass HMT at O level you don't need to take MT in JC. For IP schools, same applies. If you pass HMT at O levels, you don't need to take MT in JC.

Re: Higher Mother tongue

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:43 am
by jedamum
Jtoh,
The same applies to IP IB? Is hmt a separate paper on top of mt or only one paper? Thanks. I find this the main pros of doing hcl as we are not aiming for sap school.

Re: Higher Mother tongue

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:09 am
by jtoh
jedamum wrote:Jtoh,
The same applies to IP IB? Is hmt a separate paper on top of mt or only one paper? Thanks. I find this the main pros of doing hcl as we are not aiming for sap school.
For IB, you must still do a 2nd lang in Year 5/6. Not so clear about the details so you might want to check on the ACS(I) thread.

For non-thru train O level schools, you have to take O level MT at Sec 3 before taking O level HMT at Sec 4. For thru-train schools, some do not require you to take O level MT at Sec 3 before sitting for O level HMT at Sec 4.

Re: Higher Mother tongue

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:15 am
by jtoh
from MOE website:

Pupils taking HMTL are eligible for the following incentives. These measures are put in place to give pupils more flexibility in the study of two languages and thus help to produce a greater number of effectively bilingual pupils in the future.

A pupil who passes both English and HMTL at the GCE ‘O’ Level Examination and who qualifies for admission to a Junior College (JC)/Millennia Institute (MI) will be given a concession of two points in his application to the JC/MI of his choice. Priority for admission to a JC/MI will be given to a pupil with English and HMTL who scores the same number of points as one with English and MTL.

For entry to a JC/MI, a grade of E8 in HMTL is considered to be equivalent to a grade of D7 in MTL. Therefore, a pupil who scores at least C6 in English Language and E8 in HMTL will be considered to have satisfied the language requirements for admission to a JC/MI.

A pupil, who obtains at least a grade of D7 in HMTL at the GCE ‘O’ Level Examination, will be considered to have satisfied the MTL requirement for admission to the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University.

At the end of Secondary Three, a pupil studying HMTL will be allowed to sit for the GCE ‘O’ Level MTL paper. If the pupil is unable to cope with both English and HMTL, he will be allowed to switch to English and MTL.

Re: Higher Mother tongue

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:28 pm
by QueenB
Thanks so much everyone! This is very useful information. I find that the HMT helps in my daughter's overall ability for the language. But it also has been a lot of hardwork! Therefore, am just re-evaluating if all that hardwork is worth the effort in the longer term. Tks for all the tips. Anymore insights, please add on.

Re: Higher Mother tongue

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 5:25 pm
by Alarmchain
jtoh wrote:from MOE website:
At the end of Secondary Three, a pupil studying HMTL will be allowed to sit for the GCE ‘O’ Level MTL paper. If the pupil is unable to cope with both English and HMTL, he will be allowed to switch to English and MTL.
Hope someone can help clarify the following:
a) Is it true that a child taking HCL does not seat for the normal chinese at "O" levels? (This is unlike primary school where a child taking HCL seats for both normal Chinese and HCL papers and as such gets grades for both subjects)

b) Though it is stated from the MOE website that a child is ALLOWED to sit for the "O" level normal chinese paper at end of Sec 3. however, how different is the syllabus between the two? Is it like in the primary school case, where the HCL is the normal chinese syllabus plus additional stuff? This is because I heard that HCL at secondary level does not examine the oral component (hence not taught) but the normal chinese does. Is this true?

c) Also, I wonder if there are any instances whereby the school offering HCL does not cater / prepare students to take the "O" level normal chinese paper at Sec 3 first, since the MOE stance is "ALLOWED", not "MUST". Does anyone know anything about this?

I have heard from some that because of the L1R5 requirement for JC admission (and I think some poly courses as well), they would rather the child not take HCL so that they can do better for normal chinese then struggle with HCL. That way, they can get a better grade for normal chinese to be used for the R5 component.

This is where my confusion lies. If the HCL is like in primary level, where the child takes both normal and HCL papers at "O" levels, then this issue of "risk of lower grades in HCL" affecting the L1R5 requirement won't be there right? That is assuming the child does take both papers at "O" levels and the schools do prepare the students for both. Hence the questions above.

Anyone can help clarify my confusion?

Thanks.