Developing a bilingual Chinese-English textbook as a parents' guide for education purpose

In Singapore, the successful implementation of the bilingual education system has given Singapore much achievement which the nation has been proud of. Yet, the changing language environment over the past decades has resulted in a need to have a constant review in the Mother Tongue Languages (MTL) curriculum to maintain the bilingual policy that has served Singapore well. With a growing number of English-speaking families among Chinese Singaporeans, there is a need to provide additional support for parents to facilitate their children in the learning of Chinese Language. As such, this paper seeks to examine the necessity to develop a bilingual version of the new curriculum, “Huan Le Huo Ban” (Happy Companions) as a parents’ guide to support their children in the learning of Chinese. Firstly, the author examined the issue on bilingualism, the use of translation in language teaching and the roles of parents in supporting their children’s learning. Secondly, an interpretative method was applied to determine the purpose and factors that were required in the translation before the translation was conducted. Thirdly, the aspects of functionality, usability and creativity in the translation were examined and discussed. The visibility of the translator was also considered and discussed. The results from the study show that the provision of the parents’ guide can facilitate parents from different language backgrounds to play a more active role in their children’s learning. In addition, the English translation of the new curriculum provided by the author of this paper is expected to be able to help parents to support their children to learn Chinese in an engaging and purposeful manner. This study will be useful for pedagogical and educational development as well as future development of translation education in Singapore.Master of Arts (Translation and Interpretation