Post by sundaymorningstaple » Wed, 02 May 2012 8:37 pm

Since I went to war with the MOE in 1986, if the father is Caucasian then the mother tongue will normally be English provided that is, in fact, his mother tongue (as was the case in my situation). However, that wasn't our problem. Our problem was the 2nd language. As my wife is Tamil, they tried to make my daughter take tamil as the 2nd language. I beat 'em with their own rules as they state: If the child take their mother tongue at 1st language level, they have their choice of 2nd language. Wasn't too many Western father children in the local school system back then, so they had a problem when confronted with a child who was taking English as Mother Tongue as first language. I won, and my daughter and later my son both took Mandarin as their 2nd language. While the do not speak Tamil, they understand it fluently as well but will answer in English.The mother tongue is determined by the father's race/language. Or at least it was. With the new hyphenated races that may have changed now to facilitate a bit of fairness.