Why is rejuvenating Chinese dialects a pressing issue?

a. Converse with our elders

b. Majority of dialect speakers are elderly, and by reviving the use of dialects in
SIngapore, more youths will be able to converse with elderly
c. Allow us to strengthen our familial bond, as well as allow for a platform for
conversations with the older generation
d. To allow the youths to hang on to the remaining asian culture there is left
e. With Globalisation, western influence have been spreading throughout countries, and
Singapore is no exception
f. Chinese dialects are one of the few remaining Singapore culture left, hence it is
important for youths to learn to appreciate it
g. For dialects to die out, it would mean losing out roots as SIngaporean
h. Dialects help preserve individuals' culture and heritage, hence it is important for
youths to continue using dialects in order to strengthen their roots and prevent
dilution of heritage in the years to come. In the face of globalisation and multiple
uncertainties ahead, building resilience of Chinese dialects enables us to develop a
stronger sense of identity as a Chinese. This is important as we will be more resilient
to the challenges ahead (Cultural capital)
i. Singapore fames itself as a multicultural and multilingual society. Yet, in the past 50
years since independence, Singapore’s linguistic landscape has changed from one
that is largely heterogeneous to one where the English language rules all. By
identifying ourselves under umbrella terms i.e. Chinese, we Chinese have a danger
of losing the complexity and diversity within our own community.

What are some challenges you faced? (And how did we overcome it)
a. There is a lack of academic studies on the usage and teaching of Chinese dialects in
Singapore. Most of the sources related to them are from mainstream news outlets
such as The Straits Times, Rice Media, New York Times which may not always be
useful. To overcome this problem, we widened our research scope from the learning
of Chinese dialects, to that of any language. Most of the materials we found focuses
on the learning of the English language. We then took inspiration from the methods
of how languages are taught and applied them to our project.
b. One challenge that we faced was the

What aspect of ____ would you improve?

1. APP
a. We feel that the current idea only focuses on feeding the users different
dialect words, with only marginal emphasis on their usage as seen in the
voice chat. As such, there is a need for the lesson content in the app to be in
touch with the real world. There are many aspects of popular culture that are
available in Chinese dialects. In the area of music, there is a wide range of
songs that are in Cantonese, Hokkien etc. In the area of movie-making in
Chinese dialects, movies from Hong Kong are most likely the most prominent
of them all, such as Stephen Chow’s movies. This is followed by some
Taiwanese TV series that are in Hokkien. With examples of the usage of
Chinese dialects being commonplace, we would want to incorporate them into
our lesson content to make the latter less dull and also let the users have a
 greater understanding of how the Chinese dialects they are learning are used
in real life.
2. Dialect Trail
a. After the trail has been going on for a while, there may come an issue of
having not enough volunteers from SFCCA. This is due to the decreasing
continuity of membership among clan associations. Hence, one way we can
improve the trail is by implementing a facilitator sign up. Youths can sign up to
be facilitators at the end of the trail. Not only can this ensure continuity of the
trail, it can also help volunteers sustain their knowledge
b. Before the trail, youths might be deterred from signing up as they do not know
their dialect group. This causes them to not know which trail to sign up with,
which can cause them to not want to attend it instead. Hence, a quiz can be
made to help youths find out their dialect group. Questions such as their
surname and ancestors origins can be put in place to help youths find out
their dialect group.
c. Content taught at trail might not be personalised. Some youths might alr know
the content taught, causing them to not be able to learn anything new. Hence,
it is not personalised to them as they will only be relearning what they alr
know. A feedback booth can be provided for youths such that after the trail
they can feedback about their experience and content learnt. Allow us to
know what other content we can add for future trail
3. Roadshow
a. One way we can improve the roadshow is by inviting SAP schools that clan
associations are affiliated with to participate in our roadshow. Since our
roadshow is held at universities, only ages 19-24 will have the chance to
participate in the trail, causing those aged 15-18 to lack the chance to do so.
Hence, to ensure equal opportunity for the age group we are targeting, we
can invite SAP schools over to experience the roadshow, as well as gain
more participants
b. Only 4 main dialects, does not have minority dialects such as hainanese
c. Those minor dialect groups might not have a chance to attend
d. Rotate dialects at our roadshow everytime it is set up
e. FOr example, this year will be hokkiens, hakka teochew and cantonese, next
time can be hainanese hokchew etc
f. Provide equal chances for each dialect groups
g. Our location choice may be less accessible to certain people that live very far
away from local universities, it may also be congested in the event that many
people decide to attend it at once, as such we will downsize our roadshow
into a minivan, similar to the milo van that we all know and love, the minivan
will bring around miniatures of the features of our roadshow to those less
accessible locations, at a lower cost for our main driver while still reaching the
youths.
h. We could also include more features in our roadshow that helps to advertise
our two other strategies, Dia-lecture app and Dia-venture trail, we can set up
interactive kiosks for youths to try out the basic features of the app, as well as
projecting promotional videos for the trail such that youths can be made
aware of these two strategies and increase their effectiveness.
How would you incentivise your driver to support your campaign?
a. Mention our driver - Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre (SCCC)
b. Briefly mention their aims and how it aligns with ours
c. The aim of SCCC is to promote and develop local Chinese culture. Though Mandarin
is usually representative of Chinese culture in Singapore, we will explain to SCCC
that Chinese Dialects also fall under the umbrella of ‘Chinese culture’. As such,
Chinese dialects are part of a wider Chinese identity in Singapore and ought to be
promoted too.
d. Recently, SCCC organised an exhibition called Boh Beh Zao: Dialect Illustrations by
Kuan Eng, which features illustrations of everyday objects from Kuan Eng’s dialect
pictorial books. Our project could complement this event as we share the same focus
of teaching dialects to young people, making the teaching of dialects in general more
effective.
e. In other words, it’s a win-win situation as both sides can spark interests in learning
dialects and can gain publicity.

What makes your plan to address the concerns raised stand out from existing
measures?
a. Most of the existing measures to deal with decline of Chinese dialects are short-term
in nature. For our strategies, we try to make it as long-term as possible.
b. Additionally, our project deals with both the linguistic and cultural aspects of Chinese
dialects, unlike existing measures which focus mostly on either of both.
c.

Why did your group choose to analyse this case study/ current existing measures of
a. Ho Yeah Rap Challenge and b. Learndialect.sg?
a. We chose it because we have no choice
b. We wanted 2 different aspects of efforts to revive dialect, language learning
and gaining further outreach of both dialects and our strategy
c. Since learn dialect sg specialises in language learning, we decided to choose
it as it can educate us about dialects spoken in local context, provide us with
information as to which methods were most effective to encourage
participants to learn dialects
d. Ho yeah rap challenge helps us find out why their outreach was limited
e. Let us know that use of facebook was ineffective
f. Allows us to know that we should make us of other platforms that youths
frequently use to gain the most amount of outreach

What problems do you see in the implementation of your project?

- Basis of solution is through moral persuasion to persuade the youths to participate in
our proposed solutions,
- This means that it is fully voluntarily for youths
 - Youths may not wish to participate for the following reasons:
1. They do not see learning Chinese dialects as useful compared to other
languages. In addition to the reasons mentioned in the slides, there are also
other factors. In the context of Singapore, the Chinese dialects are mostly
spoken by the elderly. In the international context, Chinese dialects are
spoken by a small minority of people in Southern China as well as certain
parts of SEA. The common point is that many youths may not see economic
value in learning dialects compared to other ‘mainstream’ languages.
2. They do not have the time to learn another language because they are too
busy. (Heavy curriculum etc)
- Some other issues include:
1. Maintaining an app is a long term solution of our project. As such, it
requires long-term funding for it to be functional. Our main driver SCCC
seems to be sponsoring events that are short term in nature i.e. annually or
lasting for a few months only as far as we know. We are not sure whether
SCCC will be willing to fund the app in the long term given the lack of
precedence.
2. For the trail, it is hard to ensure enough facilitators to facilitate each trail.
Youths from SFCCA might not have the time as they will also have
responsibilities to take on in the organisation. Hence, there might be great
trouble getting enough facilitators, especially since manpower is limited.
- Therefore a major problem is how to encourage participation in our project during
implementation

What were your key considerations when selecting this area of resilience? / What
inspired your group to look at this area
- We were desperate
- We as children, we cannot communicate with our grandparents. Our grandparents
are our founding fathers and not being able to talk to them is simply
horrendous!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Globalisation
- As western influence continues to spread, youths are also losing their roots.
- One of the biggest loss is

If your group had a chance to start again, would you still choose this area of
resilience?
- No! I would choose to never come to jc.
- No! Even though there are still some relaxations in the usage of Chinese dialects in
the media, the government’s stand towards them is absolute as in they should not be
encouraged. (Pardon me for my sweeping statement) Singaporeans tend to be more
subservient to the government and hence they are more likely to adopt the
government’s stance towards Chinese dialects. When the LKY government started
the Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1979, many dialect-speaking parents changed
their language of instruction to their children to Mandarin and English. Despite
parents being conferred the primary responsibility of passing dialects to the next
generation, the fact that they are willing to make the change suggests their complicity
towards the government’s policies (Though they also agree with the govt that
 Mandarin is more useful).In that sense it is more difficult to rejuvenate dialects in
Singapore’s context.
- Yes of course!
- No, as stated in our last slide dialects are not languages but also cultures.
Pragmatically speaking, If we over protect dialects these cultures will soon turn back
into static cultures and will not be able to fit in today's society. Once the project is
stopped after a decade of even longer dialects will be then deemed as outdated and
disappear. Therefore it is important to follow the natural trend of dialect such that
people of the dialect associations will be forced to modernise it and ensure that it
stays relevant so that dialects will not disappear. By using this method dialects will
then be truly accepted by the society today and have a longer lifespan as compared
to when protecting it
- As chinese youths, dialects plays an important role

Are there other current measures that you have not considered? / Are there any
outcomes that you have failed to consider?
- Teochew festival 2021
- Virtual event which aims to promote teochew culture to the general public. It is done
through a virtual village
- The videos garnered low viewership of 500 plus views - similar to the limitations of ho
yeah rap festival, hence did not consider
- Ho yeah festival
-
- Hakka scribbles
- Virtual webpage on social media that teaches hakka thru calligraphy

What other benefits are there for your main driver to undertake this project?
Them getting to work with us is a benefit alr
- Gain new experience to use to shape their future strategy
- People get to know about the problem

Which other parties or stakeholders can benefit from your project?

They are benefitting from us.

Why do you think the main driver or partnership in strategy might not be interested in
your proposed strategy?
-

Which other main driver/ partnership have you considered for your project?
- The different clan associations
- They mainly deal with only dialects, hence their aims of reviving dialects similar to
ours, willing to help out
 - But each clan associations specialise in their own dialect group - hokkian huay kuan
for hokkien etc
- Having to only collaborate with one would mean other dialects would not be able to
benefit , hence choose SCCC as it specialises in chinese culture, which is a whole
group of dialects in singapore

Which of the proposal or strategy do you think will contribute to your project success
the most
- Roadshow
- Promoting both strategy
- Encourages youths - tell them why they need to give a shit
- Large scale event - gain most amount of attraction

If given the chance to change your strategy, which part would you change/keep?
- limitations

What is the key challenge of your proposed strategy/ whole project?

(what and how u can overcome)
- View limitations
- FOR WHOLE PROJECT:
- Say a limitation for all 3 strategy and counter measure

In retrospect, how do you think you can make your proposal more appealing/ effective
- Use limitations + counter measure

what is your key considerations when planning strategy A

- APP :
- Where we would take data for our app from such that it fits local context
- Different kind of dialects in different countries
- We had to consider whether the dialects we taught are able to fit local context and
able to appeal to our target group
- Hence we decided to take data from clan associations such that we can accurate
teach dialects in local context and ensure pronunciation of the words are accurate
- Whether it would appeal to youths
- Youths do not like boring lessons that only teaches a language
- It might bore them
- Take into considerations their interests such that we can set the right topics to teach
them
- Think about what would entertain and incentivise them the most - stars, leaderboards
since youths like competitions
- Bullshit about design looks cartoon like or smtg idk which appeal to youths
- Add something else
- TRAIL
- Appeal to youths - normal learning journey by bringing them around would seem
basic and boring towards youths
 - Use of technology to make them realise learning dialects can also be fun and not old
school
-
- Ensure places we decided to go will match the content we want to teach and meet
the aims
- ROADSHOW

How will you further convince your target audience to attend your event
- Implement a reward system!

How will you convince your main driver this event can be made a permanent one?
- Roadshow
- Its cheap with our recycled material - large installations able to move easily
- Trail
- A lot of places to visit
- App
- Not much dialect information or translation online, hence app is here to maintain
support for youths trying to learn more
-
What are some obstacles you foresee in putting together this event
- See limitations part

What is the implementation for success of strategy A / What are the considerations
for success

What further modification would you make to your project and why
- Limitations and countermeasure
- For app : add previous strategy

what inspired your group to look at this target group

- Dialects especially dying among youths
- I am a disgrace to my ancestors for not being able to speak dialects.

If you had to choose only 1 to implement, what would it be and why

1. App
- More sustainable long term as compared to other 2
- Trail and roadshows are large scale events
- Require locations that might not be available all the times
2. Trail
-
3. Roadshow
-

how would u ensure proposal will take off as planned

- Feedback from own strategy
 - Feedback from SCCC
- Ensure enough funding and manpower and knowledge
if you need someone to help, who/what will u pick
- Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre (SCCC)
- The aims of SCCC is to nurture chinese culture in singapore, which aligns with our
aims as dialects hold importance to chinese culture
- They have also done many dialect events in the past, such as All of Us One of us
- Additionally, they have fundings to provide to groups that wishes to do projects with
them
- This ensures sufficient fundings to our project
- Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan association
- Organisation that oversees all dialect clan association in Singapore
- Allow us to gain help from majority of clan associations, as most of dialect clan
associations hopes to revive use of dialects in Singapore
- SFCCA able to provide us with materials needed and manpower from each clan
associations

are there any alternative funding/ venues apart from what you have suggested/
appropriate
- Roadshow : Polytechnics
- Also open for public to use and undertake projects
- Also have open spaces and facilities
- Age group there are mainly 17-20 which is in target group
- Poly also able to provide us with venue and space to conduct our roadshow and gain
maximum outreach of youths
- Trail :

how can your project benefit singaporeans/ singapore/ other countries

- Benefits ELDERLY living in singapore
- Most elderly speaks dialects at home yet there is loss of dialect
- Many youths do not speak dialect but our project helps them learn and raise their
knowledge
- Elderly will be able to have someone to communicate with if youths are able to speak
dialects
- Youths and elderly are able to connect and converse better with one another
- Benefits
- Benefits CHINA
- Loss of dialects among youths in china as well
- If project able to reach internationally, it can help benefit countries which speaks
dialects, especially china
in what way have you/grp members benefited from carrying out this project
- The project have helped us learn more about a culture that we did not previously pay
much attention to
- After months of doing our project on dialects, there was many research done on
dialects, such as different dialect origins and even simple dialect words
- We were able to learn more abt our own dialects throughout the project, allowing us
to connect to our roots which even we had previously lost
- The project also helped us stretch our creativity
 - Having to come up with solutions require much imaginations as the solutions we
have previously came up with were alr made or was too basic
- By having to think of different creations such as our very own large installations, app
features and virtual reality headsets, it has helped us stretch our creativity as we had
to think out of the box

imo, do u think u have accomplished a outstanding project

No
- There are still ways to improve
- State limitations of each strategy + counter measure
Yes
- We r amazing, we r right, our project is the best
- We take into consideration youths interests unlike existing measures
- EG platform youths used etc
- We also

how have you project stretch your creativity

how have you ensured your survey findings is reliable/ what could you have done
- using