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Keming Primary School

Mother Tongue Languages (MTL)

Discover how MTL lessons, cultural camps, and festival celebrations help students build language skills and deepen their appreciation of heritage.

Last updated 29 June 2026

Curricular Goal

Confident and Effective Communicators,
Culturally-savvy and Self-directed Learners.

MTL students are developed in three critical areas:

  • Communication skills with knowledge of MTL, possessing the attitude and habit in using MTL in their daily communications;

  • Culturally-savvy with deepened understanding and appreciation of one’s own Mother Tongue culture and cross-cultural awareness;

  • Connections with others as self-directed thinkers and learners, equipped with Social Emotional Competencies, ICT skills in MTL learning and global awareness.

To bring about the Joy of Learning in MTL and a need to keep MTL as a living language, we strive to continuously enhance our teaching approach to engage our students in learning. The key areas include: a) enhancement of our in-class teaching and learning in alignment to the latest 2015 syllabus; b) programmes organised for greater exposure of our students to the language skills and developing self-directed learning; c) providing various platforms for the display of students’ talents; d) festival celebrations and MTL fortnight to heighten our students’ own cultural and cross-cultural understanding and appreciation.

Cultural Learning – Cross-cultural awareness

Students are provided with developmental opportunities to learn emerging 21st CC skills (cross-cultural skills) over 6 years through explicit teaching during Cultural Sharing lessons and Festival Celebrations (Head), reflections (Heart) and hands-on activities in class and during recesses (Hands).

Festivals Celebrations
Festivals are an expressive way to celebrate glorious heritage, culture and traditions. Festivals serve the same purpose of bringing happiness to our lives, and strengthen our sense of community. They play an important role to add structure to our social lives, and connect people of different races and culture to appreciate the beauty of our own culture and cross-culture. We believe that it is important to keep festive celebrations alive in school and at home to bring the students closer to one another’s traditions and cultural beliefs.

Festival celebration is an important part of MTL department’s Cultural Learning Model where students are exposed to the different cultures and appreciate them through the experiences during the celebrations and hands-on activities. The four main festivals that we celebrate in school are Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, Mid-Autumn and Deepavali.

Chinese New Year Celebrations

Students sit facing a school stage with red curtains and a projected screen during an assembly.

CNY Concert – Quizzes – Students vs Teacher!

Students in white shirts watch a Chinese Orchestra school performance on a decorated stage in an auditorium.

CNY Concert – Chinese Orchestra performance.

Two young girls in school uniforms doing a craft activity with red paper and orange shapes at yellow desks.

P4 CNY Craftwork – Making of CNY card with 3D Orange origami.

Two masked children in school uniforms sit at a desk crafting a pink card with colorful stickers.

P2 CNY Craftwork – Making CNY Card decorated with ang bao!

A masked young student writes on red paper at a classroom desk with a Converse pencil case nearby.

P5 Craftwork – CNY Couplets for the house!

Four young students in school uniforms practice Chinese calligraphy with brushes on red paper at a table.

Recess activity – Chinese Calligraphy

Children in school uniforms and masks sit at round tables doing craft and writing activities with colorful paper.

Recess activity – Rabbit origami

Young students in white uniforms gather around a screen showing "Strips of raw fish" with Chinese characters and colorful answer tiles.

Recess activity – CNY quizzes

Children in school uniforms cut red paper at a table during a Chinese paper-cutting activity, supervised by an adult.

Recess activity – CNY Traditional paper cutting of “chun“ “春“!

Hari Raya Puasa Celebrations

Four photos of a school hall assembly with students seated on the floor watching performers and a quiz presentation on stage.

Mid-Autumn Festival Celebration

Five photos from a Mid-Autumn Festival school celebration showing performances, crafts, and student activities.

Mid-Autumn Celebrations Concert

Four school scenes showing children in blue uniforms at displays, using a tablet, and viewing classroom boards with Chinese text.

Mid-Autumn Festivals Celebrations booths and games

Deepavali Celebrations

Two school auditorium scenes with students seated on the floor watching performers on a stage with red curtains.

MTL Fortnight and P4 Cultural Camp

To instil in our students the love of learning MT languages, to promote the appreciation of their culture and to enhance their language skills, MTL teachers organise two weeks of fun-filled cultural and language activities for students every year.

Classroom activities such as Spelling Bee Competition, Inter-class performances, games on idioms and words, the learning and writing of poems, penmanship competitions and reading programmes are carried out across the MTLs.

Cultural activities include hands-on experience in making traditional crafts, playing of traditional games, learning about customs and practices of own culture as well as that of other cultures. All P4 students are immersed in their own culture and learning about other cultures as well during the P4 cultural camp.

MTL Reading Programme

Reading is one of the ways to enhance the learning of MTL. It sparks students’ interest in MTL which leads to greater improvement in their use of MTL in communicating with others and appreciation of MTL. Students are engaged in the reading of various materials such as newspapers, magazines, story books of different genres, meaningful songs and poems.

Each of the MTL has their own unique reading programme. For example, the Malay Language students are exposed to the language through the ‘Marilah Bersastera’ Extensive Reading Programme. Accompanying learning materials are also developed to enrich students’ learning. Students get to do reviews and learn about characterisation and plot which they can apply to composition writing.

P4 Cultural Camp - Additional Games

Two classroom scenes showing children and a teacher working on colorful board activities at desks.

Students learning Indian Traditional game - Aadu Puli Aatam

Children in school uniforms jumping rope on a concrete playground outdoors.

Students learning Malay Chapteh and Chinese Top

Children in white shirts sit cross-legged on a wooden floor, engaged in a hands-on activity with small objects.

Students learning Five Stones and Congkak

Two school scenes: students studying at desks and an adult helping two children with a board game at a red table.

Students learning Chinese Animal Chess

Mother Tongue Language Fortnight Activities

Six photos of school children in uniforms playing traditional games indoors and outdoors on school grounds.

Traditional Games at Recess

Two classroom scenes showing groups of young students sitting on floors with hands raised, facing teachers at the front.

CL Story Telling

Children in school uniforms kneel around a polka-dot ball pit filled with colorful plastic balls in a classroom.

P1 CL Word Search activity

Children sit on the floor watching four students perform on a stage with a colorful nature mural backdrop.

P3 CL Reader’s Theatre

Two groups of students in white and red uniforms posing and smiling in classrooms.

P6 Clay Modelling

Young children in uniforms sit on a classroom floor holding up paper signs with red writing.

P1 ML Spelling Bee

Three young children wearing green military helmets and camouflage vests pose playfully on a wooden floor indoors.

P2 ML Role-Play

Two school classroom scenes: left shows students and a teacher posing, right shows students standing in uniform.

P5 ML Journalism Workshop

Two children in school uniforms stand in a classroom, each holding a small toy.

P1 TL Show & Tell

Students in uniforms doing a craft activity with colorful beads or seeds on paper, and one girl holds her finished artwork.

P1 TL Kolam Decoration

Children in matching shirts sit on a colorful mat facing a student presenting in a decorated classroom.

P2 TL Scenario Description

Two school boys in white uniforms fold green paper at colorful classroom desks.

P2 TL Thoranam Making

Four classroom photos showing groups of children in school uniforms acting out or performing scenes on the floor.

P3 TL Role Play

Three classroom photos show young students in white and red uniforms working with orange craft materials at desks.

P3 TL Flower Tying

Three photos of children in school uniforms playing on a colorful tiled floor in a decorated classroom.

P3 TL Reader’s Theatre

Three panels show students sitting on a colorful floor facing a presenter standing before a decorated classroom backdrop.

P4 TL Story Telling

Children in school uniforms sit at desks doing a craft activity with colorful materials and printed sheets.

P4 Kolam Decoration

Two school children wearing traditional hats pose in a museum while a group of students listens to a guide nearby.

P4 Learning Journey to the Heritage Centre

A student stands presenting to classmates in a colorful classroom, all wearing white shirts reading "I Love Keming."

P5 TL Oratorical

Students in school uniforms work on drawing activities at desks, and two boys hold up finished artwork.

P5 TL Hena Drawing

Students in white uniforms sit at colorful desks writing in a bright classroom with posters on the walls.

P6 TL Language Quiz

Students in white uniforms sit on a classroom floor examining large colorful printed sheets, while others stand nearby.

P6 TL Indian Traditional Games