Language, Society
and Education in
Singapore: Issues and Trends Singapore : Times Academic
Press, 1998
S. Gopinathan, ed.
Handout for SARS 523,
Multilingual Education in South/Southeast Asia
This can be viewed as a span of macro to micro. This book is important because English plays a big role, Singapore is a microcosm of issues found throughout the area; two languages are used, and the goal is bilingualism (for all?)
Begin with Afendras and Kuo, 1980. Mostly macro issues: religion & language; economic aspects of language competence; language planning politics; national identity.
Since 1980, we have much more data. We have two censuses, 1980, 1990 to track things. Comparative data on Mandarin and English, biliteracy ; changeover from Chinese. dialects to Mandarin as a policy goal (and success); implications of policy making for other groups.
In 1980, 4 types of schools, 4 media of education still, but with common examination and curricular system. By 1987, end of all this, big changes for Chinese. Crisis of confidence of Chinese-educated professionals?
At first, we had expatriate researchers, and their priorities and emphases (Tongue, Wilson, Platt, Murray, Crewe) who studied English. acontextually with no reference to other speech communities in Singapore.
Aiyah! Lecture very cheem, what?
If someone uses a sentence like this, what special meanings does it have? It is not just
but such a sentence may be used for effect or to state something about one's Singapore identity, etc.
People felt that there were factors that could not be ignored:
Language in Education (language education) is an important concept in teaching and learning, but it lacks theoretical sophistication and/or principles, both in Singapore and abroad.
Halliday (1986) suggests that the following factors constitute Language in Education:
We already have much attention paid to language acquisition which has established an order of acquisition, or developmental sequence . We understand learning of language to mean learners actively construct a knowledge of the world through language . So for children, language is defined in terms of its uses .
This can be best understood if all factors, internal and external, innate and environmental (social) are studied.
One focus has been on the kind of language used in different settings, especially the kind of language used in school. Cummings (1980) refers to difference between
Not just difference between spoken and written; there can be spoken CALP and written BICS as well as vice versa. Moving from one classroom activity to another involves functional variation (variation according. to use) must be recognized by teachers. In early years we expect narration and narrative skills, later we ask for expository writing, though children recognize expository style early on.
Cummins (1984) reconceptualized his CALP-BICS distinction to include language proficiency along two continua:
In Singapore, we must study the cross-lingual aspects of Language1 and Language2 proficiency, but not much is known about this relationship. Tendency to teach each Language. as if student knows no other (the Chinese teacher teaches Chinese, the Tamil teacher teaches Tamil, but does the English teacher take these into account?) Does the English teacher make use of the linguistic resources of the child in order to enrich the lesson? Or does s/he act as if the child has no other language, or has a language that must be exterminated?
Educational underachievement (educational failure) in Singapore is often blamed on language failure but the relationships between language and ed. is very complex. Singapore tends to not value the linguistic resources of the child; but Quah et al. (1997) have shown that home ling. resources have a strong effect on ed. achievement. Recently, more emphasis on process of learning rather than the product of learning, though teachers value the latter more.
Though language education remains underconceptualized (theoretically weak), curriculum remains important to focus on. Research on LinEd in Singapore focuses on
this could be termed context-process-product model. Still much more to do.
Last section explains what is new about this book, the new chapters: focus on more critical perspective on language planning in Singapore; power differentials, unequal encounters; language use and language attitude among Singapore Chinese; relationship of culture and language teaching pedagogy; and grammaticality of Singlish (CSE).
