Bilingualism is becoming more common worldwide, and it remains a central educational policy in Singapore. In this document, we review research related to bilingualism and literacy development and achievement. Following an ecological framework, we outline known factors contributing to literacy achievement and discuss findings from bilingual research regarding these factors. We conclude with recommendations for educational practice informed by the research literature.

"In this paper, we describe Chinese language instruction in Singapore primary school classrooms and discuss its relationship with the government policy of language in education. We use a classroom coding approach to examine whether there are similarities and differences between EM1 and EM2 classroom instructional practices and to explore whether the goals and priorities of the policy are achieved at the level of implementation. Specifically, we examine how Chinese classrooms of the two different streams are socially organized, what pedagogical activities are carried out, what knowledge or capabilities are emphasized and how they are classified. Based on the findings, we discuss the major features of Chinese language instructional practices in the two streams in relation to the policy goals and priorities, and highlights some implications for policy implementation and pedagogic reform in Singapore and internationally."-- [p. 1].

"This Report is submitted by the Chinese Language Research Team, CRPP, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. The Report provides the main results of a special focused project of CRPP, entitled "An Investigation of Singaporean Chinese Children's Oral Linguistic Competence in Mandarin: A Corpus-Driven Study". For this project, there are two main research objectives. One is to generate an oral Mandarin word list of Singaporean Chinese children for the CL curriculum developers and CL teachers. The other is to find out whether there are marked differences between children who claimed to speak English predominantly at home and those who claimed to speak Mandarin predominantly at home in terms of their oral lexical coverage and oral fluency of Mandarin before they start to learn Mandarin in primary schools."-- [p. 1] of executive summary.

We investigated a technology-based tool for teaching English letter-sound correspondences with bilingual children learning phonologically and typologically distant languages: English and Chinese. We expect that learning about print at the phoneme level may be particularly challenging, given children’s experience with the morphosyllabic language of Chinese. This randomized-controlled study with 90 kindergarteners examined the effects of an iPad-based supplementary reading program compared with a control condition. The See Word Reading® program utilized picture-embedded cues for teaching phonics within lessons directed at the letter, word, and text levels. Measures of decoding, word reading, and spelling were taken at the pretest, posttest, and follow-up for both groups. Results showed better gains in word reading for the reading group, indicating the positive impact of this supplementary reading tool. Further, data collected online from the app showed that different types of letter-sound pairings were more challenging to learn, including pairings that are inconsistent and with phonemes that are specific to English.

In this paper we intend to provide a review of pinyin input experiment studies in Chinese literacy instruction in China and to inform the current reform of Chinese education in Singapore. We first provide a brief account of some major pinyin-based methods for inputting characters into the computer. This is important because the skill of inputting characters into the computer constitutes beginning electronic literacy and it is essential for the pinyin input experiments in Chinese literacy instruction. Secondly we review some studies on the use of pinyin input methods in Chinese literacy instruction. In conclusion, we discuss the major points of the pinyin input experiment in relation to the Singapore context and highlight implications for the current reform of Chinese literacy education envisioned by the Chinese Curriculum and Pedagogy Review Committee in Singapore.

Drawn up the Sociocultural Theory and using classroom data from CRPP’s Core Project, this study examines teacher questioning discourse and its effects on student learning in Primary 5 Chinese Language classrooms in Singapore. Integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches, we use the methods of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis to identify the pattern of teacher questioning behavior and the structure and dynamics of discourse underlying how teacher questioning influence student Chinese language learning. We find that teacher questioning discourse in Chinese Language classrooms in Singapore is generally characterized by a monological recitation-based interaction. Teachers, with their tight control of classroom discourse and the predominant focus on textbook knowledge, create little space for students’ voices. The monologic discourse constrains students’ discursive construction and therefore it is limited in facilitating students’ Chinese Language learning. The study also shows that teacher questioning is a complex discourse phenomenon. To understand how teacher questioning influences second language learning, we should pay attention not only to the types of questions teachers ask, but more importantly to the process and discursive context of questioning, including the pedagogic purposes of teacher questions, teachers’ elicitation strategies, student response and teacher feedback.

The Chinese language (CL) curriculum for Singapore primary schools proposed in 2004 highlights two pedagogical changes: the modular approach and the integration of ICT. The modular approach puts students into three different groups (or modules, including bridging/reinforcement, core and enrichment) with an aim at catering to students' diverse learning needs. To respond to differentiated learning as initiated in the new curriculum, differences in the type of ICT and the frequency of ICT use in actual teaching practice are expected. This paper endeavors to provide a detailed picture of ICT integration in the Chinese lessons in Singapore primary schools. 198 Primary two Chinese lessons in 20 schools were observed, and teachers' teaching practices were coded by applying the Singapore Chinese Pedagogy Coding Scheme. The preliminary results showed that no significant differences of ICT usage were found across the three modules, which implies that Chinese teachers’ use of ICT has not met the needs of differentiated learning as designated in the Modular Curriculum.