Low, Ee Ling

The uncertain future that the world faces has forced us to rethink our fundamental paradigms of teaching and learning. To meet new demands, students need to possess adaptability and resilience to thrive lifelong. In tandem, teacher educators need new dispositions, competencies, skills and knowledge to prepare pre-service teachers for such demands. This paper articulates key issues that international and Singapore teacher education faced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and what priorities were taken. It presents interview findings conducted on pre-service teachers and highlights some dilemmas faced, allowing for a critical evaluation of a Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme. The research aimed to gather insights on the aspects of the programme that participants found most relevant to their teaching role. Challenges posed by the pandemic on education in Singapore naturally surfaced. It will then discuss insights learnt and how Singapore and other countries may seize the opportunity to reimagine teacher education.

Relevant research has seen a growing recognition of the crucial role pronunciation plays in teaching English as an International Language (EIL), in achieving effective communication and its close link to the mastery of other aspects of language teaching and learning. In spite of its recognised importance, pronunciation is still a marginalised skill in many EIL programmes due to EIL teachers’ lack of required phonetic and phonological knowledge, and the paucity of comprehensive coverage targeted at EIL learners. While there has been much research on phonetic and phonological features of world varieties of English, there has not been a strong research–practice nexus in the field. There is therefore a need to comprehensively review EIL pronunciation teaching, to document what previous research tells us, and to discuss how research can be translated into practice. This article aims to cover a range of current issues concerning EIL pronunciation modelling and theorising, and provides a brief articulation of the current issues surrounding the global spread of English and its theoretical development. Specifically, it considers current EIL research issues, challenges, and their implications for pronunciation practice. It also considers the implications of Gardner’s (2008) Five Minds for the Future for EIL pronunciation teaching and postulates the necessity of a sixth mind to navigate the field in the post-pandemic era.

English plays a dynamic and significant role in both intra-and international communication, politics, education, science and economics in both East and South Asia. Kachru categorises the Englishes in East Asia as being part of the expanding circle varieties and English in South Asia as part of the outer circle varieties. The geographical composition of East and South Asia requires further elucidation in order for us to understand what constitutes East and South Asian Englishes respectively. Pragmatic variations in the uses and users of South Asian English are another issue to be addressed. More research needs to be carried out to investigate how certain speech acts such as apologising, permitting, directing and informing are performed in each variety of South Asian English. The use of English in another variety of East Asian popular music, i.e. Korean popular music. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.

Initial teacher education programmes are seen as the first step in the professional development of teachers. The overall goal is the improvement of teachers' practice. This goal can be achieved through enhancing the motivation, competence, and confidence of (student) teachers in teacher education programmes. Research has shown that the extent to how well prepared teachers feel (motivated, competent and confident) is correlated with the sense of teaching efficacy and responsibility for student learning. This study examines the changes in perceptions (if any) of graduating student teachers' motivation level to be a teacher, teaching competencies, and confidence as a teacher at the exit point of the initial teacher preparation programme.

"The study investigated the English Language proficiency of primary school English-medium student teachers enrolled at NIE using a validated language testing instrument, IELTS. Through the use of the IELTS results, it assessed the student teachers' strengths and weaknesses in the language and identified improvement steps."-- [p. 1].

Why people are drawn to teaching has been a focal research area. However, previous studies seem to centre on the traditional conceptualisations of intrinsic, altruistic, and extrinsic motivations as well as some other similar categorisations. This study attempts to discuss the issue from a different conceptual stance, proposing a distinction between the “triggers” and the “drivers”. The influences on the motivation for joining teaching were explored through in-depth interviews with 26 student teachers. Results show that student teachers’ motivations for joining teaching in Singapore may differ in important ways from that of their counterparts in other places. More importantly, the results highlighted differences between “triggers” and “drivers” as well as the inter-relatedness between them. Some practical implications are drawn for teacher education both within Singapore and internationally.