Mukhlis Abu Bakar

Particular literacies achieve dominance over others, and children are differently positioned in relation to their access to the dominant forms. This in turn affect children’s participation in classroom language activities, their curriculum experience and their educational achievement. There is value in knowing more about students’ home literacies, both in order to get a broader picture of students’ competencies and practices and to remind ourselves that school is just one domain in peoples’ lives and that school literacy practices need to be set within this wider context. How students negotiate school literacy successfully and benefit from the different education pathways depends on the extent schools are able to harness their strengths rather than treat their different practices as deficient.

Children’s earliest discoveries about literacy are learned through active engagement with their social and cultural worlds (Bissex, 1980). Play is a social activity that evolves through the internalization of socio-cultural processes and practices, a tool enabling children to learn about literacy through interaction with the environment (Neuman & Roskos, 1997). Symbolic play supports the development of early literacy skills. It is the imaginative function of language: characterized by the use of explicit language to convey meaning, linguistic verbs to clarify and negotiate meaning, as well as the theme of integration and organization of language and stories, required in both symbolic play and literate behaviors of children that results in this (Pelligrini & Galda, 1990, 1993). In this paper, we take a close look at four instances of symbolic play narratives enacted at home by a group of three siblings over a two-year period. Micro-analyses of the play setting (props, play area), physical actions and movements, as well as the pattern of discourse contained within these narratives show a pattern of narrative competence (role appropriate language and story production and comprehension) and appropriation of socio-cultural experiences that Pelligrini (1985) argues is necessary for schooled literacy practices. Hence, it is within this context of purposeful, pressure-free play in familiar environments that children may best display and extend knowledge about literacy and how it may function in their worlds (Fantuzzo, Sutton-Smith, Coolahan, Manz, Canning & Debnam, 1995). We view these play activities as a useful pedagogical tool in the classroom. A dynamic and active classroom context for participation in literacy development offers children real-world opportunities to engage in language and literacy practices. Blending in situated learning with the more formal traditional learning ensures continuity between the rich contexts of home and school literacy practices.

We describe a recurrent neural network model of rate effects on the syllable-initial voicing distinction, specified by voice-onset-time (VOT). The stimuli were stylized /bi/ and /pi/ syllables covarying in VOT and syllable duration. Network performance revealed a systematic rate effect: as syllable duration increases, the category boundary moves toward longer VOT values, mirroring human performance. Two factors underlie this effect: the range of training stimuli with each VOT and syllable duration, and their frequency of occurrence. The latter influence was particularly strong, consistent with exemplar-based accounts of human category formation.

Buku yang diedit oleh tiga orang editor ini meneliti tulisan dan sumbangan Masuri S N, seorang penyair dan penulis Singapura.

Sebuah kajian melibatkan pelajar Bahasa Melayu Menengah Tiga dijalankan dengan tujuan untuk memahami sikap pelajar Singapura terhadap Sebutan Baku (SB) di samping Sebutan Johor-Riau (SJR, atau kelainan /ə/), sejauh mana mereka menggunakan SB dalam pelajaran Bahasa Melayu (BM), dan sejauh mana mereka cekap menggunakan SB. Kertas kerja ini tertumpu kepada matlamat terakhir – kecekapan menggunakan SB. Percakapan spontan pelajar (n=290) dalam pelajaran BM (n=42) di lima buah sekolah dirakamkan. Temu ramah pelajar (n=52) di luar waktu kurikulum turut dirakamkan. Dalam sesi temu ramah, mereka diminta menggunakan SB ketika menjawab soalan dan ketika membaca dengan lantang senarai perkataan dan dua perenggan teks cerita. Analisis fonetik dilakukan ke atas data lisan. Dapatan menunjukkan bahawa sebutan SB pelajar adalah sub-standard, kacukan antara SB dan SJR. Huruf ‘a’ dalam suku kata akhir terbuka disebut dengan lebih konsisten dalam SB berbanding huruf ‘i' dan ‘u’ dalam suku kata akhir tertutup. Selain itu, penguasaan SB pelajar merentas jenis huruf adalah paling rendah ketika bertutur secara spontan berbanding ketika membaca. Pada keseluruhan, bukan sahaja SB pelajar sub-standard ketika membaca, sebutan mereka lebih menyerupai SJR dalam tuturan spontan. Implikasi terhadap pengajaran dan pembelajaran bahasa Melayu serta dasar bahasa Melayu dibincangkan.

This chapter reports on research conducted in Singapore that revisits a two-year study on the lived literacy experience of eight Malay children who were preschoolers when the researcher first met them. 12 years on, the researcher reunited with two of them who are now young adults. This chapter wades through data from both phases of the study in an attempt to answer the question: What does it take to be literate in school-sanctioned ways, what are the challenges that children face, and to what extent these relate to school outcome? In the process, the author attempts to link the experiences of these three children with his own literacy trajectory within his own sociocultural and sociolinguistic spaces, and tease out the similarities and differences between them. The author’s biographical narrative provides another layer of meaning to the relationship between cultural capital and school outcome, and between structure and agency.

Dalam sistem pendidikan Singapura, dua bahasa wujud secara berasingan: bahasa Inggeris bahasa pengantar bagi semua mata pelajaran isi seperti Matematik dan Sains manakala bahasa ibunda dipelajari sebagai satu mata pelajaran. Kajian antarabangsa menunjukkan bahawa sistem seperti ini dalam suasana kehidupan masyarakat yang mengutamakan bahasa Inggeris bukanlah sistem yang terbaik untuk menghasilkan pelajar yang selesa dan cekap berdwibahasa. Kadar kanak-kanak Singapura yang lebih kerap menggunakan bahasa Inggeris di rumah daripada bahasa ibunda telah meningkat tahun demi tahun, menjejaskan pelestarian bahasa ibunda sebagai bahasa seharian. Kajian yang dilaporkan dalam kertas kerja ini menyelidiki cara buku dwibahasa digunakan dalam usaha mengembalikan minat dan keupayaan membaca dalam bahasa Melayu di kalangan kanak-kanak Melayu. Ia meneroka nilai strategi yang melibatkan kanak-kanak prasekolah dan keluarga mereka membaca bersama dalam bahasa Melayu dan Inggeris menggunakan buku dwibahasa. Sepuluh kanak-kanak tadika menyertai sesi membaca dengan ibu bapa mereka di rumah dan dengan rakan-rakan di sekolah selama enam bulan. Analisis nota lapangan dan data temu bual menunjukkan bahawa kanak-kanak sedar akan perbezaan morfologi, fonologi dan ejaan antara bahasa. Penggunaan strategi merentas bahasa termasuk amalan dwibahasa yang meliputi alih kod, terjemahan, dan pembinaan kosa kata dwibahasa. Satu kekuatan khusus buku dwibahasa ialah cara ia membantu kanak-kanak membaca dalam bahasa yang lemah. Walau bagaimanapun, peranan ibu bapa penting dalammemberi sokongan beterusan agar anak-anak berminat terhadap bahasa warisan mereka dalam suasana yang mana kanak-kanak ini sudah mula tidak menggunakan bahasa tersebut secara aktif.