Norhaida Aman

Teacher cognition which includes teachers’ beliefs, attitudes and knowledge have a significant impact on their instructional practices (Borg 2003) – whether they employ the traditional approach which includes explicit grammar teaching followed by repetitive drill and practice, or if they value teaching grammar through communicative activities which focus both on form and meaning. This study explores the complex relationship between the beliefs and practices of teachers from primary schools in Singapore. The primary focus of this paper is to look at how instructional strategies are reflections of teacher beliefs on grammar instruction.

The current study reports a quantitative investigation of the linguistic landscape (LL) in Singapore’s Chinatown. The database of the study comprises a total of 831 instances of signs in the form of photographs that were collected in Chinatown. The study finds that English dominates the LL while Mandarin Chinese is ranked as the second frequently used language. The study also identifies significant differences in LL features between top-down and bottom-up signs. Specifically, these differences include what languages are used; monolingual, bilingual and multilingual compositions; code preference; and forms of Chinese scripts. The present study suggests that English now dominates the linguistic landscape of Chinatown. Even though many scholars have described the sociolinguistic situation in Singapore as being ‘English-knowing’, the data shows a shift towards being ‘English-dominant’, suggesting a gradual but sustained dilution of its multilingual ethos. The study also complicates our understanding of the dominance of English in multilingual societies such as Singapore, where a competing dominant language (Mandarin Chinese) may be seen to continue to exert considerable influence on the dynamics of English-dominant language use but, at the same time, whose main function is shifting towards the symbolic rather than communicative.

Singlish, also known as Singapore Colloquial English, has been the focus of many studies, but its tenability as a tool in the classroom has received scant discussion. This study explores English language preservice teachers’ attitudes towards Singlish and their beliefs towards use of contrastive pedagogies in the English language classroom. Adopting a mixed-methods study involving quantitative and qualitative data, 40 preservice teachers majoring in English from the National Institute of Education were surveyed and interviews with eight participants subsequently conducted. The findings reveal that participants appraise Singlish positively for its affordances in fostering rapport and a healthy classroom culture. Despite concerns that language classrooms should only focus on quality input, Singlish is recognised for its ability to reduce students’ affective filter and increase their accessibility to standard English. Participants generally supported the inclusion of Singlish in the English language classroom, using contrastive pedagogies to promote students’ noticing of language features.