Vaish, Viniti

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.

This survey of language use and users in Singapore sought to find out who speaks what language, to whom, in what context, with what attitude, with what level of fluency, and to what end. This project surveyed 716 students from the Primary 5 cohort of Singapore schools, randomly selected on the basis of ethnic group (i.e., Chinese, Malay and Indian) and socioeconomic status, using a bilingual survey instrument. In its qualitative phase, follow-up studies were conducted with 12 participants who were randomly selected from the three ethnic groups, across a broad spectrum of social classes.

"This project is a baseline study of Singapore's Learning Program (LSP) which is an intervention program in primary schools with the main objective of helping students who do not have adequate competencies in English language and literacy to cope with the mainstream curriculum. The LSP is comparable to the other compensatory programs in the USA such as Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE), two way bilingual educations (TWBE), pull out ESL programs and the funds of knowledge intervention program in the UK. All these compensatory programs have a leveling up a goal in which they try to bring underachievers to the same level of their mainstream peers. The broad objectives of the project are to document what goes on in the LSP, how the Learning Support Co-ordinator teaches, who is sent in, who is sent out and what Learning Support Co-ordinators believe about bilingualism."--executive summary.

This study investigated and compared family language policies (FLPs) from the perspectives of two groups of Singaporean bilingual children: 2,971 English-Chinese and 780 English-Malay children (aged 9–11 years). It also examined how different FLP components – namely, language beliefs, practices, and management – influenced their leisure reading enjoyment and reading amount. We found that although both groups of children attached equal importance to their two languages, their language practices tilted towards their stronger language, English. Both groups of children also reported different patterns of language management efforts at home. Regression analyses revealed differential effects of language beliefs, practices, and management on reading enjoyment and amount in the children’s two languages. For both groups and all languages, language beliefs explained the least amount of variance in reading enjoyment and amount compared to language practices and management. For English, language management accounted for more variance than language practices, whereas for the children’s weaker language (i.e., their ethnic language), both language management and language practices were significant predictors. Results emphasize the critical role of FLP in maintaining children’s ethnic languages. Therefore, it is imperative for parents, educators, and policymakers to identify and implement strategies to bolster language management and practices within the home and school environments.

This project examines the extent that the current syllabus for Tamil includes different varieties of both spoken and written Tamil, and asks how it can be revised with the concerns of the community for the longevity of the Tamil language in Singapore in mind. The project uses a focus group-based methodology to address these research questions. In addition, the ideas of three main consultants were sought. Based on this data, a number of recommendations for syllabus revision and a curriculum of the future are tabled in this paper, including the use of a Standard Spoken Tamil, especially at the lower primary level; and a revision of the weighting for spoken and written Tamil in the curriculum.

This paper explores student engagement and interactional patterns in young learners in a reading programme for low-track students on the basis of 19 h of video data collected from five schools. I show evidence of student engagement on the basis of bidding, eye contact, student talk and behaviour displaying excitement. The data show moderate student engagement across all five schools with few instances of high engagement and fewer instances of low student engagement. There is lack of variety in interactional patterns in episodes with low student engagement. The interactional patterns in episodes of high student engagement are Reading and Whole Class Elicitation, Whole Class Elicitation, Whole Class Role Play, Whole Class Activity and Individual Activity. In 40% of the episodes with high student engagement, teachers masterfully use Whole Class Elicitation. In episodes that show behaviour displaying excitement, the teachers engage students in role play, writing activities or other types of kinaesthetic learning. On the basis of these findings, I suggest implications for pedagogy in reading classrooms for young learners.

The emergence of new media and the rapidly increasing needs of today's learners are placing unprecedented demands on educational landscapes across disciplines to restructure and transform. In particular, paradigmatic change is sought in the field of literacy pedagogy where the growing presence of digital technologies has produced a vibrant and challenging body of theoretical and practical interest in ''multimodality'' - a term which refers to the practice of meaning-making involving the purposeful integration of semiotic resources including, but by no means restricted to, writing, images, speech, gestures, drawing, painting and sound. Unfortunately, there is limited material to inform a programme of local research, development and innovation in the area of multimodal literacy in English language and literature (ELL) teaching. This project builds directly on the findings of two primary data sources from the proposed study site - Maris Stella High School (MSHS). Both de Souza (2008) and Towndrow and Vaish (2007) found that ELL teachers at MSHS remain curious, and are often deeply concerned, about how their pedagogy and classroom practices are influenced by spreading an increasing communicative load across multiple modes of representation using ICT and multimedia. The integration and purposeful use of the students' computers in the regular classroom were additional task design and unit planning considerations not easily balanced with demands to meet print-based, standardised teaching and assessment outcomes. In addressing these situational factors, the proposed research methodology is client-centred, participative and flexible in order to accommodate and explore the impact of a variety of theoretical perspectives and personal opinions in multimodal pedagogy and teaching practices, in situ. As such, the research programme is planned as a 24-month innovation-based programme that involves ELL teachers and researchers co-designing, co-implementing and co-evaluating transformative and sustainable learning outcomes in ELL-based multimodal literacy practices. Senior managers and collaborating teachers at MSHS are aware of the proposed research methodology and are fully supportive of it. It is well known that the establishment of teacher-learner communities is complex and involves, as far as sustainable innovation is concerned, profound and incremental changes in individual, departmental and school-wide levels of activity. The study will contribute to knowledge about school leadership and collective teacher-led action in implementing one-to-one laptop programmes in ELL. The study will also help describe how ELL is realised in the local context using multimodality as a theoretical and descriptive lens. Rich descriptions of classroom practices in the local context will provide material that can be benchmarked against and contrasted with school-based, national and international criteria.