Chua, Deborah Fengyi

This paper reiterates the issues and problems of the teaching and writing of expository essays in Singapore secondary schools and argues for a socio-cognitive view of language which links language to its cultural context. Such a view of language (Halliday, 1985, 2004) shows how different communities in the culture will use language in different ways. More specifically, the paper will provide pedagogic scaffolds which will assist students to help shape writing with an understanding of the cultural practices that embed writing. The paper is in two parts. The first provides a pedagogic framework for writing as a social practice. Using the Curriculum Cycle (Callaghan and Knapp, 1989) the paper will discuss the social contextual dimensions of writing an expository text: the field, the tenor and the mode. The role of the teacher and the student will be tracked through the three phases of the pedagogic framework, the modeling, the joint-construction and the independent stages. Some activities for explicit instruction, joint negotiation of meaning and independent instruction will be discussed. The second part of the paper will draw from some Singapore classroom practices to demonstrate the kind of instructional scaffolding provided by the teacher for shaping student thinking and genre practice in line with the social contextual dimensions of expository writing. Implications of the pedagogical approach documented will be discussed from the teacher's perspective. The viability of adopting the approach to help students gain mastery in the control of other school genres will also be explored.

Many teachers have noted that developing an argument to support a stance in an expository essay is a challenge for students. This problem deserves attention as ability to write adequately supported, focused arguments in various school subjects is the key to academic success. Taking the theoretical view that writing is simultaneously social practice and cognitive activity, this paper examines the extent to which explicit instruction in the genre practices and associated thinking processes that shape expository writing affects argument moves in student writing. Argument moves in 137 pairs of pre- and post-nstruction essays were analysed to determine the presence of stance assertion and stance support moves, and the type of stance support strategies used. Findings showed a pre- to post-instruction increase in stance assertion moves in the introduction of the essay and stance reiteration moves in the conclusion. Post-instruction essays had a larger number of stance support moves. Moves that significantly increased after instruction were explicit statements of support claim, use of personal knowledge as evidence, countering of anticipated opposing views and elaboration of support claims. The pedagogical implications of these findings will be discussed to explore the viability of moving from grammar- and topic-focused approaches to teaching expository writing to a socio-cognitive approach.

“This synthesis examines language learning and teaching with a focus on Singapore’s official Mother Tongue languages and bilingualism as understood in the local school system. It covers research funded during the third tranche (2013–2017) of the Education Research Funding Programme (ERFP).”—Overview.

"The objectives of this research were: To devise and test instructional materials for teacher intervention in students 'expository writing processes with the aim of shaping student thinking and writing behaviour in the direction of the norms of school-based expository text-types ; To evaluate the effect, on student writing, of explicit instruction in cognitive procedures and genre practices associated with school-based expository text-types ; To determine the viability of moving from a grammar- and topic knowledge-focused approach to teaching expository writing to an approach that prioritises the teaching of the thinking processes and social practices of expository writing." -- p. 2.

Adopting a theoretical framework informed by cognitive and socio-cultural views of writing, this thesis sets out to investigate the possible cognitive processes underlying digression in the expository essays of Singapore students, and the extent to which these cognitive processes are socio-culturally shaped. A two-fold methodology constituting textual analysis and semi-structured interviews was employed. A student’s essay was first identified for digressive instances with a set of defining criteria in combination with the linguistic tools of theme-rheme analysis and meta discursive analysis, following which the student who wrote the essay was interviewed. Interview transcripts were analysed with a coding scheme, and coded student responses studied to detect echoes of literacy practices and assumptions from the Singapore schooling culture. Findings indicate that digression can arise from one or more of six cognitive processes, namely, a topic-centric representation of the rhetorical problem, a contrary-view representation of the rhetorical problem, the setting of knowledge-recount goals, inadequacies in the encoding process, the associative development of a topic and the non-activation of reviewing processes during writing. Findings also indicate that five of these cognitive processes seem to be socio-culturally shaped by the pedagogical practices and assumptions familiar to Singapore students. A discussion of these findings in relation to the literature and the education-related discourse in Singapore suggests that digression in the expository essays of Singapore students reflect not only issues to do with antilogos ability, beliefs about writing and the coordination of multiple cognitive acts, but also values implicit in the Singapore literacy context.

In an age of hyper-globalization, ethical criticism has become vital in tackling the bombardment of information across networked societies. This paper begins by exploring the historical emergence of ethical criticism, its dominant approaches (relational, analytical and historical), and potential for character education. Next, we focus on character education in Singapore. Utilizing a comparative case study analysis, we compared older and recent character education syllabi and applied ethical criticism as an analytical lens. Findings show a discernible shift from moral adaptation to some evidence of ethical criticism where more emphasis is placed on the relational and less on analytical and historical aspects. We then examine the opportunities and tensions for ethical criticism in Singapore’s character education programme. These tensions arise from the simultaneous objectives of empowering citizens to handle the challenges of multicultural engagements alongside the limits placed on critical-ethical thinking when applied to analyzing politics and systemic structures of power.

Adjectival syllable count, often used to predict English comparatives more versus -er, is of little help in predicting the comparatives of adjectives ending in , pronounced /i/, here called the y-adjectives. Examples of y-adjectives include silly and worthy. This article considers whether the phonemic segment count (segment count) and penultimate syllable weight (penultimate weight) of y-adjectives may serve as alternatives to syllable count in predicting more versus -er. The segment count and penultimate weight of relevant y-adjective tokens from a set of diachronic corpora are studied, alongside the tokens’ morphological complexity and period of occurrence in two separate, parallel sets of mixed-effects models. Syllabification principles for penultimate weight coding differentiate the two sets of modelling. Findings converge on segment count as a predictor of the comparative form, while the role of morphological complexity remains less clear, emerging significantly from one set of modelling but not the other. A rethinking of adjectival length based on segment count is advanced for our understanding of y-adjective comparatives. Discussed also are downstream implications of variant syllabification theories on accounts of y-adjective comparatives, together with insights shed on morphophonological intersections and the potential place of English y-adjective comparatives within the ambit of English alternations.

Systematic reviews have witnessed significant growth across many fields, including education. In this article, we outline the background of this growth, highlight the tendency to focus on methodological considerations, and propose a framework to support education researchers in preparing systematic reviews with broad impact. We draw on our experience working with education stakeholders in Singapore and on international scholarship to propose a framework that supports education researchers in clarifying and specifying their aims and audiences and crafting syntheses of appropriate types. Our aim is that this framework, which includes examples illustrating four categories of reviews, acts as a reflective tool which researchers can use to maximize the utility, value, and potential impact of education research.