Good English in Singapore and the Economics of Social Interaction
I read this plan by the Straits Times today, under the LJ cut below,  to ensure Singapore students speak good English. By changing the way English is being taught in primary schools, such as in Woodlands Primary, and hiring good teachers, we hope to hit that objective.

Coincidentally, reading the economics blog,  Marginal Revolution, suggests that the above scheme may not work.  The root cause, if you follow the model, is that for neighbourhood schools, learning to speak good english and less singlish, makes it likely for you to be ostracized by others.  The key insight of the model is that, students, on their decision on whether to learn to speak proper english, need to make a tradeoff between speaking Singlish, which grants them acceptance to their community of friends, and speaking English, which grants them acceptance to the "wider" Singapore society.  For the gory mathematical details, you can read the paper here.

The first paragraph of the paper summarizes this view.  Reading it for the first time reminded me of the movie "Mean Girls" starring a homeschooled Lindsay Lohan hehe.

“I got there [Holy Providence School in Cornwall Heights, right outside Philadelphia] and immediately found that I could read better than anyone else in the school. My father’s example and my mother’s training had made that come easy; I could pick up a book, read it aloud, pronounce the words with proper inflections and actually know what they meant. When the nuns found this out they paid me a lot of attention, once even asking me, a fourth grader, to read to the seventh grade. When the kids found this out, I became a target....

It was my first time away from home, my first experience in an all black situation, and I found myself being punished for everything I’d ever been taught was right. I got all A’s and was hated for it; I spoke correctly and was called a punk. I had to learn a new language simply to be able to deal with the threats. I had good manners and was a good little boy and paid for it with my hide.”

This is a commonsensical view and explains the obsession with parents trying to get their kids enrolled in top schools, like the IP schools for example.  Yes, you can say that teachers are randomly assigned to schools and thus, each school has an equal number of good and bad teachers.  Yet, most parents know that their kids' peers plays a more important role in motivating their precious kid to study.  It also explains why, within the school itself, they often pull the brighter students out to form an "elite" group, to ensure that slackers do not influence the hardworking types.

Thus, going by the results of the model, for this plan to work, you must literally move kids from neighbourhood schools into better schools or, the other extreme, minimize the social interactions and the development of peer groups within the neighbourhood schools.  Without doing that, merely improving or changing English teaching within the school would only give rise to marginal or insignificant results.  You are more likely to get students from Woodlands Primary getting ridiculed by his peers when he tries to speak good english.

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July 26, 2006
MOE identifies key areas in drive to improve English
New language programme piloted as part of review to close language divide among pupils

By Education Correspondent, Sandra Davie

TWO out of every three Primary 1 pupils at Woodlands Primary come from non-English speaking homes, but after just half a year on a new English language programme, these students are eager to read and confident enough to ask questions and be heard in class.

The school is one of 30 across the island piloting a new Education Ministry (MOE) programme to develop in children confidence and love for English through reading.

Instead of lessons on grammar and punctuation, the students read a book together and learn about the language by asking questions, writing short stories, role playing or using puppets to act out the storylines.

Minister of State for Education Lui Tuck Yew said yesterday it was one of several areas that the MOE-led English Language Review Committee had identified so far since starting its work last September to close the language divide among pupils.

The review committee will look at three areas: syllabus and the way it is taught, teacher training and development, and how agencies like the National Library Board and the media can play a bigger role.

Speaking at the launch of the Speak Good English Movement at the National Library, he stressed that the review was not meant to fix any perceived decline in the standard of English among students.

In fact, a 2001 international literacy test had shown that Singapore's 10-year-olds who come from English-speaking homes read with more understanding and wrote better English than their peers in several other countries, including Britain and the United States.

Among the older cohorts, the number of O-level passes and distinctions for English has been steadily going up.

But he admitted that students' abilities in English vary considerably, depending on language backgrounds at home.

For example, half of the pupils who entered Primary 1 in January use English as the main language at home, while 37 per cent use only some English at home, and the rest, not at all.

The wide range of language abilities is also evident from the feedback from teachers who reported that many students, especially in neighbourhood schools, tend to use Singlish or a mix of English and mother tongue languages with friends.

The minister said the aim of the review is to bring about a minimum standard of English among all students, so that they will be able to use English comfortably in everyday situations and for work.

But the recommendations, which will be released in October, will also enable those who are good in the language to develop a high level of proficiency or even acquire a mastery of the language that will put them on a par with the best of the best in English-speaking countries.

Rear-Admiral (NS) Lui added that schools here had a core group of good English teachers who are highly proficient in the language and who can teach very well. The review committee will look at how this pool of teachers can be enlarged.

And this may not mean hiring more native speakers from Britain, Australia or other English-speaking countries.

He said: 'What we need in our schools is more good teachers. I don't particularly care where they come from. They can be retired teachers who can be enticed back to teach, or from overseas.'

In the same vein, he said the discussion should not focus on whether English standards among the young have declined.

'To me the relevant question is, 'Can we be better? Should we be better?' The answer must be 'yes', given the context we operate in, being a globalised economy and the node that we want Singapore to be in, in this economy.'