English Rules: Go back to Basics

TODAYonline | Voices | 'Good English starts at home'

Singapore's English is in a sorry state.

And I think it's going to take more than campaigns to raise the level of English here on our Sunny little island.

It's going to take a revolution.

Sure, it's the parents' responsibility to address the deterioration of English in Singapore, but the education ministry has to consider the causes of the falling standards as well. For starters, some English teachers aren't linguistically trained properly and it's amazing how they can stand in front of a class to teach English when they aren't well-versed in the language themselves.

I fully agree that the learning environment is crucial. Both my parents speak fluent, grammatical English. Of course they use Singlish sometimes but they always knew when to "switch" when the occasion calls for it. That's how I was brought up and I that's how I use English as well.

When I'm with my kids, I try as much as possible to correct them when they lapse into Singlish or speak ungrammatically. But it's an uphill battle because it's usually me against the other significant influences, including the school. My girls started picking up the sing-song twang of Singlish when they stepped into school probably because most of their friends (and some teachers) speak in that manner. And when you're constantly in a particular environment, it's inevitable that your speech patterns will alter somewhat.

So the billion dollar question is this: How can we move ahead and undo the damage that was created some 20 years ago when they threw out some rules that worked?

First order of business is to reinstate old-school spelling drills. Get rid of text language and social media versions of words and phrases like 'LOL', 'FTW', 'IDC', 'IDK' etc. I'm all for abbreviations and I use them too. But students need to know the appropriate times to use them. Definitely not for their essays and school work. I've lost count on the number of times I've to circle in red over 'btw', 'u', 'i', 'e' in my students' work.

Next is to force-feed grammar rules at the foundation level. I remember memorising idioms, phrases, antonyms, synonyms, homonyms, collective nouns and was tested on a weekly basis. It helped tremendously.

Last, but certainly not the least, is to encourage parents to try and cut out Singlish and refrain from mixing English with other languages. I hate it when people say things like "Later wo (I) call ni (you)" or "I think so ba". If possible, eradicate the 'la', 'lor', 'meh', 'sia' from daily speech.

We'll need to take baby steps to re-establish some good habits and practices at home. On a larger scale, the Ministry of Education should review the way English is taught in schools, especially at the foundation level.

Easier said than done, of course. But my stand is that when things go horribly wrong, we should always go back to the basics. And start from scratch.