<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Expose students to good Standard Singapore English
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I FULLY agree with Ms Pek Siok Lian's view of a 'half-baked Mandarin and half-baked English' situation in Singapore ('My bigini is BOOMZ', Sept 13). We only have to open our ears in food centres, shopping malls and school canteens, and we get a constant aural assault of sub-standard Standard Singapore English (SSE) and Standard Singapore Mandarin.
Most of us are competent in neither English nor Mandarin. We have become a nation of half buckets, as the Mandarin saying goes. We have become so numbed to the sub-standard variety that when we hear a true-blue Singaporean speaker like Ms Pek, our first reaction is to accuse her of putting on 'slang'.
As one of Ms Pek's former teachers in primary school, I can attest to the genuineness of her crisp diction. She has always enunciated in those 'round, polished English tones'. Although she may have forgotten me, I remember wondering: 'How on earth does an 11- or 12-year-old learn to speak consistently like that?'
Ms Pek revealed that it was learnt unconsciously, by reading and having a real interest in the language for the love of it, not for economic gain - although in her case, it did bring her remuneration of some sort.
Before the onslaught of tech toys and mobile communication tools, we had only the good old radio and black-and-white TV. Life was so much simpler then. Communication meant we really engaged in conversation and story-telling. We picked up the phone and spoke to real people at the other end. Now we TET - text, e-mail and Twitter. Perhaps we should start a 'No TET Day' or 'No TET Hour'. Switch off the TV too and just talk to one another.
We used to listen to the British Broadcasting Corporation and local radio stations that had good role models of speakers of good SSE, such as Norman Lim, Steven Lee, Dorothy Tan and T.C. Koh. They were properly trained in phonetics, I am sure. Compare them to the present lot of TV personalities and one can see what sets them apart: garbled vowels and smothered initial and final consonants.
Put good role models on TV. We are not short of local talent, but watching Mark Lee and Patricia Mok in English sitcoms makes me switch to Channel 8. But the Mandarin half buckets elevate Guo Liang and Quan Yifeng to demi-god status.
Channel 8 used to have a Mandarin trainer in Mao Wei to teach artists. Is that still the practice, because training is the key?
English comedies like First Class have pretty good speakers, except for one or two young ones (which is excusable). We can introduce fun programmes like Diction Police to teach Mark Lee and Phua Chu Kang (not Gurmit Singh), who can play themselves as secondary students.
Bring back educational TV programmes, but in a fun way. The Ministry of Education's (MOE) Curriculum Development Institute used to produce good quality educational TV programmes that can expose students to good spoken SSE. I was involved in a few episodes. MOE can invite private production houses to look into this.
We need to strike a balance between the spoken and written form of any language. We cannot sacrifice one for the other.
Not all native speakers are good role models either. I heard a New Zealand native speaker pronounce 'heir' (pronounced 'air') as 'hair'. Let's not rush to import foreign talent just yet. Let's tap the pool of local talent first.
We can start with our politicians. Examples of speakers of good spoken SSE include Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee: nothing ostentatious, just good spoken SSE that makes you feel comfortable.
As for Miss Singapore World 2009 pageant winner Ris Low, if her English is not up to par, she has the option of speaking competently in Mandarin - her mother tongue.
Ellen Toh (Ms)
As if I gif a fcuk! *boomz*<!-- end of for each --><!-- Current Ratings : start --><!-- Current Ratings : end --><!-- vbbintegration : start -->
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I FULLY agree with Ms Pek Siok Lian's view of a 'half-baked Mandarin and half-baked English' situation in Singapore ('My bigini is BOOMZ', Sept 13). We only have to open our ears in food centres, shopping malls and school canteens, and we get a constant aural assault of sub-standard Standard Singapore English (SSE) and Standard Singapore Mandarin.
Most of us are competent in neither English nor Mandarin. We have become a nation of half buckets, as the Mandarin saying goes. We have become so numbed to the sub-standard variety that when we hear a true-blue Singaporean speaker like Ms Pek, our first reaction is to accuse her of putting on 'slang'.
As one of Ms Pek's former teachers in primary school, I can attest to the genuineness of her crisp diction. She has always enunciated in those 'round, polished English tones'. Although she may have forgotten me, I remember wondering: 'How on earth does an 11- or 12-year-old learn to speak consistently like that?'
Ms Pek revealed that it was learnt unconsciously, by reading and having a real interest in the language for the love of it, not for economic gain - although in her case, it did bring her remuneration of some sort.
Before the onslaught of tech toys and mobile communication tools, we had only the good old radio and black-and-white TV. Life was so much simpler then. Communication meant we really engaged in conversation and story-telling. We picked up the phone and spoke to real people at the other end. Now we TET - text, e-mail and Twitter. Perhaps we should start a 'No TET Day' or 'No TET Hour'. Switch off the TV too and just talk to one another.
We used to listen to the British Broadcasting Corporation and local radio stations that had good role models of speakers of good SSE, such as Norman Lim, Steven Lee, Dorothy Tan and T.C. Koh. They were properly trained in phonetics, I am sure. Compare them to the present lot of TV personalities and one can see what sets them apart: garbled vowels and smothered initial and final consonants.
Put good role models on TV. We are not short of local talent, but watching Mark Lee and Patricia Mok in English sitcoms makes me switch to Channel 8. But the Mandarin half buckets elevate Guo Liang and Quan Yifeng to demi-god status.
Channel 8 used to have a Mandarin trainer in Mao Wei to teach artists. Is that still the practice, because training is the key?
English comedies like First Class have pretty good speakers, except for one or two young ones (which is excusable). We can introduce fun programmes like Diction Police to teach Mark Lee and Phua Chu Kang (not Gurmit Singh), who can play themselves as secondary students.
Bring back educational TV programmes, but in a fun way. The Ministry of Education's (MOE) Curriculum Development Institute used to produce good quality educational TV programmes that can expose students to good spoken SSE. I was involved in a few episodes. MOE can invite private production houses to look into this.
We need to strike a balance between the spoken and written form of any language. We cannot sacrifice one for the other.
Not all native speakers are good role models either. I heard a New Zealand native speaker pronounce 'heir' (pronounced 'air') as 'hair'. Let's not rush to import foreign talent just yet. Let's tap the pool of local talent first.
We can start with our politicians. Examples of speakers of good spoken SSE include Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee: nothing ostentatious, just good spoken SSE that makes you feel comfortable.
As for Miss Singapore World 2009 pageant winner Ris Low, if her English is not up to par, she has the option of speaking competently in Mandarin - her mother tongue.
Ellen Toh (Ms)
As if I gif a fcuk! *boomz*
