Table Of ContentLanguage Learning in
New English Contexts
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Language Learning in
New English Contexts
Studies of Acquisition and Development
Edited by
Rita E. Silver
Christine C. M. Goh
and
Lubna Alsagoff
Continuum International Publishing Group
The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane
11 York Road Suite 704
London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038
© Rita E. Silver, Christine C. M. Goh, Lubna Alsagoff and contributors 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from
the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-0-8264-9845-8 (Hardback)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Publisher has applied for CIP data
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on Editors and Contributors viii
1. English Acquisition and Development in
Multilingual Singapore 1
Rita E. Silver, Christine C. M. Goh and Lubna Alsagoff
2. Learning English in Singapore: Pronunciation
Targets and Norms 18
Madalena Cruz-Ferreira
3. Talking Beyond the Here-and-Now: Preschoolers’
Use of Decontextualized Language 32
Christine C. M. Goh and Grace Ho Li Jun
4. Listening Strategies of Singaporean
Primary Pupils 55
Peter Y. Gu, Guangwei Hu and Lawrence J. Zhang
5. Asian Pedagogy: Scaffolding in a Singaporean
English Classroom 75
Viniti Vaish and Chitra Shegar
6. Language Development in Singapore Classrooms:
A Corpus-based Description of the ‘School Variety’ 91
Paul Doyle
7. Metaphorization in Singaporean Student Writing:
A Corpus-based Study 112
Libo Guo and Huaqing Hong
vi Contents
8. The Development of the Past Tense in Singapore English 132
Lubna Alsagoff, Dennis Yap and Violet Yip
9. The Contribution of Process Drama to Improved Results
in English Oral Communication 147
Madonna Stinson and Kelly Freebody
10. A Profi le of an Adolescent Reader in Singapore:
The Literacy Repertoire in Third Space 166
Wendy Bokhorst-Heng and Jeanne Wolf
Afterword 201
Courtney B. Cazden
Index 205
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the careful and cheerful assistance of FOONG
Poh Yi (Research Associate at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and
Practice, National Institute of Education, Singapore) with the initial for-
matting and proofreading of the manuscript.
Notes on Editors and Contributors
Editors
Rita E. Silver is Associate Professor in English Language and L iterature at
the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Her research interests are
second language acquisition and classroom language learning. Her current
research is on the use of peer work to enhance language learning in the
context of Singaporean primary schools.
Christine C. M. Goh is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics in the
National Institute of Education, Singapore. Her interests are in oracy devel-
opment and its contribution to thinking and academic learning in fi rst and
second language contexts. She has authored many international journal
articles and book chapters, as well as books on the subject of speaking and
listening.
Lubna Alsagoff is Associate Professor in the English Language and Litera-
ture Department of the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Her
research interests include the teaching of grammar, as well as the study of
Singapore English, with particular emphasis on the relations between lan-
guage, culture and identity.
Contributors
Wendy Bokhorst-heng has held appointments as Assistant Professor in the
Centre For Research in Pedagogy and Practice at the National
Institute of Education, Singapore and in the Sociology department of
American University, Washington, D.C. Her research interests include liter-
acy, language policy and ideology, multilingualism and multiculturalism,
and comparative education. She is co-author of International English in its
Sociolinguistic Contexts: Toward a Socially Sensitive EIL Pedagogy with Sandra
Contributors ix
McKay. She has also published in a number of journals including Multilin-
gua, Journal of Research in Reading, World Englishes and Journal of Current Issues
in Language Planning.
Courtney B. Cazden is the Charles William Eliot Professor (retired) at the
Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her teaching, research and writing
have focused on issues of language and literacy learning and on language
use in the classroom. Since 2003, she has spent two months each year as a
visiting researcher at the Centre for Research on Pedagogy and Practice in
Singapore.
Madalena Cruz-Ferreira holds a doctorate in Linguistics from the
University of Manchester, UK. She is an independent scholar, with
published research in multilingualism, phonology and intonation, and the
language of science. Her recent publications include books on child
trilingualism (2006), introductory linguistics (2006) and English grammar
(2007).
Paul Doyle is Assistant Professor in English Language and Literature, and
the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, at the National Institute
of Education, Singapore. He currently leads the team developing the Singa-
pore Corpus of Research in Education (SCoRE). His research interests
include corpus linguistics, data-driven language learning and corpus-based
lexicography.
Kelly Freebody is a Lecturer in teaching and learning, drama curriculum
and English curriculum in the Faculty of Education and Social Work,
The University of Sydney. Her research interests include educational drama,
social justice and classroom interaction.
Peter Y. Gu is a Senior Lecturer at Victoria University of W ellington, New
Zealand. He has extensive teaching and teacher training experiences in
mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand. His main
research interests include learner strategies and vocabulary acquisition.
He is co-editor of the Asian Journal of English Language Teaching.
Libo Guo holds a doctorate in English Language Studies (National Univer-
sity of Singapore). His research interests include language, language educa-
tion and multimodality in science texts. He is working as a Research Fellow
at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, the National Institute
Description:This title examines economic, social and political factors influencing language education, and presents a global perspective on English language acquisition. This book is dedicated to the exploration of English language acquisition and development outside of the largely monolingual environments of N
