Language Learning in New English Contexts This page intentionally left blank 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 ProC 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 Literature 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 C 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 Wellington, 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 x Contributors of Education, Singapore. His current research involves the analysis of stu- dent writing across the curriculum and classroom discourse. Grace Ho Li Jun is a teacher in North Spring Primary School. Her research interests include areas in reH ective teaching and learning, and learner strategies and metacognition in second language acquisition. She graduated from the National Institute of Education, with a BA (Honours) in English Language and M. Ed. (English Language Education). Huaqing Hong is Lead Research Associate with the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, National Institute of Education, Singapore. Prior to this, he has worked as Linguistic Engineer with the Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR, Singapore. He has published in refereed journals and presented at many international conferences. His research interests include computational linguistics, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and translation studies. Guangwei Hu is an Associate Professor at the National Institute of Educa- tion, Singapore of the Nanyang Technological University. His research interests include bilingual education, language policy, language learner strategies, second/foreign language teacher education and second language acquisition. He has published in British Journal of Educational Psychology, Review of Educational Research, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, TESOL Quarterly and Teachers College Record. Chitra Shegar is an Assistant Professor with Nanyang Technological Univer- sity. Her areas of speciality are reading, language teaching methodology, second language acquisition and teacher education. Currently, she is a Principal Investigator of a School-based Reading Innovation Project. She has published in books and international journals and is a Managing Editor of Pedagogies, an International Journal. Madonna Stinson is an Assistant Professor in the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, the National Institute of Education. She has exten- sive teaching and curriculum development experience in drama and arts education at all levels of schooling and in several countries. Her research interests include drama pedagogy, language learning, and curriculum design and implementation. Contributors xi Viniti Vaish holds a doctorate in Educational Linguistics from the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania. She is Assistant Professor at Singapore’s National Insti- tute of Education, Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice. She has published in Linguistics and Education, World Englishes, International Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development and Language Policy. Jeanne Wolf is currently a Lecturer at Tsuda College in Japan. She special- izes in the evaluation of educational issues. Her research interests include action research, lesson study and classroom-based assessments. Dennis Yap obtained his MA by research in English Language from the National Institute of Education, Singapore in 2006. His research topic was ‘Errors in Tense and Aspect in the Compositions of Secondary School Pupils’. He is currently a Vice-Principal at Zhenghua Secondary School. His areas