Teacher Input in Singapore English Classrooms

Abstract

This paper examines the English used by teacher trainees, both in their classroom pedagogy and in their written journals. We compared our trainees' language with what they had to say about their own pupils' work. At the same time, we looked at the trainees' language from the viewpoint of exonormative standards expected of them, that is, in Singapore, Standard British English is used as the norm. The purpose was to see how far these forms have become established. The analysis shows that the teachers consistently and systematically used language displaying syntactic features that differ from an exonormative standard. A comparison of the trainees' language with their comments on their pupils' work shows that there is partial awareness of an exonormative standard. The analysis indicates that a subset of syntactic constructions is likely to become established in Singapore. Further, some of these features are being explicitly taught in the English language classroom. Teachers' use of these forms in the classroom could be considered as a trend toward their establishment. It may be argued that with more extensive use, there is potential for the spread of these forms.

A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Second International Conference on World Enalishes held in Nagoya, Japan, May 25-29, 1995. We would like to thank Robert Hvitfeldt for his invaluable comments.