Never-ending talk on English

Paul Tan wrote that even if native teachers are hired to teach English, the local teachers' skills need to be brushed up on, since English is the medium of instruction for most subjects. A Mathematics teacher needs to be clear in her conveyance of Mathematics concepts. If more native speakers are employed to raise the standard of English, there will be fewer places for the locals and more unhappiness will result. It's quite a tough decision here.

He mentioned that the prevalence of Singlish compels foreigners to learn it so as to fit into our society. This is yet a pull in another direction concerning the justification of Singlish. It undermines standard English but enhances social belonging. The latter is the concern of especially teenagers. It is true that "rooting out non-standard languages is near-impossible", as they make up one's national identity. The best solution would be to recognise that there is a time for non-standard English and for standard English to be used. Standard English after all, does aid a sense of belonging as well, just with the world rather than with domestic societies.

Santokh Singh wrote against the idea of hiring expatriates as teachers, as they expect to be able to solely teach their specialized subject. They want nothing to do with the administrative aspects of what local teachers do. Of course we local teachers do have that same desire but it's part of being a teacher here in Singapore, whether we like it or not.

I worked in a private school as a teacher and due to our small staff number, we had to do everything from maintenance to stock-take. I'm quite sure that there were grouses in our minds but we knew that we had to do all these to keep the school up and running.

It's possible that expatriate teachers are expected to just teach academia back in their own countries but unfortunately, local teachers don't have that privilege. So in order to fulfill their job critieria as local teachers, they have to adapt themselves to incorporating these duties into their job scope. Hence the high salaries we get as teachers.

Still, I find that such multi-tasking gives us a better exposure to handling pressure. I wonder if discipline and remedial lessons aren't part of teaching though. You must discipline to teach more effectively and give remedials to reinforce your lessons, must you not?

To me, teaching is a vocation and not a job. If you really love your students, counselling stems from your love for them. You care enough to want them to be happy. I'm not looking at this career with rose-tinted eyes. I've experience to temper those eyes.