Mr Brown to the Rescue
Singapore government must be given credit for recruiting the popular local cyberspace funny man and its one time critic, Mr Brown, to produce a drama for its “Speak Good English Movement”.
Yes, learning language or anything, should be made fun to pique interest and develop curiosity in the subject matter. Fun, however, plays a minor role in the learning of English which is not an easy language to master.
To improve the standard of English of our school children, our current way of doing things must be changed.
The curriculum must be revised to bring back the intensive drilling in the basic rules of grammar and the rigorous weekly exercises on comprehension and essay writing.
All teachers who conduct classes in English must be proficient in the language themselves. Those not up to mark should be given an intensive refresher course.
Our attitude towards learning English must also change. We must not treat it as a means to acquire knowledge so as to increase our competitiveness in the job market. By adopting such utilitarian attitude towards learning English, we will not see the need to learn it well much less to appreciate it.