Teaching English in Singapore

The Classroom Below the Skyscrapers

By Nathan Edgerton

新加坡天际线下方的唐人街。

牛蛙在门外嘶哑，我的手指在混凝土墙上轻轻地回荡。我的脚踝受到桌子下蚊子卷烟的烟雾的保护，但有时我仍然从键盘上猛拉，在耳朵上滑动，或者被困在手臂上的头发上的蚊子。我当时在越南，标志着我没有监督的中期考试，并根据自己设计的规模来决定成绩。（“只要给他们任何公平的东西，”当我询问测试和分级程序时，我的部门负责人告诉我。）

A Detailed Job Offer Awaits

I took a break to check my email, and found an anxiously-awaited message from the Singapore Ministry of Education. It congratulated me on my acceptance to work as a secondary school teacher beginning in June 2008. I sighed in relief, finally knowing what I would be doing for the next year. I was excited to teach in what I had heard was an organized and effective system, consistently ranked among the best in the world in math and science.

我注意到电子邮件上附加了一个PDF文件并打开了它。该文件包含了中学课程的描述，包括有关如何以及如何教授学生的详细标准，测试方式以及如何分级等级，以及许多其他细节。该文件长120页。

Arrival in Singapore

Four months later, I arrived in Singapore with 10 other recent college graduates as part of the first batch of untrained teachers to work in local secondary schools and junior colleges. Dave, an employee from the Ministry of Education, met us at the airport, and within minutes we were on the expressway. We cruised past a concrete colonnade of apartment buildings which vanished above the canopy of trees, planted at regular intervals, shading both sides of the highway, later emerging on an elevated highway skirting the skyscrapers of the financial district, all without a hint of congestion.

和尚在进入樟宜机场之前先考虑自动扶梯。Nathan Edgerton的照片。

Accommodations

We soon arrived at Bukit Timah, a neighborhood west of the city center, where we would be occupying one floor of an apartment block. We brought our things up to our flats; each had three air-conditioned bedrooms, two bathrooms with hot water and a kitchen. We had a living room with wide, breeze-capturing windows that afforded views of neighboring apartment blocks above the trees amongst them. Dave left us to rest for the remainder of the day and promised to meet us the next morning for the beginning of our week-long orientation program.

食物

那天晚上晚些时候，我们前往最近的“小贩中心”武吉塔马美食广场（Bukit Timah Food Court）寻找晚餐。很久以前，即使是新加坡也有人行道汤供应商和三轮车架的面条车，就像今天仍然有东南亚的大多数城市一样。但是，政府决定阻止人行道并被养成细菌，因此它禁止街头食品，并在岛上住房社区附近开设了小贩中心，供应商可以在那里租用摊位来烹饪和出售他们的食物。

我们浏览了大厅，限制自己购买任一碗laksa（马来咖喱汤）或日本udonuntil we had seen all the choices. We made mental notes to try thephad thaiand mushroombriyani在本周晚些时候，如果我们渴望西方食品，看到面食和披萨摊感到欣慰。食物很便宜，所以我几乎可以选择任何东西而不会感到内gui。我坐在一大杯新鲜的橙汁（$ 0.90）和一碗米饭的肉汤中，里面有蘑菇和新鲜草药（美国1.75美元）。

Introductions to the Locals

As I met cab drivers, shop owners, and other Singaporeans during the next few days, I found that many were surprised to find that I was a teacher since most western ex-pats come to Singapore to work for corporations.

“哦，你在新加坡美国学校工作，啊？”他们会在片刻之后问。

“不，我在教Jurong Secondary School[邻里学校]，”我会回答。

“Really? Why?” they would ask.

Singaporeans, unlike people of other Southeast Asian countries, are not used to encountering western teachers as part of the ex-pat population because all education is, and for decades has been, conducted in English. Yet, despite the fact that all of the teachers in the country have been educated in English, the Ministry of Education still wants to recruit foreign native English-speaking teachers. There are numerous reasons for this, such as to expose students to foreigners, to learn teaching methods, and to get feedback from people who have gone through other education systems, and, perhaps most importantly, to discourage the use of “Singlish”.

Singlish and Business

Singlish is a colloquial adaptation of English, including some Malay and Chinese words and grammatical structures, which is used casually throughout the island. Singaporeans can usually switch between proper English and Singlish, but mistakes still occur.

For example, one day in class, during a lesson involving sharks and seals, a student wanted to ask if seals had brains. She was one of the brightest students in the class, so she probably would have figured it out if she had taken a moment to think it over. However, the question came to her quickly and her hand shot up. Before I could even call on her, she blurted the answer out in Singlish. This is what she said:.

“Seal got brain one, ah?”

This, I believe, illustrates the occasional incongruence between Singlish and proper English, and one can imagine so many faint bulges of eyeballs and slight piques of brows if a Singaporean, in only a brief lapse of memory or judgment, or due to mere nervousness, said something like this in an important meeting with international clientele. Thus, foreign teachers, who more easily realize the enormity of such a mistake, can make a vital contribution toward Singapore's future business success.

Singapore: A Land of Campaigns

Though Singlish serves as a cultural bond in a country that blends significant populations of Chinese, Malays, and Indians (75%, 15%, and 10%, respectively), the government has chosen to emphasize the use of proper English, as demonstrated in its “Speak Good English” campaign. In addition, to position itself for future business with China, Singapore has launched the “Speak Mandarin” campaign. These campaigns are only two of many concurrent campaigns the government sponsors.

有一天，在公共汽车站外，我看到一条巨大的横幅绑在两棵树之间，并在道路上伸展。在黑色背景上的厚白字母中，它警告鲁ck的行人“ jaywalk杀死”。（后来我得知，老师得到了带有相同信息的免费粘性记事本，尽管在这种情况下，它是用红色墨水写的，表明血液中的鲜血，也有红色。高大的蚊子覆盖了双层公共汽车的侧面，警告登革热的危险。标语是“如果它们繁殖，您会流血。”高速公路侧面的灯柱上有广告，戴着一条戴着结婚戒指，躺在黑暗的沥青上。该消息是“使其安全。”举办了全国性的洗手运动和国家洗车运动。看到用来造成对不可能危险的设备是新加坡生活的最有趣的部分之一。

正如人们可能对一个将窗户清洗视为国家关注的国家所期望的，新加坡是一个非常安全的居住地。在全球排名中，犯罪率低于除日本的几个城市以外的所有城市。医疗保健是可靠且负担得起的，新加坡是医疗旅游业的热门目的地。公共交通是广泛的，方便的和守时的。官僚主义是反应迅速，公平的，而且更糟的是补充书。填写（或正如新加坡人所说的“填充”）和提交表格是一种国家劳动，例如在越南和柬埔寨收获大米。

Teaching

On my first day of school, 1,200 students, ordered by class in groups of 40, clad in gray shirts, shorts, and skirts, sat on the volleyball and basketball courts in front of the school. The bell rang, and they all stood up, some still chatting, some fidgeting and shifting, others rushing through the crowd to get to their assigned spaces. The second bell rang and everyone stood still and quiet. They sang the national anthem and the school song, then sat back down. After welcoming the students to the new year and making a few announcements, the principal introduced the new teachers for the year. As I took my place in line behind the new local teachers, I heard waves of giggling and mumbling rippling across the crowd. When the principal announced my name and I walked across the stage, the students burst into applause punctuated by hoots and screams. For nearly all, I was the first foreign teacher they had ever had. And for most, even in Southeast Asia's most cosmopolitan city, I was the first foreigner they had ever met.

Nathan Edgertonmoved to Southeast Asia to teach at Can Tho University in southern Vietnam in 2007. What was supposed to be one year eventually became more than 7. In the meantime, he has taught at a public school in Singapore for a year and a half, worked as a writer in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and cycled across Vietnam.

He has been living in Bangkok for the past 7+ years, where he studied for a master's degree at Chulalongkorn University and currently works as Director of Operations Development at知识, a Thai language school near the city center.