The English Language

Today, English is still the most widely used language in the world. Traveller can use it almost in any conner of the world. With English, countries that speak different languages could communicate easily and understand each other well.

The English Language is the most important in educations in Singapore. If one failed English in any exam, he had fail the whole exam. Over the years the Singapore Government has been emphasizing more and more on speaking good quality English. Advertisements were made to remind citizens to speak good English. I feel this is very essential as stated previously, Singaporeans need make use its advantage of being an English speaking country to cooperate with other countries more often to do business.

So I think the Government should pay more attention on the education to children and teenagers than the general public. When a child born to speak good English, he will maintain the high standard and pass it down to the nest generation. Over the years, Singapore's overall standard will become higher and continue growing.

Done by, Yang Xin Yu

Cyber Wellness

Computer has become a tool that we must have in the modern days. Internet has become the biggest platform for people to exchange information. From a British research group (www.cybersentinel.co.uk), they found that, on the whole, teens spend some 31 hours per week online, that’s around 4.4 hours per day online. However, this number grow even higher for a normal poly student in Singapore.

It attracts people's attention on how teenagers think about it. And the result turns out that many of them did not thought of the health risk at all. Also, teenagers did not take note of the "proper usage" of the internet, here refer to the cyber awareness. Teenagers now a days just download musics ,movies and softwares online with out second thought on it. Many of them did not aware that all those contents they downloaded carry copyrights and it is illegal to download it. This act has no difference between stealing.

People are sad to see this phenomenon to appear. I think the Government did not put enough effort to promote the awareness of proper internet usage for the public. Also, they did not work hard enough to monitor and block the websites that allow teenagers to access to illegal contents so easily. I think the Government should make more advertisements and held more talks in school to tell teenagers the consequences and how to have a healthy life style with so much of internet usage every day.

Done by, Yang Xin Yu

The English Language from various viewpoints

Reference Articles
Article 1- Global English 'Strengthening U.S. Supremacy' from englishnews@chosun.com
Article 2- Beijing steps up English-language drive from www.ChinaPost.com.tw
Article 3- Have English standards REALLY fallen? from http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20091108-178566.html

While most people assume that the English Language is just a communication tool, article 1 shows us that the English Language has become such a powerful symbol worldwide that it "strengthens U.S. supremacy". Articles 2 and 3 shows China and Singapore striving to improve their English standards, in order to increase communication in various sectors, especially the tourism sector.

Article 2 supports article 1's claims where English is predicted to be the second language in China, by citing China's campaigns for English proficiency among some professions.

Contrary to article 2, article 3 shows the many approaches to viewing English. Singapore has high English proficiency, where the next step is now to maintain the English standard. In addition, article 3 rightfully points out that while Singapore students are good in 'receptive' skills (listening and reading), 'productive' skills (speaking and writing) has much room for improvement. Grammatical knowledge has also improved.

Thus, article 3 explains that although the English standard in Singapore seems to be floundering, the issue is in fact multi-layered. Magnifying the various aspects that constitutes English, Singapore is actually doing well relative to other countries. For article 2, article 3's analysis of the English language could help to develop a more balanced approach in increasing the English proficiency in China.

Regarding my own viewpoints, English Language is more than just a communication tool. English, as an international language, has helped unify the world and aided in making globalization a great success. In fact, English may be a tool of survival for some non-western natives to communicate with their western counterparts. In some countries, English may even be a privileged language to learn and use, especially for less developed nations.

Translators have been used in the past to aid in communications between business meetings if there are communication barriers. Regarding this, some important terms that natives use may be "lost in translation" or misinterpreted. Translators, being human, may also pass slightly altered messages to their clients. This poses a risk of businessmen or other professionals relying on translators to have less successful meetings with clients.

Thus, with English, professionals can finally take full control of their success in the global workplace. Aside from professionals, countries like Singapore benefited greatly from emphasizing on English proficiency. English helped to unify Singapore's different races together, thus contributing much to a prosperous and stable society.

On a last note, English has seen "evolutions" as it gets passed around into different countries. Examples include "Singlish" and "Chinglish". These "evolved forms" of English are strongly filled with native culture and thus could be treated seriously along with English.

English is a constantly evolving subject, so let us adapt to its changes and soar well in the international workplace with it.

From Kwee Peng

English Language

English language is the most important language in this universe at this point of time. Not knowing how to speak this language would be of great disadvantage to an individual. That is why schools in Singapore give so much importance to this language.

In Singapore, the education system gives the most importance to english language. If a student is unable to pass this subject, he is not allowed to carry on further with his education. This ensures that every student in Singapore learns how to speak and write this language with minimal effort. This would help Singaporean students to have greater career opportunities and be more competitive compared to other people in other less educated countries like China and India. Big companies may want to chose employees with good communication skills so that they can speak to more customers. It is true that not all customers speak english, but english is a universal language and it is the also the most important in these times.

In conclusion, I feel that the Singapore government has taken a right step in equipping their students with this language allowing them to be more competitive in the near future and in current times.

Done By: Palwinder Singh

English Language

The English Language

I agree that English is definitely important in the society as it is the main language that many countries used to communicate with another country. Without English language, countries would have difficulty in communicating with each other. Example, without English, Chinese are unable to communicate with the Americans as their country has their own country's language. Therefore, English is a great tool for communication and only with English, the economy could grow.

In order to have a powerful English society in Singapore, schools should emphasize on students scoring well in their English language examinations. Schools should organize an "English Awareness" talk to help student to understand why is studying of English is important.

For China, they do not have proper English teacher for them to learn English and therefore most of them are unable to communicate with the Americans. Thus, I suggest that USA should sent English professional to conduct talks in China to aid them in learning English language.

In China, English language should be tested in examinations and students are required to do well in the examination. With improvement in speaking and writing English language, it would allow talents in the country to go overseas to other countries such as USA for further studies. It could also allow Chinese in China to communicate well with foreigners either when they go for another country for holiday or tourists visits China.

As the world improves on their communication through speaking and writing English, the economy of the world would be better as communication between countries would be better. Therefore, I suggest that the world should focus on improving their style of writing and speaking English language.

By: Winston

Cyber-Awareness

Most youngsters lack of cyber-wellness and they do not know the importance of it. Cyber-wellness is important in this days because there were many cases where people were being cheated of money through online shopping and many teenagers are addicted to online gaming.

One of the popular cases due to lack of cyber-wellness is being con on online shopping. This days, people like to do online shopping as they find it convenient and the prices are quite cheap compared to some of the shops. However, they do not know that some of the online shops are fraud. Some of people paid the blogger money but do not get their goods delivered to them. Those people do not think before they act. They were just being lured by the convenience and cheap pricing provided by the blogger. The end results is them being con of their money.

Another popular case is teenagers addicted to online gaming. Online gaming is not only popular to the teenagers but to some adults too. Once they start playing, they find it hard to stop. According to research, most of the teenagers who are addicted to online gaming spend most of their time on their computer instead of concentrating on their study. There are also cases where teenagers neglect their studies and have to drop out of school due to their addiction of online gaming.

In conclusion, I think that NIAC should organise talks to all the primary school, secondary school, polytechnic, junior college and university. This talk will create cyber awareness to all the students. Not only that, talks on cyber awareness should also be conducted outside so that those people who lacks of cyber awareness could also attend. By doing so, cases that links to lack of cyber awareness will decrease.

Done by: Shirley