Quadrilingual Education in Singapore

Rita Elaine Silver is an Associate Professor in English Language and Literature, National Institute of Education, Singapore. Her specialisation is language-in-education with an emphasis on policy-classroom pedagogy-professional development connections.  Her work has appeared in Language Policy, TESOL Quarterly, System,Language Teaching Research, Language in Education, Cambridge Journal of Education, and Journal of Educational Change. Previous monographs includeLanguage in Education: Social Implications (with M. Lwin, 2014); Language Learning in New English Contexts (with L. Alsagoff & C. C. M. Goh, 2009) andLanguage Learning: Home, School and Society (with C. C. M. Goh, 2007). She is co-editor of Language and Education.Wendy Bokhorst-Hengis an Associate Professor in Education at Crandall University, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Prior to her current position, she has also held positions in Singapore at the National Institute of Education, in Washington, D.C. at American University, and has directed a language program at the British Council in Beijing, China. Her research involves a focus on language policy and ideology, English as an international language, multiculturalism and diversity, and comparative education. Her work has appeared in World Englishes, Multilingua, TESOL Quarterly, Journal of Current Issues in Language Planning. She has also contributed chapters to a number of books. She has a co-authored volume with S. McKay, International English in its Sociolinguistic Contexts.

• Introduction.- Chapter 1 Overarching themes, bilingual dreams and multilingual landscapes: Quadrilingual education in Singapore.- Section 1: Transitions.- Chapter 2 Transmission and development of literacy values and practices: An ethnographic study of a Malay family in Singapore.- Chapter 3 "I believe, therefore I practice": Teachers' beliefs on literacy acquisition and their classroom practices.- Chapter 4 Commentary on 'Transitions'.- Section 2: Competencies.- Chapter 5 A reading profile of Singapore primary school students and implications for reading pedagogy.- Chapter 6 Morphological awareness and reading development in bilingual English-Chinese children in Singapore.- Chapter 7 Taking stock of the effects of strategies-based instruction on writing in Chinese and English in Singapore primary classrooms.- Chapter 8 Commentary on 'Competencies'.- Section 3: Practices.- Chapter 9 Student engagement in reading.- Chapter 10 Distinctiveness and uniformity: Teaching language in Singapore primary grades 1 & 2.- Chapter 11 Cultural representation in Teachers' talk: A functional analysis of Singapore's Chinese classroom discourse.- Chapter 12 Morphological teaching and Singaporean children's English word learning.- Chapter 13 Commentary on 'Practices'.- Section 4: Reforms.- Chapter 14 Use and impact of spoken Tamil in the early Tamil classrooms.- Chapter 15 Inculcation of Malay values and culture in language pedagogy in Singapore.- Chapter 16 Coding and comparing pedagogic features of teaching practices: What happens in Chinese language classes in Singapore's primary school?.- Chapter 17 Teaching Chinese to English-speaking Bilinguals.- Chapter 18 Commentary on 'Reforms'.- Conclusion.- Chapter 19 Final words: A reflective synthesis.