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发表于 17-12-2012 10:00:52|来自:新加坡
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相信吗,新加坡小学生的英文水平在世界各国小学中排名第一?
国际阅读素养进展研究项目((PIRLS) 公布了2011年调查报告, 新加坡小学生在英文阅读理解能力方面排名第一。
S'pore primary school pupils are world's best in English?
Linette Heng | The New Paper | Fri Dec 14 2012
SINGAPORE - Believe it or not, Singapore primary school pupils are the most proficient in the world for the English language.
According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) which examines literacy skills, Singapore beats countries like Northern Ireland, England and the US.
This result has caught some English language teachers here by surprise.
A teacher who teaches English to Primary Three pupils said: "I'm definitely surprised because English is not the native language of Singapore."
She added that the standard of English differs in each class and it usually depends on the child's background.
"There are quite a number of pupils who are better at their mother tongue, because it is the language that they speak at home," she said.
According to the Census of Population 2010, English is the home language for about half of the Chinese and Indian residents aged between five and 14.
This is the first time Singapore scored tops in English in the PIRLS study.
In 2007, Singapore was second out of 12 countries and provinces in the same study.
In 2001, when Singapore was first tested, the Republic was sixth out of seven education systems.
Despite the upward trend, there has been increasing criticism that English standards here are falling.
Mrs Marietta Koh, who has taught English for nearly 20 years, said: "I would think that literacy standards are falling, especially with the prevalence of SMS language. These days, spelling and grammar are atrocious and sentence construction is garbled."
British humour columnist and author Neil Humphreys, who was a teacher in his early days after coming to Singapore in 1996, agreed.
"This result detracts (from) the obvious fact that spoken English is deteriorating. I went away for five years (from 2006) and I noticed the difference." he said:
And could the PIRLS study simply show that our pupils are simply exam-savvy?
A Ministry of Education spokesman said the pupil is tested on two passages which can be literary texts (fictional stories) and/or informational texts (informative articles and instructional texts).
Two question formats are used in the PIRLS assessment: Multiple-choice and open-ended, which require pupils to write their answers.
Exam component
Mrs Koh, an English language teacher at a tuition centre, said: "Comprehension is a large component of the exam and pupils are drilled on skills such as inference."
Mr Humphreys, who taught speech and drama in Singapore for three years "a long time ago", and conducts regular talks in local schools, said: "Good for the Singapore pupils, I'm proud of them for their achievements.
But he thinks that it is inevitable that Singapore had come up tops in this study.
"It is a country which is obsessed with exams. It is ridiculous that there are kids in kindergarten and Primary 1 and 2 taking tests.
"The Western kids who were beaten are probably more sociable and spend more of their time outdoors instead of having their heads buried in textbooks and tuition. "
S'pore 4th in language literacy
Singapore was ranked fourth for language literacy with a score of 567, behind countries like Hong Kong (571), Russia (568) and Finland (568) which use their native languages.
But Singapore was No. 1 among education systems which were assessed in English.
It even ranked higher than Northern Ireland (558) and US (556).
Next up were Ireland and England, which were tied at 522.
For the full reports, see http://www.iea.nl/
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