ipl-logo

The Importance Of Bilingualism In Singapore

1331 Words6 Pages

A popular quote on bilingualism by Frank Smith states that “One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way”. Bilingualism is the ability to communicate in at least two languages. There are over 43% of countries that has made it mandatory to learn two or more languages and one of such country is Singapore. (ilanguages.org, 2014) Singapore adopted the bilingual policy in 1966. The main aim of the policy was to prepare Singaporeans to be geared up for the global economy. A monolingual society, either in English or Mother tongue would have been a setback. Being monolingual in English would have made Singaporeans to lose their cultural identity and being monolingual in one’s mother tongue language would not allow us to make a living. (Ministry of Education, 2009). Personally, I feel that to have an edge over any other Asian city bilingualism was adopted .This has benefited us, Singaporeans, by allowing us to communicate easily with others around the globe.
Bilingualism eases communication with others around the globe. Bilingualism in Singapore is learning English and a mother tongue language. There are 58 English speaking countries. (carloz, 2014) Singaporeans are able to benefit from this English speaking countries in many aspects such as facing minimal to no communication barriers when travelling to their countries , able to study in their country without any language complications and remain competitive amongst other Asian countries.

Show More
Related

  • The Struggles To Be An American Girl Summary

    197 Words  | 1 Pages

    The article "The Struggle to be an American Girl" by Elizabeth Wong it is about a Chinese girl who did not want to learn or speak her first language and chose just to speak English. However, being bilingual has benefits like communication, jobs opportunities, etc. I chose to be bilingual for two reasons. the first reason is communication. Communication is important and if we know more than one language, it is possible to communicate with more than one group of people.

    Read More

  • Dan Carsen Ethos For Bilingual Education

    611 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his article, Dan Carsen discusses the challenges with bilingual education in the Southern United States. Although he recognizes the obstacles present in this system, Carsen does argue for bilingual education. By appealing to ethos, pathos, and logos, Carsen properly describes the difficulties and importance in implementing bilingual education in the South. Carsen successfully appeals to ethos by conducting several personal interviews to capture real-world experiences. The first interview mentioned in the article is with Angelina Baltazar, a bilingual student at Tarrant High School.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The New Bathroom Policy At English High School By Espada

    1133 Words  | 5 Pages

    The definition of bilingualism is fluency in or use of two languages. Martín Espada is the author of the essay “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School” which is about the act of Spanish being a forbidden language in a school full of multicultural children. In the essay, his main argument is the idea that the language of Spanish, or Bilingualism as a whole is interpreted as a burden for a young immigrant. Another author named Richard Rodriguez wrote about his struggle to juggle between his 2 languages, his public language (English) and his private

    Read More

  • Annotated Bibliography: How To Tame A Wild Tongue

    1259 Words  | 6 Pages

    The timeliness of the article is recent, it was published in 2014. The authors are reliable, both Bialystok and Craik have degrees in psychology, as well as conducted some of this research themselves. This article proves its truthfulness with citing where they received some of their information about advances of bilingualism. The purpose of this article is to educate the scientific audience that there is evidence of bilingualism being a benefit on our

    Read More

  • Lester B Pearson Essay

    1705 Words  | 7 Pages

    Since Pearson brought bilingualism into being, he wanted to be the last unilingual Prime Minister and his wish came true. There is no official rule but all the Prime Ministerial candidates after Pearson are bilingual. This way, the Prime Minister can provide more services to the people living in Canada because he knows another language. Additionally, French people would not feel like second-class citizens as they have felt before because no one bothered to learn their language. Furthermore, Quebec could have separated from Canada in 1967 making Pearson’s institution of bilingualism futile.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of English Only Laws Divide And Demean

    1082 Words  | 5 Pages

    One of the ways the author used logos in his writing was by stating that the English-Only campaign transformed into a movement in 1931 in order to ban all non-English languages in government documents and printed material regarding any federal, state, and local government information. Because of how difficult achieving this was, it was decided to create a law called “Language of Government” that mandates that the official language of the federal government is English. Since this happened, 27 states have passed laws that state English as the “official” language of their territory. Also, with this, the author is trying to make his readers see the severity of this situation by exposing the number of states that have dedicated time and resources into making sure that English is the only language being spoken in their territory. On the other hand, by citing the National Association of Multicultural Education, shows the importance of bilingualism and how it is stated is stated in various official government documents such as the U.S. Declaration of Independence, constitutions of South Africa and the United States, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted by the United Nations.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Bilingualism In Canada

    408 Words  | 2 Pages

    Much of what Canada stands for as a country comes from the basic principle of bilingualism and multiculturalism. We as Canadians have always stood for being accepting of different cultures that even today, live coexisting within our borders. We achieved Bilingualism because the French and English worked together to make canada independent. Having Canada as a bilingual country made both of the distinct cultural groups of Canada happy. In the late 1900’s the immigration policies, and multiculturalism was created.

    Read More

  • Espadas Bilingualism

    601 Words  | 3 Pages

    However, in order for one to truly understand the arguments made by the authors they must also understand the context behind these arguments; therefore, knowing how the individual authors’ definition of bilingualism lets the reader truly absorb what points they’re trying to make and why. In Espada’s essay, he defines bilingualism as a way for a person to remain in contact with their different cultural identities. There are many areas in the essay where the reader could interpret this definition from. However, the most significant piece of evidence appears at the beginning of the essay where Espada mentions his friend Jack Agueros’ analogy to describe his bilingualism “English and Spanish are like two dogs I love. English is an obedient dog.

    Read More

  • English Should Be America's Official Language

    1146 Words  | 5 Pages

    Learning English will help more people understand and help the government and business industries. With one unified nation, prosperity and community between cultures would grow. All of which would lead to a more outstanding and organized

    Read More

  • Bilingual Persuasive Speech

    750 Words  | 3 Pages

    The more language knowledge significantly helps towards your career as you know. Bilinguals have the privilege of get their information from a wider variety of resources. Also, it has great educational benefit to kids. Many studies suggest that bilingual children tend to have a higher concentration and are better at working through distraction while doing their school work. Research has shown that bilinguals score higher on average on tests involving creative thinking or problem solving.

    Read More

  • Bilingualism Research Paper

    1223 Words  | 5 Pages

    Increasing development of bilingual education and the evolution of language may be due to the population size, social, political, economical and personal requirements. Numerous researches show that learning a language can improve mental agility, it can strengthen brain, develop communicative abilities of invidividuals and strengthen and improve overall humans´ abilities and skills. The concept of bilingualism should be tackled because of the various definitions that are given to this term. Those definitions seem to share one basic element, which is the use of two given languages by a given speaker. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages or the frequent use (as by a community) of two languages.

    Read More

  • Essay About Children Learning A Second Language

    882 Words  | 4 Pages

    The children learning a second language for develop skills that will help create opportunities in the future and ability to communicate with others in different situations. It will most certainly In addition to the language skills of children with learning a second language, and learning the cultural differences helps. Includes a variety of educational and career opportunities as well. However, children learning a second language in the early teens It can learn faster and learn the lesson faster also. But it does not mean if passed, then a teenager.

    Read More

  • Advantages Of Bilingualism Essay

    1064 Words  | 5 Pages

    Another benefit of being bilingual is the ability if utilize and expressideas in different languages. When people are confronted in a situation and they have to provide answer for particular question then bilingualism enable individual to find the appropriate word from two different languages thus it help them to provide best answers. It also allow one to rely on their skills and enhance their cognitive skills. However, it is also indicated that cognitive abilities of a bilingual individual is sharper than an individual who can only speak one language(Bialystok, Craik, &Luk, 2012).

    Read More

  • Misunderstandings About Bilingualism

    1688 Words  | 7 Pages

    There are many limitations and difficulties to attain accurate results on the differences of bilinguals and monolinguals, however, researchers and educators are positive about the benefits of being bilingual or multilingual. Hopefully new research and studies in the near future will be able to solve the questions and

    Read More

  • Literature Review Of Bilingualism

    3783 Words  | 16 Pages

    The notion of bilingualism is frequently connected to the idea of code-switching since a person should have ability to speak using two or more than one variety. Researchers have made countless studies describing bilingualism as they create awareness in different ways. To begin with is Bloomfield (1933) who defined bilingualism as having the “native- like control of two languages”. However, Haugen (1953) pinpointed that bilingualism is the ability of a speaker to communicate and understand an additional variety. This is to mean that the concept of bilingualism exist only when an individual of a certain variety has the capability to communicate effectively in an additional variety.

    Read More

More about The Importance Of Bilingualism In Singapore

Open Document