Grappling to be understood by the foreign service staff at your neighbourhood kopitiam? Yes – this is a frequent bugbear of Singaporeans, and an issue which has received much attention within the media and government circles. Earlier this week, when speaking to students at the Nanyang Technological University, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the Manpower Ministry is studying how to get more employers – especially those running retail and food outlets – to send their staff for basic English lessons. Education Minister Ng Eng Hen also stressed the need to speak better English, saying that Singapore can aim to be an English teaching hub for Asia.

Yet, some foreign service staff may still have difficulty understanding locals, even after undergoing basic English lessons. Why? The reason being that the English they hear in foodcourts, schools and shopping malls is not quite the same as the ‘basic English’ they learnt in the classroom. While they may be taught to expect, ‘I would like to take away two packets of chicken rice’, they may actually hear, ‘one chicken rice makan here, two pack, all put one packet chilli enough orredi’. Putting ourselves in their shoes, it is any wonder that staff still have difficulties in communicating with locals who don’t exactly speak the English they have been taught in the classroom?

Before we continue to puzzle as to why it is so difficult to be understood by foreign service staff, we should take a step back and ask ourselves if we are speaking to them in English or lapsing into Singlish. Many people do have a tendency to use Singlish in non-work environments and when hanging out with friends. However, for the benefit of workers new to our shores and the peculiarities of our local lingo, using simple but proper English may go a long way towards creating a smoother service experience for all.

What do you think? Alternatively, do you think English lessons for foreign staff should also include some component of Singlish? Share your views below.

At my son’s school yesterday, I witnessed little scenes that were no doubt played out at schools all over Singapore:

The standard: Happy Teachers Day Mrs X, and I have this flower for you!
The enthusiastic: Err.. I don’t have a present, Teacher but Happy Teachers Day! And TOMORROW is a HOLIDAY, RIGHT???
The honest and dutiful: My mother asked me to wish you Happy Teachers Day and to give this to you first before I forget and crush the present in my bag.

Looking at all the flowers clutched by eager little hands, a fellow parent remarked that teaching was one of the few professions whose practitioners enjoyed an extra day off. To this, another parent wryly replied, ‘We may not be teachers but we are all teachers of life.’

This remark stayed with me…unlike that of a schoolteacher,  the work of a ‘teacher of life’, whether as parent, friend, mentor is never done. And in the spirit of lifelong learning, a teacher of life is a student as well. Always there is more to explore and learn beyond what one has already experienced.

But there is also much that these two types of teachers have in common. A schoolteacher may ‘go through’ a thousand faces and more after decades of work, but their faces and words are often imprinted all too clearly upon minds of those they touch. Try to recall our favourite teachers of bygone schooldays and more often than not we would remember traits and attributes that endeared such teachers to us, rather than a much-mangled poem or theory. We would remember a jolly teacher for her infectious laughter, a discipline master for his gruff voice yet sporting ways, a ‘prim and proper’ form teacher for her willingness and patience to explain time and again.

As teachers of life, what do we want to teach and how do we want to be remembered? What impact do we want to create in the lives of our ‘students’? I am reminded of a well-loved poem by William Blake, ‘The Tyger', or better known as 'Tyger Tyger Burning Bright'.  Children love this poem for its colourful visual imagery but it bodes a deeper question that many of us may ask at some point in life: why is there pain, hardship, heartache, bloodshed, evil? That there is no answer to this question is often the hardest of all lessons to learn.  A lesson that every teacher of life - whether as a friend lending a sympathetic ear or as a parent of an adolescent - has a chance to impart.

('The Tyger' by English poet William Blake was published as part of his collection, Songs of Experience in 1794. The image below shows William Blake's original plate of 'The Tyger'.)

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night :
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?          

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears :
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger, Tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night :
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

What are your thoughts on being a 'teacher of life'? We would like to hear from you.