Speak better through love english language essay

” Speak better through love” and ” Singlish or English, how we speak matter” are two typical texts that focus on the influence of living environment on children’s speeches. The first text, written by Colin Goh – a huge defender of Singlish, clearly states that the impact of living environment created by adults on children’s language learning is insignificant, whereas the second text, written by Goh Eck Kheng – chairman of Speak Good English movement, highlights adult’s responsibilities in creating a Good English speaking environment for children and importance of school, society as well as government in language education. Two texts are basically a debate between a Singlish defender and a chairman of Speak Good English movement about how adults become good examples for children in speaking English. Based on the formal language used in both texts and the main idea that relates to the role of adults in children’s language learning, we can infer that these two texts target to the adults who have directly influence the children such as parents, teachers and educators. Specifically, in the first text, the author tries to persuade adults not to force their children to speak Standard English but to encourage them to speak up in order to increase the confidence in speaking. Meanwhile, in the second text, the author convinces adults that the creation of a good English speaking environment is fundamental to improve the communicative effectiveness between people. What catches our eyes the earliest in both texts is the number of times that the words English and Singlish are used. Both words belong to language lexical field and that the repetition of these two words throughout the essay helps authors emphasize the main topic of both articles is related to problem of language. Moreover, the word Singlish does not seem to appear in English dictionary; readers, however, can understand these two articles focus on different opinions about using English or Singlish –a distorted version of English that was created when Standard English was imported in Singapore. Using language lexis, authors give audience the first overview about the topic that will be discussed in both articles. First of all, in the first text, author drives away audience’s thinking by giving out some exceptional cases on opinions that are believed as truths by most of people. For example, after he admits that his daughter tends to imitate what she heard from him and his wife, he immediately expresses his unsureness by questioning what Speak Good English Movement really does while American TV programs, where Standard English is spoken, have dominated the media for many years. Example about his daughter makes people accept the truth about how adults affect the language learning process of children, but then, the example relates to American TV programs will create the skepticism for audience about the fact that they have just accepted. With this technique, author successfully conveys the idea that no one can ensure how much influence that living environment has on children’s language learning. Moreover, the importance of getting adults to realize the difference they can make into children’s speech cannot be assured. Besides, the author continues to share with audience that his friends can speak and write English fluently despite the fact that their parents do not know any English. Not only does this example reinforce the previous point, but it also raises a question in the audience: what should we really do to help our children in learning language? The author sophisticatedly leads audience to the answer at the end of the article by concluding that it is ” far more important” to build up self-confidence and courage for kids to speak up rather than forcing to speak correctly. At this point, the author also establishes inside audience the suspicion about the role of Speak Good English Movement. However, in the second text, the author erases this suspicion by pointing out the fact related to Goh’s friends. It is stated that Goh’s friends are the same as ” English-speaking Singaporeans of two generations ago” who always spoke Singlish as their mother tongue. This sentence can be considered as killing two birds with one stone. It reflects the truth about the English that people who don’t have good English speaking environment use is not adequate. In addition, this also serves the counter argument of the author of second text toward author of the first text. As a result, the audience will suspect the reliability of what Colin Goh said about the phrase ” decent English”. Although the fact that Colin Goh’s daughter is affected by her parents is right, it’s just a subjective statement. In the second text, the author makes people realize this subjectivity by pointing out that Colin Goh and his wife possess the special ability to switch between Singlish and English. In addition, he indicates one more objective statement that is believed to lift up the persuasiveness of the text: not all families in Singapore have language skill such as his. At this point, the author is successful in utilizing the common sense of audience that they are likely to accept fact than someone’s opinion. Moreover, in some cases the objectivity helps widen the factors that affect children’s language learning. In the first text, the author seemingly focuses mainly on the influence from family while the second text mentions more than just family. Specifically, in the text, the author relates his movement to the government, the school and society. On top of those techniques, there’s another difference between the ways authors convince their readers. In the first text, author uses his personal experience most of the time. For instance, he shares his own experience in living in United States for more than 10 years without losing his accent. This generally brings back to the audience the feeling that sometimes, the external factors do not have any impact on how people speak English. Moreover,” 10 years” is not a short time and he can survive there with his accent; this strengthens the idea at the end of text 1, that without Queen English, one can still get ahead in life. Using this technique, author is able to transmit his positive attitude about Singlish to audience. On the other side, while Colin Goh prefers personal experience, Goh Eck Kheng seems to more objective by giving out statistical figure about the number of schools that implements Speak Good English policies. Similar to first text, in the second text, author uses a big number (80) to demonstrate the number of school joining in the movement. This is an strong evidence for what Speak Good English can change the Singaporeans’ speeches and fight against the suspicion that Colin Goh created earlier in text one. Finally, Colin Goh in text one shows an example where the movement created an unexpected result on Singaporeans. The example relates to situation where a father who doesn’t really know Standard English tries to teach his son to speak Standard English and this creates the amazement for the son about what language his dad is using. Through this example, the author slightly accuses Speak Good English movement of forcing Singaporeans to do what they don’t really know or like it. Moreover, this makes audience feel bad towards the movement that used to be thought as a saver of bad English because as if the readers ruminate about this example, they will realize that cultural values, national identity of Singapore are gradually eliminated. In contrary to this, in the second text, author justifies that the purpose of Speak Good English movement is to help Singaporeans speak good English and avoid Singlish becoming ” Second Standard English”. He also ameliorates this point by giving audience better approach on how movement helps people who have left school improve their English. Through this argument, the author creates a big bang on people who treat the movement as a tool that used to erase cultural values of Singapore. The readers can also embrace this movement as great effort of those who really desire to build a mighty Singapore without losing their culture. In summary, these two texts mention English and Singlish that belong to the same lexical field of language in order to give audience the best approach to how culture and context affect the teaching language in Singapore. Two texts with two different points of views give readers multidimensional information about the importance of environment, especially, the adults towards children’s learning language.