a) In the late 1960s, Singapore government introduced a bilingual education policy. Mother Tongue languages such as Mandarin, Malay and Tamil are known to be the students’ second language in Singapore. It is mandatory for each student to take up at least one second language. However according to an online news "Much Ado About Mother Tongue", students have not been coping well with their Mother Tongue language over the past years. Instead, the students are excelling in other subjects such as Mathematics and Science. More often, students are denied entry to top secondary schools, with some ended up in the Normal instead of Express stream, or could not even make it to the local universities due to poor grades in Mother Tongue.
Hence, I strongly believe that between the two languages, English and Mother Tongue, majority of the students have difficulty grasping the fundamentals in the latter. This could be due to the emphasis on speaking good English in Singapore to minimise the use of Singlish. As a result, the education system has led the students to focus more on English language and somehow neglected their Mother Tongue languages. Another reason …show more content…
Therefore, I will be focusing on Krashen’s theory on Affective Filter Hypothesis which is a prominent theory within second language acquisition. In view of Krashen's theory on Affective Filter Hypothesis, he claims that learners who exhibit negative emotions or feelings will not be able to receive any input because the brain is not open to receive information, thus leading to having greater difficulty in learning. As the demands of learning Mother Tongue languages are higher, students tend to struggle and would not be motivated or interested in learning the second language
Hence, I strongly believe that between the two languages, English and Mother Tongue, majority of the students have difficulty grasping the fundamentals in the latter. This could be due to the emphasis on speaking good English in Singapore to minimise the use of Singlish. As a result, the education system has led the students to focus more on English language and somehow neglected their Mother Tongue languages. Another reason …show more content…
Therefore, I will be focusing on Krashen’s theory on Affective Filter Hypothesis which is a prominent theory within second language acquisition. In view of Krashen's theory on Affective Filter Hypothesis, he claims that learners who exhibit negative emotions or feelings will not be able to receive any input because the brain is not open to receive information, thus leading to having greater difficulty in learning. As the demands of learning Mother Tongue languages are higher, students tend to struggle and would not be motivated or interested in learning the second language