'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'. What do you think about this comment?
I feel that both are equally important as our language would definitely affect how children speak in the future. And, if we do not use proper engliosh while communicating with them during the rountine care, children will get influnced badly.
I disagree with the above statement to a certain extent.
I feel that if a childcare educator does not speak good Englsih, it would affect her communication with the children, staff and evern the parents. It might lead to miscommunication which may cause a serious problem.
If a childcare educator speaks in Singlish, children will pick that up and it would not be beneficial to them.
I feel that even with the best teaching material that a teacher could ever provide, without the proper language to conduct it, it would be useless as children might not understand how to go about using it.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree with the above statement.
Providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are important, but we have always talked about role modelling. We role model the positive behaviors that we want children to pick up, not the negative behaviors. If we speak "bad" English with the children, they are going to pick it up and speak equally "bad" English.
How are we going to answer to the parents then, when they come asking why is it that their children are using "bad" English? Moreover, it affects communication with both parents and teachers, considering the fact that most parents are English-speaking.
With the exception of non-English-speaking teachers (e.g. teachers from other countries), I believe it is important that teachers speak good or proper English with the children. After all, there is a requirement for all teachers to have at least a B4 in their English.
That must not be the case! Both factors are equally important.
Firstly, we are the role model of these children, and children are the most receptive during the early childhood years. If we want our future generation to grow and aid in building a strong country, being a early childhood teacher we have to make sure we all speak good english in front of these children. Some children come from mandarin speaking family and therefore does not have the environment to learn and speak english therefore school is the next best place where we can educate them.
It is important for early childhood educator to speak expressive standard english to preschool children.
Children accquire language quickly during their first six years of life and models the way they are being talked to. Both speaking good english to children & conducting Developmentally Appropriate Routine Care contributes and develops children's cognitive and emotional/social development.
From my point of view, I personally think that speaking good English is important to a certain extent.
As children's language development are still developing,it is natural for them to listen and imitate the way how we deliever our language in our speech.
We should then be a good role model for the children by laying down the basic foundation of speaking good English.
If we do not practice speaking good english to the children, they might face diffculties on other subject areas such as math, science and more.
This is so as the children have to make use of their language to interpret the meaning of the context and their world.
Thus, speaking good english is equally important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree with the above comment. As a role model, a teacher will influence children by the way he/she speak and behave. That is why I believe that it is important for teacher to speak good English.
If the teacher is speaking poor English or colloquial English when communicating with the children, the children will learn and imitate the teacher. Besides that, the children might think that it is the right way of communicating with others. Therefore, they might grow up with this belief instill in them.
On the other hand, if the teacher speaks good English, the teacher will be setting a good example for the children. This will also set a strong foundation for children’s learning. Therefore, I believe that speaking good English, providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are equally important.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I do not agree with the above statement. A good teacher does not only provides excellent routine care and teaching materials, but also needs to speak good english.
Teachers need to practice speaking good english as it is important for young children. Young children pick up language from adults. As the teacher would be with the children for a long period of time, the teacher has the responsibility to model speaking good english.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
Speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials, in my opinion. It makes us professional, and provides parents with a good impression of us as their children's educators. It also allows us to provide a good example for children so that they may learn good English and at the same time improve their language skills. Speaking good English is thus our responsibility as early childhood educators and we must take this responsibility seriously at all times.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
In my opinion, speaking good English is just as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. Children may be raised to be bright and fast learners. However, if the teacher is unable to speak good English, children would probably be ridiculed at as they grow up. For example, foreigners have mocked Singaporeans for 'Singlish'. Communication barriers could be an issue as a result. Teachers should attend training courses for not just effective teaching, but also on improving our English language.
I would have to disagree with the statement above to a certain extent.
For children, I feel that the best way they learn language is actually through listening and imitating others. Therefore, to achieve this, the adult, in this case the childcare educator, has to become a role model in speaking good and correct English so that the children will be able to follow and learn.
To reinforce and enhance the children's language development, routine cares and developmentally appropriate teaching materials can then be used.
I disagree with the statement as I feel that teachers should role model the speaking of good English. As teachers, our job is to TEACH children.
Children imitate and learn things from their caregivers. Hence, if broken English is spoken to the children, children might think that they are supposed to speak in the way that their caregivers had spoken to them. It will be terrible to teach children the wrong things and when they grow up they might face difficulty to change the way they speak since they are so used to speaking in poor English.
However, excellent routine care and teaching materials are also important as we need good teaching materials in order for children to learn better.The speaking of good English could also be introduced to the children through interesting and hands-on activities as planned by the teachers.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I think that statement is not true. Both are equally important. Children tend to follow after the teachers. Therefore, if teacher starts to not speak good English. Children will model after them and will follow the way the teacher speaks.
Good English should be instilled in a child so that when they grow up they will be able to do their work well and survive in school.
Lastly, if good English is not needed in an early childhood setting, the government will not change the requirement for early childhood teachers to be at least B4.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree with the above mentioned statement.
Being a childcare educator would mean to not only take care of the children's needs, but to be part of the child's holistic development.
A childcare educator would have to yes, provide excellent routine care and teaching materials. These teaching materials would touch on different lessons like the English, Mathematics lessons etc. Why wait for lesson time to speak proper English, when childcare educators can do that throughout routine cares as well.
Speaking good English would help to improve a child's language which is important in the society, as communication is vital for any and everybody.
Seeing the importance in the proper language that is used and spoken in the childcare environment is very important. That doesn't mean that less importance is given to routine care and teaching materials. If the same amount of importance is given to both, the child will be able to develop holistically.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
Certainly, i believe all these play equal significant roles.
Providing excellent routine care enable children to be self-independent and also children are able to accomplish self-help skills. Teaching materials provide children to have the opportunities to explore and learn independently.
Futhermore, Children learn through modelling. Having teachers, who are constantly exposed to the children, speak and model good english, it certainly helps children to learn better and faster as children are learning the right english.
How important is Speaking Good English? 'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'. Personally as a childcare educator, I felt that speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials for the young minds. The reason being is that research had shown that the early stimulation sets the stage for how children will learn and interact with others. The positive or negative experiences the child had would affect the wiring of the brain and the connection in the nervous system. Thus, when a childcare teacher speaks poor English, this would then influence the children. Apart from that, speaking good English also portray one’s professionalism. There are also researcher that says that loving interactions with caring adults strongly stimulate a child’s brain, causing synapses to grow and existing connections to get stronger. Connections that are used become permanent. If a child receives little stimulation early on, the synapses will not develop, and the brain will make fewer connections. Therefore, this shows that when you speak good English and provide children with excellent care and teaching materials, they will then learn effectively. Lau Kaixin, 3CO1, T05
As a singaporean, it has been difficult to speak perfect english especially when relatives and friends veer towards a mixture of languages such as malay, tamil, mandarin and other dialects, otherwise known as singlish. However, it is imperative that as early childhood educators, we try our best to prevent the use of singlish when communicating with young children.
When providing routine care, it opens a chance for one-to-one communication to take place between the teacher and the child. It is essential that whilst interacting with the child, teachers speak in proper sentences as we know that children learn through modelling.
Having good teaching materials is a way to help children learn and develop, however, when teachers join in children's play, discussions and scaffolding will come into play. This is when it becomes a necessity for teachers to speak good english as children pick up their language skills through interactions with adults and tend to mimic the way we speak and behave.
Perhaps when the day is over and teachers have a little private time to themselves, they can relax and use a little dialect or other languages to communicate with their friends and families. However, it may be best when teachers speak good english on both professional and personal levels so as to make it a habit.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.'
I believe that it is important for an educator to speak good English. As teachers will be communicating and interacting with children throughout the day, teachers need to have a good grasp of the language. Without a good grasp of the language, teachers will not be able to convey her teachings and interact with the children.
Other than that, we also know that children learn through imitation. Therefore, teachers need to constantly practice the use of good English so that her students will be able to imitate her and subsequently be able to use good English in their daily interactions.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
What do you think about this comment?
It is definitely important to speak good english.
3B02/T04 Thus, i will have to disagree with the comment above. I am not saying that excellent teaching materials and routine care and what not are not important. The quality of the curriculum and care provided in a child care is indeed important. However, it is also important to speak good english.
Why so? Children learn from modelling. They are constantly listening to you. If you do have a dramatic play area and the children are pretending to be a teacher. You can most probably see how they imitate their class teacher.
If you want the future generation to speak good english, you have to help them develop it at a young age. Language is something that children pick up very quickly by listening to the people around them. Thus, the best way to teach them, is to speak good english ourselves. =)
Also, by speaking good english, we portray ourselves as professional. This will definitely contribute to giving parents a good impression of the teacher and the center.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree with the above statement! Childcare educators are role models for children and children learn attitudes, behaviors and mannerisms from what they observe. Excellent routine care and teaching materials are very important factors to a good preschool education program. However, with Singapore's emphasis in speaking good English, it is important that early childhood educators practice that as they interact with the children throughout the day in the center. Thus, teachers should always be self-aware on how they speak and what they do.
I think that it is very important for Early Childhood educators to speak good english. Children at young age are able to pick up language faster and they are able to imitate the way adults speak. They are constantly observing. If we want to encourage children to speak good english, this should start from the educators themselves. Carrying out routine cares for the children is important. However, enabling children's effective learning in langauge is equally important. While children are still young, it will be easier to teach them good english rather than to wait till they are in primary or secondary school to correct their english.
I do not agree with this statement. Providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is indeed important but as an educator, speaking good English is also very important. Teachers act as children's role model in a class and if we do not speak good English, children will also learn the wrong language which will then defeat the purpose of providing excellent routine care and teaching materials so as to help in their learning and education. Therefore, I feel that it is a must to speak good English so as to provide a good learning environment for the children.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
What do you think about this comment?
Personally, I disagree with this statement. In fact, speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. I said this because I believe all of us realise that children model after our behaviours and the strong power of how much modelling influence the children. Hence, if the teacher does not speak good English, the children will pick that up too. On top of that, good practices should be taught since young as they are more easily influence during their childhood and these skills will stay with them throughout their life.
Personally, i feel that both are equally important. In the early childhood classroom, children are often taking in the sight and sounds that are going on around them. While providing quality care for them builds self esteem, social development, confidence and self help skills etc, it is also important to take note of their cognition and language develop. Vygotsky mentioned that the social environment is a tool to develop children's cognition especially the language and this already speaks for itself how important it is for educators to speak proper english.
In the early years, children are forming in their mind SENTENCE STRUCTURE, GRAMMATICAL RULES and PHONETICS SOUNDS which enables them to pick up complex aspects of the language in the later years. The inability to model and provide an environment which supports good and proper english would result in their basics and foundation in the language to be weak, matter it difficult for learning and mastery of the language in the later years.
Speaking good English in the Early Childhood field is as important as conducting routine care and preparing teaching materials.
Even if the teaching materials are excellent and make good teaching tools, it would have gone to waste if the teacher is unable to express and portray her point by phrasing her words in such a way where the children can understand.
Also, as the children are still young, they learn from modelling and if teachers speak Singlish, with grammatically wrong sentences plus messed up sentence structure and lots of pronunciation errors, children will think that it is alright (since the teacher is saying it) and will pick it up very fast.
Once children learn something undesirable, it is quite difficult to make them 'un-learn' it. It will start to become a habit and eventually, part of their lifestyle.
Therefore, I feel that it is very important that ALL Early Childhood Educators are fully equipped with the English language.
How Important is Speaking Good English? 'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
What do you think about this comment?
I do not agree with the statement. I think that speaking good English is equally important to provide excellent routine care and teaching materials. I feel that a preschool teacher is a role model for all the children to learn. Thus, if the teacher speaks Singlish, then the children will pick up and learn from it. Secondly, the content of the lesson is in English. If the children could not even understand the instructions given by the teacher, then how would the children be able to follow and carry out the tasks that were assigned? Image if a teacher speaks Singlish to the children during routine care, do you think the children will be able to follow what is expected of them? Besides, parents are very highly educated as compared to the past. Thus, do you think parents would leave their child under the care of a teacher who cannot even speak proper English? Lastly, providing good teaching materials is good but what if children asked you questions about the materials that you have provided and you cannot answer them using proper English?
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
What do you think about this comment?
Speaking good English is just as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. If we provide the children with excellent teaching materials and proper routine care but speak to them in broken and improper English, it is all of no use as children require holistic development.
We, as early childhood educators should always be speaking to children in proper English so that they grow up to learn what is the best way of talking, and not learn the wrong things.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I do not agree with the statement. I feel that both speaking good English and providing excellent routine and teaching materials are equally important.
Even with good routine care and teaching materials, if the teacher is unable to model proper language, children are still learning the wrong things.
It is therefore essential for teachers to be able to perform and excel in all aspects of ECH.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I feel that as a childcare educator, speaking good English is definitely as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.
Children are fast learner and they pick up almost everything in thir early childhood years. An example would be the way a child speaks often is similar to his or her caregiver. Thus if early childhood educators do not practise good English, they would be influencing the children they teach as well.
Children need the good basic foundations no matter in what area. Language skills is one important aspect where strong emphasis has been placed on speaking good English and have strong written English skills which would help these children in their future work.
Thus, i strong advocate for early childhood educators to speak good English.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I personally feel that both speaking good English and providing excellent education and care are as important. We cannot afford to forgo modeling/ educating proper English language to children as that is the basic skill needed in any form of education. This is our responsibility as an educator.
I feel there is no point in providing excellent lesson implementations, curriculum and learning environment design when all these are done without using good English. As educators, it is vital that we see the importance of proper language development in young children so that they will learn the appropriate communication skills that are needed for later years. We do not want our children to learn the wrong/ bad behaviours but pick up the right ones and use them throughout their lives.
This is also no exception for those children who come from non-English speaking background. However, the approach of imparting proper English speaking skills in these children may vary according to the children individually (interest, ability, exposure, family circumstances etc)
While I do agree that excellent routine care and teaching materials are important, I disagree that speaking good English is not as important. Hence personally, I disagree with the statement to a large extent.
Firstly, according to behavioural theorists, children learn through modelling. In a research which I did previously, it was shared that while children are selective about the adults that they imitate, they are naturally inclined to model after adults with authority such as a parent and a teacher. This reflect the importance of the role of educators in children's learning. Children will imitate the language that adults use in the classroom, and as a childcare educator, it is our responsibility to ensure that the children model good English instead of Singlish.
Also, we have learnt in Language related modules that children in preschool are sensitive to sounds, which enable them to have a high proficiency in picking up new languages. This further proves the importance of speaking good English as children are able to pick up new words and phrases easily. Because children do not completely understand the difference between good English and acceptable Singlish, it is an educator's responsibility to encourage the use of good English.
I also believe in early childhood is when the foundation is built, hence teachers should help children to build a strong and right foundation in their language.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I do not agree with the above statement. Although providing routine care as well as teaching materials are important, speaking good English are as equally important as the above two.
I think there is no point in providing the two if the children do not speak good english. It is important to see the importance of nurturing language development in children. In this way, they would then learn the appropriate communication skills that are vital for them in future.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
What do you think about this comment?
I disagree with the statement as i feel that speaking good english is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.
This is because, children tend to model after adults. Should a teacher uses improper english, the children will imitate after her. This is influence the way they interact with their peers and their language abilities in future. Apart form that, speaking good english also reflects on the teachers' professionalism.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree with the statement. Although it is important for early childhood educator to provide excellent routine care and teaching materials. One must know the proper way to communicate with the children. It is crucial for one to be able to speak good English when communicating with the children. Children nature is to imitate their caregiver. Speaking good English sets a good model for them to follow. Moreover, the communication skill they acquire will affect their future. Hence, an early childhood educator has to speak good English and provide quality care at the same time.
‘As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.’
I believe that a childcare educator has to be well-rounded in all aspects. Being able to speak good English is surely one of the aspects. Children at a young age learn through imitation, hence educators have to be a positive role model that the children can look up to and learn from. We should inculcate the habit of speaking good English from an early age so that it would be easier for them in future.
Besides that, educators in a childcare setting should be able to provide excellent routine care and teaching materials. This would be one of the key roles that educators should be skilled with. Children are entrusted to us to be taken care of well and be taught necessary skills that are beneficial for them.
With that, I disagree that as a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. In fact, being able to speak good English as well as being able to provide excellent routine care and teaching materials are the core skills that an educator should have and therefore, they are both equally as important.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
What do you think about this comment?
Yes, I feel that providing excellent routine care, and teaching materials is important. Early Childhood is a "service" line, and we should ensure to provide the best for the children, staff, parents, and the centre.
However, I feel that speaking good English is also very important. We, Early Childhood educators are being looked up as role models by the children. If we do not speak good English, the children might just model after us by speaking in Singlish or poor English.
All in all, both factors stated in the statement are of high importance!
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
What do you think about this comment?
In my opinion, i think that it is equally important for us to speak good english as children will follow or learn what standard of english we are speaking. Therefore by speaking standard english will impact positively to the children.
i DEFINITELY do not agree on this. i feel that quality routine care and teaching is of the utmost importance in the early childhood field as these are the processes whereby children develop their mental and social health.
however, i do not overlook the importance of speaking good english as a crucial factor in this field as well. english will in future be a major form of communication in the world, and children should at least be taught to speak decent and proper english.
English is the first language in Singapore and if it's not taught to the children at a young age, they will grow up speaking horribly. Even the generation we grow up in do not speak perfect English. If we do not pass on what little knowledge we have, the English they speak will be undistinguishable.
As they go out into the working world in the future, what they were taught when they were young will play a major factor.
‘As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.’
I disagree to this statement. Personally, I feel that speaking good English and being able to provide excellent routine care and teaching materials are equally important. Routine care is a time for teacher-child bonding and if a teacher is able to speak good English, she may have communication difficulties with the child or impart incorrect language skills to the child.
Similarly for the providing excellent teaching material, a teacher would definitely face doubts and resistance from parents and even fellow staffs if she is unable to speak good English. This is because, if she has already left a weak impression on her verbal language, it would highly be possible that parents and staffs would display uncertainty toward her ability to produce appropriate teaching materials to aid her teaching.
I do not agree that speaking good English with children is not important. Children learn and pick up language with they are involved in interaction with the early childhood educators. As language is something that is difficult to teach unlike Mathematics where one can use manipulative to teach, it is being learn through communication. Thus as an Early Childhood Education, it is essential to speak in Standard English.
I strongly disagree with the above statement. I feel that as childcare educators, we should always find a balance in everything we do for the welfare of the children we are taking care of. We are the early teachers that will affect the early developmental of each and every child we care for. This is also critical period or the post-critical period of the development of the children we are handling. Thus, I feel that we should also communicate with the children with at least an error-free and appropriate English. We are role models for the children and we are the ones creating an image how the ‘outside world’ will be like, as other than their family members, we are the ones that is always with them and spending hours with them. Providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are essential for the children too, however these all come in a package. I do not believe that it will benefit the children anyway if we provide excellent routine care and teaching materials, but yet, we speak in broken English. It will definitely not maximize the learning of the children and this is not what a professional early childhood educator’s attitude in teaching.
Since all of you believe in the use of good English in the childcare setting, let's work towards this goal. Shall we start by using standard English in all our dealings, be it with friends, in school etc.?
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree to the above statement to a large extent. Speaking good english is very important, especially to children. Children as this early age, learns language from the teachers. We as early childhood teachers, we model behaviors for children. Especially at this age, children are very good at imitation. If we as early childhood educators does not nurture their english from young, then children's language might be adversely affected.
But on the other hand, providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is essential for an early childhood educators as well. So that we can get our message across to children, and children will be able to gain more experience and relate their experiences to the teaching.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree to the above statement.
Like what we always say, we have to be good role models for children. This includes the way we act, how we do things, how we handle different situations, how we teach as well as how we speak.
Children learn fast and some will even imitate the teacher. Therefore, we need to speak Good English in front of children at all times for them to pick up the correct way of speaking English Language.
It is definitely important to speak Good English with parents as well. If a good English speaking parent hears a teacher not speaking proper English, she will raise doubts of the centre's standard of English and will not feel comfortable putting his or her child in the centre. Ultimately, this will affect the centre's image and reputation.
Therefore, I feel that providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is important, however, speaking Good English is more important.
I personally believe that speaking good English in childcare setting is very important. It is because as teachers we are mirror to the children. They will model after us in all ways, including the way we speak. Thus, it is very vital for teachers to use good English in classroom. With good English, parents will trust their children to be under our care. Furthermore, children acquire language fast and this even support the usage of good English in the classroom.
Nevertheless, providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are as equally important. But, communication is part of routine care and same goes for teaching materials. With good English, routine care can be more useful as children will improve their speaking skills and sentencing in a more appropriate ways. Learning will be more meaningful for children with the presence of teaching materials which are appropriate with good use of English language in the classroom.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
What do you think about this comment?
I do not agree with this comment. In fact, I felt that speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials for the children. Children spent most of their time in school and childcare educator is the person who is in direct contact with the children. Often, there are many opportunities which require the childcare educator to communicate and talk to the children. I feel that if the childcare educator often speaks bad and poor English in front of the children, the children will tend to imitate the way the childcare educator speaks and eventually the children will speak exactly like them. The children perceive the childcare educators as role models and hence they might think that it is alright to speak like that because the teachers themselves are also speaking in this way. Hence, as time goes by, children will imitate their actions and language through role modeling.
Nevertheless, providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are also important. During routine care, there will be opportunities for communication between the children and the childcare educator. Hence, childcare educators speaking good English do influence children’s learning in various situations. For example: During routine care, meal times, nap time and lesson time.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I definitely do not agree with the above statement. As early chilhood educators, I feel that speaking good English is as important excellent routine care and teaching materials. Early childhood educators should possess a good comand of English as children at this age learn at their optimal during the early years of childhood. It is crucial that preschool educators impart grammatically correct and standard English to children. We should be teaching them the right things from the start and it should begin in the early chilhood setting. If we want our future generation to speak standard English, it should start with the adults, the parents and teachers, who are role models that the children look up to.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
i feel that both are equally important. Speaking good english is the way of communicating with the children. how the teacher talks to the children determines how the children communicate to the teachers and their peers. Excellent routine care and teaching materials alone are not sufficient because the teacher has to communicate with the children. Thus, speaking good english plays an important role in providing excellent routine care. the teacher can provide excellent teaching materials. however, if the teacher is not able to communicate well to the children, the children are not able to benefit from it.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
In my opinion, speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching material. I say so because I strongly believe in the value of modelling therefore if an early childhood educator is able to speak proper language, he/she is able to set a good example for children to follow. Moreover, instructions given out by the teacher can only be clear to the children when language use is appropriate and proper. It is essential to note that communication plays an important role in providing excellent routine care where teacher is required to express her feelings and opinions clearly in an effort to bond with the child. In addition, a teacher can have excellent teaching materials but if his/her language use is poor where instructions are not clear and important information are not able to be conveyed to children effectively due to poor language use, they will not be able to maximise their learning potential. Hence, it is crucial that early childhood educators recognize the importance of using proper English with the children.
I have to disagree with the above statement as I believe that speaking good English is one of the key factors as an early childhood educator. As we know, that the minimum criteria for childcare teachers is at least a B4 in GCE “O” Levels in English Language. From here we realized the importance of speaking good English. This is because, early childhood educators play an important role in shaping children’s development especially language skills. If teachers were to speak poor English, children under his/her care tend to follow. As modeling is one of the methods to teach children language, through modeling of good English, children too will be able to speak good English. Additionally, I had an encounter of a K2 child correcting a teacher’s English which I find it embarrassing. As a early childhood educators, we do have to show professionalism and it starts with speaking good English to parents.
I believe that providing excellent routine care and teaching materials for children are also important. Most importantly, early childhood educators have to portray professionalism at work be it speaking good English or providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
i personally do not agree with this statement as i think that as an early childhood educator, speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. Children learn through modelling and teachers are their role model, so if we want the children to speak good english, the teacher should model and speak good english. And children are learning at an optimal rate at the point of time, so children will learn and imitate the way the teachers speak thus it is very important and crucial for teachers to speak good english when interating with the children. early childhood educator should speak good english as it will impact the child's learning.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
What do you think about this comment?
All are equally important. One popular teaching belief is that children learn through imitation and modelling. If a childcare educator uses broken English, many children would often imitate their teachers style of speaking and model after them and would thus pick up broken language.
According to theorist, it is during the early years young children learning is at its peak. Is it effective to expose children to an environment that adopts broken English and later in life struggle with the language. It would be much harder to "detox" broken English from the child's system later in life and try replace is proper grammatical structure and other English components. Shouldn't childcare educators model proper use of the English language and allow the children to pick up speaking good English instead of wasting the efforts of their future educators to re-teach them proper way of speaking and having to text the children to re-learning their speaking habits.
It is easier to cultivate good habits like speaking good English than to kick bad habits like speaking English.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
In my own opinion, i think that both are as equally important. Instilling good english to the children since young will help them in their academic in the future. As a teacher, it is important to speak good english as children pick up and learn things very easily and fast at their age. Thus, teacher have to be careful with how they speak during lessons and when interacting with children.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I think that speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. How we speak to the children is how they will speak to us and others around them.
It is important to build a good foundation for children in speaking good english as these children will be the future ambassadors and leaders of Singapore. Being a cosmopolitan country, Singapore works with many international companies. Thus it is important to speak good english as it leaves people an impression and at the same time, professionalism and for others to be able to understand us well.
I most definitely disagree with the statement to a large extent. How can you call yourself an educator of any sorts if your English is subpar? Moreover, you are in the early childhood setting and we learnt that children are very easily influenced by their immediate environment. Hence, how do you think this practice of speaking non-standard English would impact our students? I feel that as early childhood educators, we should try to use standard English as frequent as possible as sometimes we tend to use Singlish subconsiously due to our environment. Hence to prevent such things from happening, we should try to make it a habit to speak proper English.
As much as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is important, so is speaking good English. As early childhood educators, we are the first point of contact with children when they are young. Many of their habits can be easily influenced by teachers.
It is important for a teacher to reflect herself well and to communicate in proper English with the children, so that they will be able to pick up good language skills and help them in setting a firm foundation in language. Speaking good English also reflects well on the teacher, portraying her as someone who is very professional.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree with the above statement because I strongly believe that childcare educators should be fluent in English, both written and spoken.
With good foundation of English, the educators can then provide appropriate and concrete learning materials for the children. Without good English, it would be hard for the educator to teach the children the proper usage of English and also, it would be difficult for the educator to interact with parents and colleagues.
Routine care requires simple yet clear instructions for the children to follow. Thus, the educator must be able to speak good and proper English so that all the children, regardless of their races, would be able to comprehend what the educator is saying.
Thus, it is essential for early childhood educators to speak good English to carry out their job responsibilities well.
I disagree with the statement as while providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is important, however speaking good english is equally important as english is the language that most countries understand and communicate in.
By modelling good english, children imitate how the teacher speaks and may grow up speaking good english. Also teaching requires the teacher to speak good english for the child to understand the lesson and instructions given.
As early childhood educators not only teach, but also communicate with parents and co-workers in english. Speaking good english ensures that the teacher is understood by both his/her co-workers and parents.
Speaking good English and providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are equally important.
We are always encouraged to speak good English in front of children as they model after us. Since English is such a widely used language globally, it is important that the children grasp the language as early as they can.
By speaking good English with them during our normal conversations, we are actually setting a good example for them. This will enable them to be able to converse well with English Language in the future and it will be helpful to them when they speak to foreigners.
I beg to differ with regards to the above statement. Personally I feel that speaking good english is just as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. It goes hand in hand. The effect of excellent routine care and teaching materials will be limited without the usage of proper command of english. Speaking good english ensures educators to be of a high calibre and portrays a professional image for early childhood educators as well. Being an early childhood educator is more that just providing excellent routine care and teaching materials, it is, ultimately, about shaping the lives of young children and moulding their future. Having said that, when a teacher possess an excellent grasp of written and spoken english language, she will be able to impart the appropriate usage of english to the young generation and at the same time, inculcate in them the significance of speaking and writing good english from young.
I disagreed 'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
As a childcare educator, it is important to speak good English as children model what they see in school and at home. Thus, when the educator is teaching the children, they should use good English and lay the basic foundation of English for the children. Children spend most of the time in the childcare and the exposal of language to them should be good and appropriate. In addition, children use language to interpret the meaning of the context and their world.
Speaking good English also allow staff to communicate well with the parents as well as making us professional. Parents would feel comfortable leaving the children in the childcare centre with us.
I believe an early childhood educator's role is not just to be a caregiver who takes care of all the routine care but also a good teacher who can teach children. If an early childhood educator speaks bad english, wouldn't it be the same as "teaching" the children bad English. During my attachment experience, I often hear teachers asking children, "Do you want to shi-shi". The children end up using the same word in return, "Teacher, I need to shi-shi". This shows that children models from their teachers. What kind of impression would it give to the parents. Parents would probably wonder what their children are being taught in school. Therefore, I think it is best when teachers are able to use proper English when commmunicating with children. It will affect children's language development in the long run.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree with the statement above. How are teachers going to have excellent routine cares if their English is not good? As communication is really important during routine cares, how are teachers going to communicate with the children? I believe that teachers should use good English in class as they are the role model of the children. The children will imitate and learn from the teachers. If teachers use Singlish such as ‘lah,’ ‘leh’ or ‘hor’ in a sentence, the children might follow and use it in their daily conversations.
Having teaching materials will help children who needs visual aids to learn. But to use these teaching materials, teachers have to use English to explain to the children. This is where teachers need to good English so that the children can understand better. If teachers use Singlish or mixing two languages in a sentence, it would be difficult for the child to understand. It is important for children to learn speaking in good English from young as it would help them in the future.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree with this statement to a large extent. Being an early childhood educator, it is very crucial for us to speak good English as well as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. Both factors are inter-linked to each other.
Childcare educators need to speak good English because firstly, we work and are surrounded by children most of the time. We are children's role models, besides their parents. Hence, if we do not model speaking of good English, children will follow suit and that habit will grow to be a part of them.
Furthermore, like what the statement mentioned, teachers should provide excellent routine care and teaching materials. To carry out these, communication is important and on-going. We talk to children during meals, shower time and transitions, and interact with them during lessons and activities. Thus, if we teachers do not speak good English to children during these times, that simply means our routine care, lessons and activities are not good enough.
In addition, as childcare educators, we are also working children's parents. We can show parents how effective and interesting our lessons and activities are, but parents can observe and gauge our overall quality through language, that is to speak good English. Parents will not have the trust to put their children under the teachers' care if they do not see the teachers speak good English, simply because they are afraid that their children might not speak well when they model after the teachers.
i feel that it is very important to speak good english for early childhood educators, because children at such a young age tend to learn through modelling and mimicking the adults around them. If the teacher does not speak good english, it may impact their lives in learning english in the future.
hence, even though the teacher is able to take very good care of the child doing routine care, she is not a good teacher if she is unable to teach the right things to the children.
yes excellent routine care and teaching materials are important as these are the materials in teaching and concern the well being and up bring of the children.
however, speaking good english is even more important than that. parents spent thousands of dollar for their child to go school and learn and play. learning the correct things that are essential and important in the near future.
english is singapore first langauge and this makes it even more important for all of us to speak good english.
these children are our next generation that continues the nation. we want them to be successful and be somebody one day.
So we as an educator especially in the early chidlhood field should speak good english so can children can follow. in additionlly, they imiate they use of good english in home,. school and public places.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I disagree with this statement. I feel that it is important for educators to speak good english. Children model what they see or hear. Thus, children will also model the way how educators speak. So, it is important for educators to speak good english. However, speaking good english is not the only thing that educators have to do. Educators also have to provide excellent routine care for the children and provide children with a variety of teaching materials.
I feel that there are two ways to look at this statement. A foreign teacher who does not know how to speak English well might agree with this statement, whereas a local teacher or a teacher from England for example, would be aghast by this statement, especially considering how the proper English language has been emphasized over our education years. Since there are two different perspectives, let us then look at the pros and cons of both perspectives.
A focus on English rather than routine care and teaching materials would ensure that the children are trained well for primary school education in English, which I believe, is again one emphasis of the Singapore education system. The negative impact would be that the quality of the lessons learnt might not be as strong as it should be, causing the very foundations of the child to be potentially weak. On the other hand, an emphasis on routine care and teaching materials would ensure that the child learnt the basics of education well, but might not be as strong in English as he should be.
My stand would therefore be that both areas of the child’s development are important, especially given that we are in Singapore. However, for foreign teachers, perhaps we can ensure that the class that teacher is taking also has another teacher which is strong in English, to ensure that the children are not lacking in both areas.
I completely disagree. According to Lev Vygotsky, children learn through modelling and social referencing. Children learn from the people around them. Even if children have good routine care and learning materials, they will become competent learning who are confident but they will also not be able to speak English properly. Language is not easily taught and I feel that the only way language can be taught is through daily listening and speaking. Hence, an early childhood educator definitely needs to be able to speak and communicate properly.
Au contraire, speaking good English is the only communication channel that you will have between children and yourself. If we lay the foundation of speaking good English int he early childhood classroom, children naturally will follow and learn to speak great English. As compared to learning Singlish before English, I believe that it would be beneficial for children to learn to speak proper English before they learn Singlish as it would allow them to read, write and speak good English and they will not suffer with their education in their later years.
As discussed earlier in my entry on Singlish, I believe teachers must strive to speak Standard English. It is part of your responsibility as a teacher. Yes, teachers should provide excellent routine care and prepare teaching materials to facilitate children’s learning, but part of a quality programme also necessitates you to model speaking Standard English as well. I understand many Singaporeans speak Singlish, but that is merely because we grew up in an environment immersed in an assortment of languages, and as a result, many do not have the means to speak good English. The mangled-language situation can only be alleviated if teachers start to model good English to young children at our preschools today, and reinforce children’s use of Standard English beyond the literacy lesson.
I agree to this statement to a small extent, though it is absolutely important to speak good English in early childhood field as teachers are role models to children. If teacher can’t speak good English also means she might face some communication problem with colleagues, parents and children. However, I felt that this should not be compared with providing excellent routine care and teaching materials as these are important components in providing good quality childcare service.
As a early childhood educator, your role is to teach children and be the role model for them to look upon. If you yourself is unable to speak good English, I doubt you would be able to conduct lessons and provide materials that are free of language errors. If that is the case, children would not be able to learn the correct way of speaking English, and that is not we would want our students to be like.
Hence, all teachers in the early childhood field should be able to speak good English.
Personally, I feel that both speaking good English and providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are equally important. Teachers are known as the role model of children. Therefore, speaking good English in the childcare centre or even during teaching the children is important. Children learn through modelling. They learn by how the teacher speaks and then use what they learn in school at home. Thus, if the teacher does not speak good English, the children will take up the ‘English’ that the teacher is speaking back home. Thus, parents who are concern about their child speaking good and perfect English will be worried.
Excellent routine care and teaching materials for young children are also important in a childcare centre. Routine care is an important daily life in childcare centre. Children will establish attachment or even bond with the teachers during routine cares. Teaching materials for young children are important, as materials used for teaching will have to ensure that children learn from it, and it is stimulating enough for them to learn and feel at the same time.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
If this is referring to an English childcare educator, i believe speaking good English is important. Albert Bandura's theory of role modelling shows that children are natural imitators, and as teachers we need to set a good example of speaking english for them to pick up and follow. Studies have also shown that there is a receptive period in the early childhood years where children tend to pick up languages faster. Therefore, having a teacher speak good english would help to set a good foundation.
However, despite it being important, i believe that providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is of more importance. Routine care is crucial in a child's life - it provides stability, self-awareness, confidence, and when done well, forms a bond between teacher and child giving the child a sense of security. This in turn prevents down shifting, and in turn the child is more secure to explore and learn about the world around him/her. Using the appropriate teaching materials in an interactive manner also makes learning interesting. All these would not only help a child develop a disposition to learn and his/her intellectual domain, it would also develop a child's other developmental domains such as emotional and social. Speaking good Enlgish would only help a child in his/her intellectual domain.
Of course, the best case scenario would be the combination of both, speaking good english during routine care and during the use of teaching materials :)
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
i disagree with the above mention statement.
As early childhood educators, I agree that providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are important for the children's growth and developement. However, we cannot forget about speaking good English to the children. As early childhood educators, the children will look up to us as role models and we should start modeling and teaching good English to the children. Early childhood educators can do this by speaking good English in their everyday lives, during routine times and lesson times.
In this way, children can start speaking good English from young!
The English language is considered as the universal language across many countries. Hence, from the perspective of a childcare educator, I do feel that speaking good English is really important and essential. Children pick up and learn language through this manner and if we adults converse in non-standard English, the children will just pick this up too. However, very often we hear broken English being used constantly, and these scenarios are clearly evident even in local childcare centres. I do believe that every single one of us do use some non-standard English in our day-to-day conversations. It is all right to do so, but we should also see the circumstances in which it is being used.
Apart from speaking good English, routine care and teaching materials are also equally significant. Lessons must be engaging and interesting in order to captivate the children’s participation. Routine care, on the other hand, is the time that promotes one-to-one interaction between the teacher and the children, hence developing a stronger bond between both parties
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I do not agree with the statement.And I feel that providing rountine care and teaching materials needs that support of speaking good english.
Since English a universal langauge, children should be well taught of it. And as an early childhood educator, we educate children the basic skills of life, being able to communicate in good English is one of them.
As for rountine care, helps children to be comfortable to the environment when there is a rountine. Helps children to learn how to organise. Rountine helps children in the development and growth.
Teaching materials is also very important as it help children to learn, Children may have different learnings style thus teaching materials are important that it will be able to help children in their learning, development and growth.
Therefore, speaking good English as well as providing rountine and teahcing materials are as important in children's life!
I disagree with the statement. Similar to how providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are important, speaking good english is vital too.
English language is important in Singapore's education system. Many students in the primary and secondary levels are facing difficulties in getting good grades for English language because they did not have a proper foundation in the early years itself.
Developing the young minds are very crucial as the children are able to learn many things at that age and they remember it for a lifetime. Hence, an early childhood educator should cultivate the practice of speaking in good English so that the children would start talking in good English and not speak Singlish.
"As a childcare educator, speaking good english is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials"
I disagree with the above statement! Speaking good English is important as childcare educator! A part of children's learning revolves around role modeling and thus, if a childcare educator were to speak in broken english, the child will also pick up the lousy english language used and that would have a negative impact on his language skills he grows older.
How Important is Speaking Good English? 'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'
I disagree with that statement. I believe that children are quick imitators of english and they learn from you even when you are not aware of it. Thus, as a teacher you should make and put every effort in modeling the right behaviour, including the right language. If you speak inappropriately children will also learn and pick up the wrong language.
Teachers have many roles to play, routine care is important but modeling the right language is also important for a child's learning.
Teaching materials are important because they help children to learn, but learning also takes places without learning materials.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
I do not support the comment above. Although it is vital for an early childhood educator to provide quality routine care and teaching materials, however it would not be enough if the teacher does not speak good English.
The first six years of a child is the period of time where they learn the most. They absorb things at a very fast speed. Currently we are already facing problem of children not speaking good English which might be due to societal expectations or the environment they are exposed to at home. If as an educator we do not speak good English, what would happen to the children? Their language skills would not be as developed as compared to other children.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'. I disagree with the statement above to a certain extent. I feel that speaking good English is of extreme importance. Children learn through modeling so it is important for the teacher to practice speaking in proper Standard English as a good role model to the children. Thus, children will be able to pick up and follow the teachers to speak proper English. If children are not taught to proper Standard English, this may affect not only on their English subject but also other subject areas such as Science and Math. They will have a hard time to understand and cope with their studies. Moreover, English is a basic language that is widely used in the universe so it is vital for teachers to speak in good English that can be simple and easy for children to understand. However, providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are also of the same importance as children will be able to learn self-help skills such as being independent and also increase on their self-esteem. This is important for the children’s emotional development. Routine cares also help strengthen the bond between the teacher and children. Thus, children will feel more secure and grow confident to explore the world around them. Providing excellent teaching materials is also important as this will help the teachers with their lessons being more interactive and engaging for the children as they discover more new things around them.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
Children's holistic development is very much dependent on educator's ability to provide excellent routine care and materials for learning. However, as a childcare educator, I would not agree that providing excellent services and materials is more important that speaking proper languages because "Children learn through imitation". If teacher fails to speak in proper language, children would began to learn to speak like the teacher and not be equipped with the proper language skills. With that, children's development would be affected negatively as other problems would arise. Therefore, I believe that it is as important for teachers to speak good English in front of young children in order to act as a role model.
I feel that both are equally important as our language would definitely affect how children speak in the future. And, if we do not use proper engliosh while communicating with them during the rountine care, children will get influnced badly.
ReplyDeletejazreel 3b01, t03
I disagree with the above statement to a certain extent.
ReplyDeleteI feel that if a childcare educator does not speak good Englsih, it would affect her communication with the children, staff and evern the parents. It might lead to miscommunication which may cause a serious problem.
If a childcare educator speaks in Singlish, children will pick that up and it would not be beneficial to them.
I feel that even with the best teaching material that a teacher could ever provide, without the proper language to conduct it, it would be useless as children might not understand how to go about using it.
Tsze Hui Ting
3A02
T02
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the above statement.
Providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are important, but we have always talked about role modelling. We role model the positive behaviors that we want children to pick up, not the negative behaviors. If we speak "bad" English with the children, they are going to pick it up and speak equally "bad" English.
How are we going to answer to the parents then, when they come asking why is it that their children are using "bad" English? Moreover, it affects communication with both parents and teachers, considering the fact that most parents are English-speaking.
With the exception of non-English-speaking teachers (e.g. teachers from other countries), I believe it is important that teachers speak good or proper English with the children. After all, there is a requirement for all teachers to have at least a B4 in their English.
Leow Li Xin Ellialyn (8)
S10050005H
3B02/T04
That must not be the case! Both factors are equally important.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, we are the role model of these children, and children are the most receptive during the early childhood years. If we want our future generation to grow and aid in building a strong country, being a early childhood teacher we have to make sure we all speak good english in front of these children.
Some children come from mandarin speaking family and therefore does not have the environment to learn and speak english therefore school is the next best place where we can educate them.
Yan Yee Mun
3A01
T01
It is important for early childhood educator to speak expressive standard english to preschool children.
ReplyDeleteChildren accquire language quickly during their first six years of life and models the way they are being talked to. Both speaking good english to children & conducting Developmentally Appropriate Routine Care contributes and develops children's cognitive and emotional/social development.
Daphne Ang Jing Hui
T05
3CO1
From my point of view, I personally think that speaking good English is important to a certain extent.
ReplyDeleteAs children's language development are still developing,it is natural for them to listen and imitate the way how we deliever our language in our speech.
We should then be a good role model for the children by laying down the basic foundation of speaking good English.
If we do not practice speaking good english to the children, they might face diffculties on other subject areas such as math, science and more.
This is so as the children have to make use of their language to interpret the meaning of the context and their world.
Thus, speaking good english is equally important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.
Neo Shu Li
3A01
TO1
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the above comment. As a role model, a teacher will influence children by the way he/she speak and behave. That is why I believe that it is important for teacher to speak good English.
If the teacher is speaking poor English or colloquial English when communicating with the children, the children will learn and imitate the teacher. Besides that, the children might think that it is the right way of communicating with others. Therefore, they might grow up with this belief instill in them.
On the other hand, if the teacher speaks good English, the teacher will be setting a good example for the children. This will also set a strong foundation for children’s learning. Therefore, I believe that speaking good English, providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are equally important.
Pua Suan Yin Regina
3D01
T07
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with the above statement. A good teacher does not only provides excellent routine care and teaching materials, but also needs to speak good english.
Teachers need to practice speaking good english as it is important for young children. Young children pick up language from adults. As the teacher would be with the children for a long period of time, the teacher has the responsibility to model speaking good english.
Sheryl Choo
3A01
T01
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials, in my opinion. It makes us professional, and provides parents with a good impression of us as their children's educators. It also allows us to provide a good example for children so that they may learn good English and at the same time improve their language skills. Speaking good English is thus our responsibility as early childhood educators and we must take this responsibility seriously at all times.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, speaking good English is just as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. Children may be raised to be bright and fast learners. However, if the teacher is unable to speak good English, children would probably be ridiculed at as they grow up. For example, foreigners have mocked Singaporeans for 'Singlish'.
Communication barriers could be an issue as a result. Teachers should attend training courses for not just effective teaching, but also on improving our English language.
Stephanie Ong, 3B01, T03
I would have to disagree with the statement above to a certain extent.
ReplyDeleteFor children, I feel that the best way they learn language is actually through listening and imitating others. Therefore, to achieve this, the adult, in this case the childcare educator, has to become a role model in speaking good and correct English so that the children will be able to follow and learn.
To reinforce and enhance the children's language development, routine cares and developmentally appropriate teaching materials can then be used.
Nurasyura, 3A01 (T01)
I disagree with the statement as I feel that teachers should role model the speaking of good English. As teachers, our job is to TEACH children.
ReplyDeleteChildren imitate and learn things from their caregivers. Hence, if broken English is spoken to the children, children might think that they are supposed to speak in the way that their caregivers had spoken to them. It will be terrible to teach children the wrong things and when they grow up they might face difficulty to change the way they speak since they are so used to speaking in poor English.
However, excellent routine care and teaching materials are also important as we need good teaching materials in order for children to learn better.The speaking of good English could also be introduced to the children through interesting and hands-on activities as planned by the teachers.
Lau Hui Ying(7)
3D01/T07
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI think that statement is not true. Both are equally important. Children tend to follow after the teachers. Therefore, if teacher starts to not speak good English. Children will model after them and will follow the way the teacher speaks.
Good English should be instilled in a child so that when they grow up they will be able to do their work well and survive in school.
Lastly, if good English is not needed in an early childhood setting, the government will not change the requirement for early childhood teachers to be at least B4.
joyce lim jiao ling
3D02
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the above mentioned statement.
Being a childcare educator would mean to not only take care of the children's needs, but to be part of the child's holistic development.
A childcare educator would have to yes, provide excellent routine care and teaching materials. These teaching materials would touch on different lessons like the English, Mathematics lessons etc. Why wait for lesson time to speak proper English, when childcare educators can do that throughout routine cares as well.
Speaking good English would help to improve a child's language which is important in the society, as communication is vital for any and everybody.
Seeing the importance in the proper language that is used and spoken in the childcare environment is very important. That doesn't mean that less importance is given to routine care and teaching materials. If the same amount of importance is given to both, the child will be able to develop holistically.
And that, is a childcare educator's job scope.
Sarah Lithya
3D02 (T08)
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteCertainly, i believe all these play equal significant roles.
Providing excellent routine care enable children to be self-independent and also children are able to accomplish self-help skills. Teaching materials provide children to have the opportunities to explore and learn independently.
Futhermore, Children learn through modelling. Having teachers, who are constantly exposed to the children, speak and model good english, it certainly helps children to learn better and faster as children are learning the right english.
Lee Meichan
3A01
How important is Speaking Good English?
ReplyDelete'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
Personally as a childcare educator, I felt that speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials for the young minds.
The reason being is that research had shown that the early stimulation sets the stage for how children will learn and interact with others. The positive or negative experiences the child had would affect the wiring of the brain and the connection in the nervous system. Thus, when a childcare teacher speaks poor English, this would then influence the children. Apart from that, speaking good English also portray one’s professionalism.
There are also researcher that says that loving interactions with caring adults strongly stimulate a child’s brain, causing synapses to grow and existing connections to get stronger. Connections that are used become permanent. If a child receives little stimulation early on, the synapses will not develop, and the brain will make fewer connections. Therefore, this shows that when you speak good English and provide children with excellent care and teaching materials, they will then learn effectively.
Lau Kaixin, 3CO1, T05
As a singaporean, it has been difficult to speak perfect english especially when relatives and friends veer towards a mixture of languages such as malay, tamil, mandarin and other dialects, otherwise known as singlish. However, it is imperative that as early childhood educators, we try our best to prevent the use of singlish when communicating with young children.
ReplyDeleteWhen providing routine care, it opens a chance for one-to-one communication to take place between the teacher and the child. It is essential that whilst interacting with the child, teachers speak in proper sentences as we know that children learn through modelling.
Having good teaching materials is a way to help children learn and develop, however, when teachers join in children's play, discussions and scaffolding will come into play. This is when it becomes a necessity for teachers to speak good english as children pick up their language skills through interactions with adults and tend to mimic the way we speak and behave.
Perhaps when the day is over and teachers have a little private time to themselves, they can relax and use a little dialect or other languages to communicate with their friends and families. However, it may be best when teachers speak good english on both professional and personal levels so as to make it a habit.
Candice Khoo
3B01, T03
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.'
ReplyDeleteI believe that it is important for an educator to speak good English. As teachers will be communicating and interacting with children throughout the day, teachers need to have a good grasp of the language. Without a good grasp of the language, teachers will not be able to convey her teachings and interact with the children.
Other than that, we also know that children learn through imitation. Therefore, teachers need to constantly practice the use of good English so that her students will be able to imitate her and subsequently be able to use good English in their daily interactions.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about this comment?
It is definitely important to speak good english.
3B02/T04
Thus, i will have to disagree with the comment above.
I am not saying that excellent teaching materials and routine care and what not are not important. The quality of the curriculum and care provided in a child care is indeed important. However, it is also important to speak good english.
Why so? Children learn from modelling. They are constantly listening to you. If you do have a dramatic play area and the children are pretending to be a teacher. You can most probably see how they imitate their class teacher.
If you want the future generation to speak good english, you have to help them develop it at a young age. Language is something that children pick up very quickly by listening to the people around them. Thus, the best way to teach them, is to speak good english ourselves. =)
Also, by speaking good english, we portray ourselves as professional. This will definitely contribute to giving parents a good impression of the teacher and the center.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the above statement! Childcare educators are role models for children and children learn attitudes, behaviors and mannerisms from what they observe. Excellent routine care and teaching materials are very important factors to a good preschool education program. However, with Singapore's emphasis in speaking good English, it is important that early childhood educators practice that as they interact with the children throughout the day in the center. Thus, teachers should always be self-aware on how they speak and what they do.
Michele Cheow
3A01, T01
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is very important for Early Childhood educators to speak good english. Children at young age are able to pick up language faster and they are able to imitate the way adults speak. They are constantly observing. If we want to encourage children to speak good english, this should start from the educators themselves. Carrying out routine cares for the children is important. However, enabling children's effective learning in langauge is equally important. While children are still young, it will be easier to teach them good english rather than to wait till they are in primary or secondary school to correct their english.
ReplyDeleteYeo Shi Yun Vanessa (22) 3D02
I do not agree with this statement. Providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is indeed important but as an educator, speaking good English is also very important.
ReplyDeleteTeachers act as children's role model in a class and if we do not speak good English, children will also learn the wrong language which will then defeat the purpose of providing excellent routine care and teaching materials so as to help in their learning and education.
Therefore, I feel that it is a must to speak good English so as to provide a good learning environment for the children.
Jolene Pan (TO8)
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about this comment?
Personally, I disagree with this statement. In fact, speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. I said this because I believe all of us realise that children model after our behaviours and the strong power of how much modelling influence the children. Hence, if the teacher does not speak good English, the children will pick that up too. On top of that, good practices should be taught since young as they are more easily influence during their childhood and these skills will stay with them throughout their life.
Zhuo Fang Hou (Amy)
3B02 (T04)
Valerene Tan Si Jie T03 3B01
ReplyDeletePersonally, i feel that both are equally important. In the early childhood classroom, children are often taking in the sight and sounds that are going on around them. While providing quality care for them builds self esteem, social development, confidence and self help skills etc, it is also important to take note of their cognition and language develop. Vygotsky mentioned that the social environment is a tool to develop children's cognition especially the language and this already speaks for itself how important it is for educators to speak proper english.
In the early years, children are forming in their mind SENTENCE STRUCTURE, GRAMMATICAL RULES and PHONETICS SOUNDS which enables them to pick up complex aspects of the language in the later years. The inability to model and provide an environment which supports good and proper english would result in their basics and foundation in the language to be weak, matter it difficult for learning and mastery of the language in the later years.
I disagree with the statement.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking good English in the Early Childhood field is as important as conducting routine care and preparing teaching materials.
Even if the teaching materials are excellent and make good teaching tools, it would have gone to waste if the teacher is unable to express and portray her point by phrasing her words in such a way where the children can understand.
Also, as the children are still young, they learn from modelling and if teachers speak Singlish, with grammatically wrong sentences plus messed up sentence structure and lots of pronunciation errors, children will think that it is alright (since the teacher is saying it) and will pick it up very fast.
Once children learn something undesirable, it is quite difficult to make them 'un-learn' it. It will start to become a habit and eventually, part of their lifestyle.
Therefore, I feel that it is very important that ALL Early Childhood Educators are fully equipped with the English language.
Calista Soh Ke Li
S10048311C
T02
How Important is Speaking Good English?
ReplyDelete'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
What do you think about this comment?
I do not agree with the statement. I think that speaking good English is equally important to provide excellent routine care and teaching materials. I feel that a preschool teacher is a role model for all the children to learn. Thus, if the teacher speaks Singlish, then the children will pick up and learn from it. Secondly, the content of the lesson is in English. If the children could not even understand the instructions given by the teacher, then how would the children be able to follow and carry out the tasks that were assigned? Image if a teacher speaks Singlish to the children during routine care, do you think the children will be able to follow what is expected of them? Besides, parents are very highly educated as compared to the past. Thus, do you think parents would leave their child under the care of a teacher who cannot even speak proper English? Lastly, providing good teaching materials is good but what if children asked you questions about the materials that you have provided and you cannot answer them using proper English?
Wong Wan Fuan
3A02 (T02)
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about this comment?
Speaking good English is just as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. If we provide the children with excellent teaching materials and proper routine care but speak to them in broken and improper English, it is all of no use as children require holistic development.
We, as early childhood educators should always be speaking to children in proper English so that they grow up to learn what is the best way of talking, and not learn the wrong things.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with the statement. I feel that both speaking good English and providing excellent routine and teaching materials are equally important.
Even with good routine care and teaching materials, if the teacher is unable to model proper language, children are still learning the wrong things.
It is therefore essential for teachers to be able to perform and excel in all aspects of ECH.
GOH SHI QI 3C01
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI feel that as a childcare educator, speaking good English is definitely as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.
Children are fast learner and they pick up almost everything in thir early childhood years. An example would be the way a child speaks often is similar to his or her caregiver. Thus if early childhood educators do not practise good English, they would be influencing the children they teach as well.
Children need the good basic foundations no matter in what area. Language skills is one important aspect where strong emphasis has been placed on speaking good English and have strong written English skills which would help these children in their future work.
Thus, i strong advocate for early childhood educators to speak good English.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI personally feel that both speaking good English and providing excellent education and care are as important. We cannot afford to forgo modeling/ educating proper English language to children as that is the basic skill needed in any form of education. This is our responsibility as an educator.
I feel there is no point in providing excellent lesson implementations, curriculum and learning environment design when all these are done without using good English. As educators, it is vital that we see the importance of proper language development in young children so that they will learn the appropriate communication skills that are needed for later years. We do not want our children to learn the wrong/ bad behaviours but pick up the right ones and use them throughout their lives.
This is also no exception for those children who come from non-English speaking background. However, the approach of imparting proper English speaking skills in these children may vary according to the children individually (interest, ability, exposure, family circumstances etc)
Siti Nur Idayu Hussain (16) 3D01/ T07
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree that excellent routine care and teaching materials are important, I disagree that speaking good English is not as important. Hence personally, I disagree with the statement to a large extent.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, according to behavioural theorists, children learn through modelling. In a research which I did previously, it was shared that while children are selective about the adults that they imitate, they are naturally inclined to model after adults with authority such as a parent and a teacher. This reflect the importance of the role of educators in children's learning. Children will imitate the language that adults use in the classroom, and as a childcare educator, it is our responsibility to ensure that the children model good English instead of Singlish.
Also, we have learnt in Language related modules that children in preschool are sensitive to sounds, which enable them to have a high proficiency in picking up new languages. This further proves the importance of speaking good English as children are able to pick up new words and phrases easily. Because children do not completely understand the difference between good English and acceptable Singlish, it is an educator's responsibility to encourage the use of good English.
I also believe in early childhood is when the foundation is built, hence teachers should help children to build a strong and right foundation in their language.
Neo Hui Wan, Melisa 3C02
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with the above statement. Although providing routine care as well as teaching materials are important, speaking good English are as equally important as the above two.
I think there is no point in providing the two if the children do not speak good english. It is important to see the importance of nurturing language development in children. In this way, they would then learn the appropriate communication skills that are vital for them in future.
Justina Toh Yan Shan (3B02)
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about this comment?
I disagree with the statement as i feel that speaking good english is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.
This is because, children tend to model after adults. Should a teacher uses improper english, the children will imitate after her. This is influence the way they interact with their peers and their language abilities in future. Apart form that, speaking good english also reflects on the teachers' professionalism.
Siti Maryam Lim (15) T07
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the statement. Although it is important for early childhood educator to provide excellent routine care and teaching materials. One must know the proper way to communicate with the children. It is crucial for one to be able to speak good English when communicating with the children. Children nature is to imitate their caregiver. Speaking good English sets a good model for them to follow. Moreover, the communication skill they acquire will affect their future. Hence, an early childhood educator has to speak good English and provide quality care at the same time.
Chan Yi An (02) 3B01/ T03
‘As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.’
ReplyDeleteI believe that a childcare educator has to be well-rounded in all aspects. Being able to speak good English is surely one of the aspects. Children at a young age learn through imitation, hence educators have to be a positive role model that the children can look up to and learn from. We should inculcate the habit of speaking good English from an early age so that it would be easier for them in future.
Besides that, educators in a childcare setting should be able to provide excellent routine care and teaching materials. This would be one of the key roles that educators should be skilled with. Children are entrusted to us to be taken care of well and be taught necessary skills that are beneficial for them.
With that, I disagree that as a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. In fact, being able to speak good English as well as being able to provide excellent routine care and teaching materials are the core skills that an educator should have and therefore, they are both equally as important.
Mimi Nurhidayah (8) T08
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about this comment?
Yes, I feel that providing excellent routine care, and teaching materials is important. Early Childhood is a "service" line, and we should ensure to provide the best for the children, staff, parents, and the centre.
However, I feel that speaking good English is also very important. We, Early Childhood educators are being looked up as role models by the children. If we do not speak good English, the children might just model after us by speaking in Singlish or poor English.
All in all, both factors stated in the statement are of high importance!
Ho Puay Ling
3A02 (T02)
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about this comment?
In my opinion, i think that it is equally important for us to speak good english as children will follow or learn what standard of english we are speaking. Therefore by speaking standard english will impact positively to the children.
Sim Su Ling
T01
3A01
i DEFINITELY do not agree on this. i feel that quality routine care and teaching is of the utmost importance in the early childhood field as these are the processes whereby children develop their mental and social health.
ReplyDeletehowever, i do not overlook the importance of speaking good english as a crucial factor in this field as well. english will in future be a major form of communication in the world, and children should at least be taught to speak decent and proper english.
Chew Wen Yu T01
English is the first language in Singapore and if it's not taught to the children at a young age, they will grow up speaking horribly. Even the generation we grow up in do not speak perfect English. If we do not pass on what little knowledge we have, the English they speak will be undistinguishable.
ReplyDeleteAs they go out into the working world in the future, what they were taught when they were young will play a major factor.
‘As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.’
ReplyDeleteI disagree to this statement.
Personally, I feel that speaking good English and being able to provide excellent routine care and teaching materials are equally important.
Routine care is a time for teacher-child bonding and if a teacher is able to speak good English, she may have communication difficulties with the child or impart incorrect language skills to the child.
Similarly for the providing excellent teaching material, a teacher would definitely face doubts and resistance from parents and even fellow staffs if she is unable to speak good English. This is because, if she has already left a weak impression on her verbal language, it would highly be possible that parents and staffs would display uncertainty toward her ability to produce appropriate teaching materials to aid her teaching.
I do not agree that speaking good English with children is not important. Children learn and pick up language with they are involved in interaction with the early childhood educators. As language is something that is difficult to teach unlike Mathematics where one can use manipulative to teach, it is being learn through communication. Thus as an Early Childhood Education, it is essential to speak in Standard English.
ReplyDeleteI strongly disagree with the above statement. I feel that as childcare educators, we should always find a balance in everything we do for the welfare of the children we are taking care of.
ReplyDeleteWe are the early teachers that will affect the early developmental of each and every child we care for. This is also critical period or the post-critical period of the development of the children we are handling. Thus, I feel that we should also communicate with the children with at least an error-free and appropriate English. We are role models for the children and we are the ones creating an image how the ‘outside world’ will be like, as other than their family members, we are the ones that is always with them and spending hours with them.
Providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are essential for the children too, however these all come in a package. I do not believe that it will benefit the children anyway if we provide excellent routine care and teaching materials, but yet, we speak in broken English. It will definitely not maximize the learning of the children and this is not what a professional early childhood educator’s attitude in teaching.
Jessica Lee Mee Han 10 3C02
T06
Since all of you believe in the use of good English in the childcare setting, let's work towards this goal. Shall we start by using standard English in all our dealings, be it with friends, in school etc.?
ReplyDeleteMs Tan Puay Ling
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree to the above statement to a large extent. Speaking good english is very important, especially to children. Children as this early age, learns language from the teachers. We as early childhood teachers, we model behaviors for children. Especially at this age, children are very good at imitation. If we as early childhood educators does not nurture their english from young, then children's language might be adversely affected.
But on the other hand, providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is essential for an early childhood educators as well. So that we can get our message across to children, and children will be able to gain more experience and relate their experiences to the teaching.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree to the above statement.
Like what we always say, we have to be good role models for children. This includes the way we act, how we do things, how we handle different situations, how we teach as well as how we speak.
Children learn fast and some will even imitate the teacher. Therefore, we need to speak Good English in front of children at all times for them to pick up the correct way of speaking English Language.
It is definitely important to speak Good English with parents as well. If a good English speaking parent hears a teacher not speaking proper English, she will raise doubts of the centre's standard of English and will not feel comfortable putting his or her child in the centre. Ultimately, this will affect the centre's image and reputation.
Therefore, I feel that providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is important, however, speaking Good English is more important.
Jocelyn Lim 3C01 T05
I personally believe that speaking good English in childcare setting is very important. It is because as teachers we are mirror to the children. They will model after us in all ways, including the way we speak. Thus, it is very vital for teachers to use good English in classroom. With good English, parents will trust their children to be under our care. Furthermore, children acquire language fast and this even support the usage of good English in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are as equally important. But, communication is part of routine care and same goes for teaching materials. With good English, routine care can be more useful as children will improve their speaking skills and sentencing in a more appropriate ways. Learning will be more meaningful for children with the presence of teaching materials which are appropriate with good use of English language in the classroom.
‘Abidah Bte M.Mohammed Ariffen
S10046651K
T06
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about this comment?
I do not agree with this comment. In fact, I felt that speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials for the children. Children spent most of their time in school and childcare educator is the person who is in direct contact with the children. Often, there are many opportunities which require the childcare educator to communicate and talk to the children. I feel that if the childcare educator often speaks bad and poor English in front of the children, the children will tend to imitate the way the childcare educator speaks and eventually the children will speak exactly like them. The children perceive the childcare educators as role models and hence they might think that it is alright to speak like that because the teachers themselves are also speaking in this way. Hence, as time goes by, children will imitate their actions and language through role modeling.
Nevertheless, providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are also important. During routine care, there will be opportunities for communication between the children and the childcare educator. Hence, childcare educators speaking good English do influence children’s learning in various situations. For example: During routine care, meal times, nap time and lesson time.
Name: Goh Li Theng(03)
Class: 3CO2 / T06
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI definitely do not agree with the above statement.
As early chilhood educators, I feel that speaking good English is as important excellent routine care and teaching materials. Early childhood educators should possess a good comand of English as children at this age learn at their optimal during the early years of childhood. It is crucial that preschool educators impart grammatically correct and standard English to children. We should be teaching them the right things from the start and it should begin in the early chilhood setting.
If we want our future generation to speak standard English, it should start with the adults, the parents and teachers, who are role models that the children look up to.
Joyce Lim (11)
T07/3DO1
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeletei feel that both are equally important. Speaking good english is the way of communicating with the children. how the teacher talks to the children determines how the children communicate to the teachers and their peers. Excellent routine care and teaching materials alone are not sufficient because the teacher has to communicate with the children. Thus, speaking good english plays an important role in providing excellent routine care. the teacher can provide excellent teaching materials. however, if the teacher is not able to communicate well to the children, the children are not able to benefit from it.
name: Nurfateha
class: 3a02, T01
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching material. I say so because I strongly believe in the value of modelling therefore if an early childhood educator is able to speak proper language, he/she is able to set a good example for children to follow. Moreover, instructions given out by the teacher can only be clear to the children when language use is appropriate and proper. It is essential to note that communication plays an important role in providing excellent routine care where teacher is required to express her feelings and opinions clearly in an effort to bond with the child. In addition, a teacher can have excellent teaching materials but if his/her language use is poor where instructions are not clear and important information are not able to be conveyed to children effectively due to poor language use, they will not be able to maximise their learning potential. Hence, it is crucial that early childhood educators recognize the importance of using proper English with the children.
Nur Farah
3B01/T03
I have to disagree with the above statement as I believe that speaking good English is one of the key factors as an early childhood educator. As we know, that the minimum criteria for childcare teachers is at least a B4 in GCE “O” Levels in English Language. From here we realized the importance of speaking good English. This is because, early childhood educators play an important role in shaping children’s development especially language skills. If teachers were to speak poor English, children under his/her care tend to follow. As modeling is one of the methods to teach children language, through modeling of good English, children too will be able to speak good English. Additionally, I had an encounter of a K2 child correcting a teacher’s English which I find it embarrassing. As a early childhood educators, we do have to show professionalism and it starts with speaking good English to parents.
ReplyDeleteI believe that providing excellent routine care and teaching materials for children are also important. Most importantly, early childhood educators have to portray professionalism at work be it speaking good English or providing excellent routine care and teaching materials.
Nur Afiqah Bte Mohd Ali (17) T05 3CO1
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeletei personally do not agree with this statement as i think that as an early childhood educator, speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. Children learn through modelling and teachers are their role model, so if we want the children to speak good english, the teacher should model and speak good english. And children are learning at an optimal rate at the point of time, so children will learn and imitate the way the teachers speak thus it is very important and crucial for teachers to speak good english when interating with the children. early childhood educator should speak good english as it will impact the child's learning.
Yew Mei Chi (20) T01 3AO1
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think about this comment?
All are equally important. One popular teaching belief is that children learn through imitation and modelling. If a childcare educator uses broken English, many children would often imitate their teachers style of speaking and model after them and would thus pick up broken language.
According to theorist, it is during the early years young children learning is at its peak. Is it effective to expose children to an environment that adopts broken English and later in life struggle with the language. It would be much harder to "detox" broken English from the child's system later in life and try replace is proper grammatical structure and other English components. Shouldn't childcare educators model proper use of the English language and allow the children to pick up speaking good English instead of wasting the efforts of their future educators to re-teach them proper way of speaking and having to text the children to re-learning their speaking habits.
It is easier to cultivate good habits like speaking good English than to kick bad habits like speaking English.
Joanne Tan Hui Yong
T04,3B02
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteIn my own opinion, i think that both are as equally important. Instilling good english to the children since young will help them in their academic in the future. As a teacher, it is important to speak good english as children pick up and learn things very easily and fast at their age. Thus, teacher have to be careful with how they speak during lessons and when interacting with children.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI think that speaking good English is as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. How we speak to the children is how they will speak to us and others around them.
It is important to build a good foundation for children in speaking good english as these children will be the future ambassadors and leaders of Singapore. Being a cosmopolitan country, Singapore works with many international companies. Thus it is important to speak good english as it leaves people an impression and at the same time, professionalism and for others to be able to understand us well.
Lin Yunxin Macy
T06
I most definitely disagree with the statement to a large extent. How can you call yourself an educator of any sorts if your English is subpar? Moreover, you are in the early childhood setting and we learnt that children are very easily influenced by their immediate environment. Hence, how do you think this practice of speaking non-standard English would impact our students? I feel that as early childhood educators, we should try to use standard English as frequent as possible as sometimes we tend to use Singlish subconsiously due to our environment. Hence to prevent such things from happening, we should try to make it a habit to speak proper English.
ReplyDeleteJolene Quek T06
S10049193B
As much as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is important, so is speaking good English. As early childhood educators, we are the first point of contact with children when they are young. Many of their habits can be easily influenced by teachers.
ReplyDeleteIt is important for a teacher to reflect herself well and to communicate in proper English with the children, so that they will be able to pick up good language skills and help them in setting a firm foundation in language. Speaking good English also reflects well on the teacher, portraying her as someone who is very professional.
Lee Pei Lin T07 3D01
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the above statement because I strongly believe that childcare educators should be fluent in English, both written and spoken.
With good foundation of English, the educators can then provide appropriate and concrete learning materials for the children. Without good English, it would be hard for the educator to teach the children the proper usage of English and also, it would be difficult for the educator to interact with parents and colleagues.
Routine care requires simple yet clear instructions for the children to follow. Thus, the educator must be able to speak good and proper English so that all the children, regardless of their races, would be able to comprehend what the educator is saying.
Thus, it is essential for early childhood educators to speak good English to carry out their job responsibilities well.
Nur Rezeki (3D01)
I disagree with the statement as while providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is important, however speaking good english is equally important as english is the language that most countries understand and communicate in.
ReplyDeleteBy modelling good english, children imitate how the teacher speaks and may grow up speaking good english. Also teaching requires the teacher to speak good english for the child to understand the lesson and instructions given.
As early childhood educators not only teach, but also communicate with parents and co-workers in english. Speaking good english ensures that the teacher is understood by both his/her co-workers and parents.
Lim Xiu Fen Valerie
3CO1
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking good English and providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are equally important.
ReplyDeleteWe are always encouraged to speak good English in front of children as they model after us. Since English is such a widely used language globally, it is important that the children grasp the language as early as they can.
By speaking good English with them during our normal conversations, we are actually setting a good example for them. This will enable them to be able to converse well with English Language in the future and it will be helpful to them when they speak to foreigners.
Kelin Koh (T02, 3A02)
I beg to differ with regards to the above statement. Personally I feel that speaking good english is just as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. It goes hand in hand. The effect of excellent routine care and teaching materials will be limited without the usage of proper command of english. Speaking good english ensures educators to be of a high calibre and portrays a professional image for early childhood educators as well. Being an early childhood educator is more that just providing excellent routine care and teaching materials, it is, ultimately, about shaping the lives of young children and moulding their future. Having said that, when a teacher possess an excellent grasp of written and spoken english language, she will be able to impart the appropriate usage of english to the young generation and at the same time, inculcate in them the significance of speaking and writing good english from young.
ReplyDeletePamela Khoo Ai Ling (4)
3D02
T08
I disagreed 'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteAs a childcare educator, it is important to speak good English as children model what they see in school and at home. Thus, when the educator is teaching the children, they should use good English and lay the basic foundation of English for the children. Children spend most of the time in the childcare and the exposal of language to them should be good and appropriate. In addition, children use language to interpret the meaning of the context and their world.
Speaking good English also allow staff to communicate well with the parents as well as making us professional. Parents would feel comfortable leaving the children in the childcare centre with us.
Tang Yi Zhen_3CO1_20_T05
I believe an early childhood educator's role is not just to be a caregiver who takes care of all the routine care but also a good teacher who can teach children. If an early childhood educator speaks bad english, wouldn't it be the same as "teaching" the children bad English. During my attachment experience, I often hear teachers asking children, "Do you want to shi-shi". The children end up using the same word in return, "Teacher, I need to shi-shi". This shows that children models from their teachers. What kind of impression would it give to the parents. Parents would probably wonder what their children are being taught in school. Therefore, I think it is best when teachers are able to use proper English when commmunicating with children. It will affect children's language development in the long run.
ReplyDeleteNadiah Ahamed (3C02)
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the statement above. How are teachers going to have excellent routine cares if their English is not good? As communication is really important during routine cares, how are teachers going to communicate with the children? I believe that teachers should use good English in class as they are the role model of the children. The children will imitate and learn from the teachers. If teachers use Singlish such as ‘lah,’ ‘leh’ or ‘hor’ in a sentence, the children might follow and use it in their daily conversations.
Having teaching materials will help children who needs visual aids to learn. But to use these teaching materials, teachers have to use English to explain to the children. This is where teachers need to good English so that the children can understand better. If teachers use Singlish or mixing two languages in a sentence, it would be difficult for the child to understand. It is important for children to learn speaking in good English from young as it would help them in the future.
Siti Nasiha 3C02
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with this statement to a large extent. Being an early childhood educator, it is very crucial for us to speak good English as well as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials. Both factors are inter-linked to each other.
Childcare educators need to speak good English because firstly, we work and are surrounded by children most of the time. We are children's role models, besides their parents. Hence, if we do not model speaking of good English, children will follow suit and that habit will grow to be a part of them.
Furthermore, like what the statement mentioned, teachers should provide excellent routine care and teaching materials. To carry out these, communication is important and on-going. We talk to children during meals, shower time and transitions, and interact with them during lessons and activities. Thus, if we teachers do not speak good English to children during these times, that simply means our routine care, lessons and activities are not good enough.
In addition, as childcare educators, we are also working children's parents. We can show parents how effective and interesting our lessons and activities are, but parents can observe and gauge our overall quality through language, that is to speak good English. Parents will not have the trust to put their children under the teachers' care if they do not see the teachers speak good English, simply because they are afraid that their children might not speak well when they model after the teachers.
Amira-Tun Nafisah bte Tamrin (1)
3DO1
T07
i feel that it is very important to speak good english for early childhood educators, because children at such a young age tend to learn through modelling and mimicking the adults around them. If the teacher does not speak good english, it may impact their lives in learning english in the future.
ReplyDeletehence, even though the teacher is able to take very good care of the child doing routine care, she is not a good teacher if she is unable to teach the right things to the children.
Tan Zhi Yi
3D01
yes excellent routine care and teaching materials are important as these are the materials in teaching and concern the well being and up bring of the children.
ReplyDeletehowever, speaking good english is even more important than that. parents spent thousands of dollar for their child to go school and learn and play. learning the correct things that are essential and important in the near future.
english is singapore first langauge and this makes it even more important for all of us to speak good english.
these children are our next generation that continues the nation. we want them to be successful and be somebody one day.
So we as an educator especially in the early chidlhood field should speak good english so can children can follow. in additionlly, they imiate they use of good english in home,. school and public places.
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with this statement.
I feel that it is important for educators to speak good english. Children model what they see or hear. Thus, children will also model the way how educators speak. So, it is important for educators to speak good english.
However, speaking good english is not the only thing that educators have to do. Educators also have to provide excellent routine care for the children and provide children with a variety of teaching materials.
Adeline Ang (01)
3A02
S10049356J
I feel that there are two ways to look at this statement. A foreign teacher who does not know how to speak English well might agree with this statement, whereas a local teacher or a teacher from England for example, would be aghast by this statement, especially considering how the proper English language has been emphasized over our education years. Since there are two different perspectives, let us then look at the pros and cons of both perspectives.
ReplyDeleteA focus on English rather than routine care and teaching materials would ensure that the children are trained well for primary school education in English, which I believe, is again one emphasis of the Singapore education system. The negative impact would be that the quality of the lessons learnt might not be as strong as it should be, causing the very foundations of the child to be potentially weak. On the other hand, an emphasis on routine care and teaching materials would ensure that the child learnt the basics of education well, but might not be as strong in English as he should be.
My stand would therefore be that both areas of the child’s development are important, especially given that we are in Singapore. However, for foreign teachers, perhaps we can ensure that the class that teacher is taking also has another teacher which is strong in English, to ensure that the children are not lacking in both areas.
Done By:
Wong Hui Yi Sarah (20)
s10047342B
3A02
I completely disagree. According to Lev Vygotsky, children learn through modelling and social referencing. Children learn from the people around them. Even if children have good routine care and learning materials, they will become competent learning who are confident but they will also not be able to speak English properly. Language is not easily taught and I feel that the only way language can be taught is through daily listening and speaking. Hence, an early childhood educator definitely needs to be able to speak and communicate properly.
ReplyDeleteSheila Eng
T01 (3A01)
Au contraire, speaking good English is the only communication channel that you will have between children and yourself. If we lay the foundation of speaking good English int he early childhood classroom, children naturally will follow and learn to speak great English. As compared to learning Singlish before English, I believe that it would be beneficial for children to learn to speak proper English before they learn Singlish as it would allow them to read, write and speak good English and they will not suffer with their education in their later years.
ReplyDeletePang Weiru Alicia Christine
ECH 3D02/ T08
As discussed earlier in my entry on Singlish, I believe teachers must strive to speak Standard English. It is part of your responsibility as a teacher. Yes, teachers should provide excellent routine care and prepare teaching materials to facilitate children’s learning, but part of a quality programme also necessitates you to model speaking Standard English as well. I understand many Singaporeans speak Singlish, but that is merely because we grew up in an environment immersed in an assortment of languages, and as a result, many do not have the means to speak good English. The mangled-language situation can only be alleviated if teachers start to model good English to young children at our preschools today, and reinforce children’s use of Standard English beyond the literacy lesson.
ReplyDeleteElfy Lee (05)
3CO1
I agree to this statement to a small extent, though it is absolutely important to speak good English in early childhood field as teachers are role models to children. If teacher can’t speak good English also means she might face some communication problem with colleagues, parents and children. However, I felt that this should not be compared with providing excellent routine care and teaching materials as these are important components in providing good quality childcare service.
ReplyDeleteI disagree to that statement.
ReplyDeleteAs a early childhood educator, your role is to teach children and be the role model for them to look upon. If you yourself is unable to speak good English, I doubt you would be able to conduct lessons and provide materials that are free of language errors. If that is the case, children would not be able to learn the correct way of speaking English, and that is not we would want our students to be like.
Hence, all teachers in the early childhood field should be able to speak good English.
Pua Yoke Ting
T08 (3D02 -13)
Personally, I feel that both speaking good English and providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are equally important.
ReplyDeleteTeachers are known as the role model of children. Therefore, speaking good English in the childcare centre or even during teaching the children is important. Children learn through modelling. They learn by how the teacher speaks and then use what they learn in school at home. Thus, if the teacher does not speak good English, the children will take up the ‘English’ that the teacher is speaking back home. Thus, parents who are concern about their child speaking good and perfect English will be worried.
Excellent routine care and teaching materials for young children are also important in a childcare centre. Routine care is an important daily life in childcare centre. Children will establish attachment or even bond with the teachers during routine cares. Teaching materials for young children are important, as materials used for teaching will have to ensure that children learn from it, and it is stimulating enough for them to learn and feel at the same time.
Tan Yan Ling (21)
3C02 (T06)
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteIf this is referring to an English childcare educator, i believe speaking good English is important. Albert Bandura's theory of role modelling shows that children are natural imitators, and as teachers we need to set a good example of speaking english for them to pick up and follow. Studies have also shown that there is a receptive period in the early childhood years where children tend to pick up languages faster. Therefore, having a teacher speak good english would help to set a good foundation.
However, despite it being important, i believe that providing excellent routine care and teaching materials is of more importance. Routine care is crucial in a child's life - it provides stability, self-awareness, confidence, and when done well, forms a bond between teacher and child giving the child a sense of security. This in turn prevents down shifting, and in turn the child is more secure to explore and learn about the world around him/her. Using the appropriate teaching materials in an interactive manner also makes learning interesting. All these would not only help a child develop a disposition to learn and his/her intellectual domain, it would also develop a child's other developmental domains such as emotional and social. Speaking good Enlgish would only help a child in his/her intellectual domain.
Of course, the best case scenario would be the combination of both, speaking good english during routine care and during the use of teaching materials :)
Esther Lim (6)
3C01 (T05)
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeletei disagree with the above mention statement.
As early childhood educators, I agree that providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are important for the children's growth and developement. However, we cannot forget about speaking good English to the children. As early childhood educators, the children will look up to us as role models and we should start modeling and teaching good English to the children. Early childhood educators can do this by speaking good English in their everyday lives, during routine times and lesson times.
In this way, children can start speaking good English from young!
Name: Chia Yi Wen (2)
Class: 3D02, T08
The English language is considered as the universal language across many countries. Hence, from the perspective of a childcare educator, I do feel that speaking good English is really important and essential. Children pick up and learn language through this manner and if we adults converse in non-standard English, the children will just pick this up too. However, very often we hear broken English being used constantly, and these scenarios are clearly evident even in local childcare centres. I do believe that every single one of us do use some non-standard English in our day-to-day conversations. It is all right to do so, but we should also see the circumstances in which it is being used.
ReplyDeleteApart from speaking good English, routine care and teaching materials are also equally significant. Lessons must be engaging and interesting in order to captivate the children’s participation. Routine care, on the other hand, is the time that promotes one-to-one interaction between the teacher and the children, hence developing a stronger bond between both parties
Tan Li Fen Celestine (17)
3D01 (T07)
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with the statement.And I feel that providing rountine care and teaching materials needs that support of speaking good english.
Since English a universal langauge, children should be well taught of it. And as an early childhood educator, we educate children the basic skills of life, being able to communicate in good English is one of them.
As for rountine care, helps children to be comfortable to the environment when there is a rountine. Helps children to learn how to organise. Rountine helps children in the development and growth.
Teaching materials is also very important as it help children to learn, Children may have different learnings style thus teaching materials are important that it will be able to help children in their learning, development and growth.
Therefore, speaking good English as well as providing rountine and teahcing materials are as important in children's life!
T02
Chye Lu Yee
s10048710
I disagree with the statement.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to how providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are important, speaking good english is vital too.
English language is important in Singapore's education system. Many students in the primary and secondary levels are facing difficulties in getting good grades for English language because they did not have a proper foundation in the early years itself.
Developing the young minds are very crucial as the children are able to learn many things at that age and they remember it for a lifetime. Hence, an early childhood educator should cultivate the practice of speaking in good English so that the children would start talking in good English and not speak Singlish.
Done by: Geetha D/O V.Segar T04
"As a childcare educator, speaking good english is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials"
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the above statement! Speaking good English is important as childcare educator! A part of children's learning revolves around role modeling and thus, if a childcare educator were to speak in broken english, the child will also pick up the lousy english language used and that would have a negative impact on his language skills he grows older.
Zarraphina Michael-Zane TO1
How Important is Speaking Good English?
ReplyDelete'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'
I disagree with that statement. I believe that children are quick imitators of english and they learn from you even when you are not aware of it. Thus, as a teacher you should make and put every effort in modeling the right behaviour, including the right language. If you speak inappropriately children will also learn and pick up the wrong language.
Teachers have many roles to play, routine care is important but modeling the right language is also important for a child's learning.
Teaching materials are important because they help children to learn, but learning also takes places without learning materials.
So language of a teacher is important as well.
Lydia Chan 3C01
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI do not support the comment above.
Although it is vital for an early childhood educator to provide quality routine care and teaching materials, however it would not be enough if the teacher does not speak good English.
The first six years of a child is the period of time where they learn the most. They absorb things at a very fast speed. Currently we are already facing problem of children not speaking good English which might be due to societal expectations or the environment they are exposed to at home. If as an educator we do not speak good English, what would happen to the children? Their language skills would not be as developed as compared to other children.
Ruishan, 3D01/T07
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the statement above to a certain extent.
I feel that speaking good English is of extreme importance. Children learn through modeling so it is important for the teacher to practice speaking in proper Standard English as a good role model to the children. Thus, children will be able to pick up and follow the teachers to speak proper English. If children are not taught to proper Standard English, this may affect not only on their English subject but also other subject areas such as Science and Math. They will have a hard time to understand and cope with their studies. Moreover, English is a basic language that is widely used in the universe so it is vital for teachers to speak in good English that can be simple and easy for children to understand.
However, providing excellent routine care and teaching materials are also of the same importance as children will be able to learn self-help skills such as being independent and also increase on their self-esteem. This is important for the children’s emotional development. Routine cares also help strengthen the bond between the teacher and children. Thus, children will feel more secure and grow confident to explore the world around them. Providing excellent teaching materials is also important as this will help the teachers with their lessons being more interactive and engaging for the children as they discover more new things around them.
Siti Syazwani Mahadi (15)
(S10048747K)
TO4, 3BO2
'As a childcare educator, speaking good English is not as important as providing excellent routine care and teaching materials'.
ReplyDeleteChildren's holistic development is very much dependent on educator's ability to provide excellent routine care and materials for learning. However, as a childcare educator, I would not agree that providing excellent services and materials is more important that speaking proper languages because "Children learn through imitation". If teacher fails to speak in proper language, children would began to learn to speak like the teacher and not be equipped with the proper language skills. With that, children's development would be affected negatively as other problems would arise. Therefore, I believe that it is as important for teachers to speak good English in front of young children in order to act as a role model.
Grace Leow
T03, 3B01