YISSs Wonderful Speak Good English Movement Week!

In the early month of July, Yusof Ishak Secondary School English department teachers had organized Speak Good English Movement campaign during the second week of July. The campaign was a successful one, which had brought great improvement to a certain extent. This made me ponder about what speak good English is about and how important is it? Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) campaign is to allow Singaporeans to be exposed to environment where Standard English is spoken and heard, such that fellow Singaporeans which are weak in English to be exposed to good English and as well as to learn by example. This is especially important today as we live in a highly globalized nation. Especially government jobs, which require high standard of English to communicate with leader of different nationalities, hence need to be able to be understood well. So, would you be confident in a leader, which couldnt speak English well? Which you couldnt understand what he/she is speaking? So why is speaking good English important? In todays global world, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored since English is the most common language we speak and hear it almost everywhere. Since technology is getting more advanced English has been playing a major role in education, medicine, engineering allowing people to communicate as English it acts as a medium for the effective relaying of information to people of different nations. A common mode or tongue in which one can communicate, which, in my opinion, is the most important where English is needed. In Yusof Ishak Secondary School, Students were given assignments to brain storm and come out with poster and their task was to identify common mistakes that Singaporeans often mispronounced with the theme Say it right. This was organized to allow Yusoffians to use proper English, in hope that they will be effective and influential communicators of the future. A mini exhibition was held at the school foyer for Yusoffians to appreciate and learn from posters made by their fellow friends. A SMS contest was held thereafter, which aimed to challenge students to understand informative vocabulary through todays easily available technology. I myself couldnt even guess it all right. Indeed, this proved that I still had lots to learn from my teachers. During the second week of the term Yusof Ishak Secondary School held a mini competition during assembly in the hall whereby students were divided into 2 groups and they had to identify the wrong use of grammar in sentence and spelling mistakes. It was entertaining as students were encouraged to explore the creative way of speaking good speaking the right way. Each class was assigned to send a representative and their task is to identify the mistakes in each sentence. For example, There, Their and They which are the common mispronounced words. The representative who said it right would win the prize! The event was a successful one through the participation and as well as the engagement of the students during the event. The students have indeed learnt

vast amounts of English vocabulary throughout the event. I even saw one student boasting about how his standard of English had improved by leaps and bonds. He even said that if such an event were held next year, it would be sure to bring the house down! Cheers to teachers who had put hard work into preparing such a wonderful event!