Practical and theoretical considerations as a researcher-teacher: reflections on a bidialectal programme involving Singlish in a secondary school

ABSTRACT

This paper is an exercise in reflection on my role as a researcher-teacher, while designing and implementing a qualitative study in a secondary school in Singapore. The first study of its kind locally, I designed and taught a bidialectal programme with Singlish as a resource to facilitate the teaching of Standard English. The 8-week programme was delivered to two classes of Secondary One students (13 year olds) in a mainstream secondary school, between July to August 2019. In this reflection, I first conceptualize gaining access as part of the research project, resulting in a research design that involved myself as a researcher-teacher. The nature of Singlish then posed particular issues when it came to designing teaching materials for students, even as certain aspects of classroom teaching went well. I discuss my dual position as researcher-teacher in the data collection process, before addressing the importance of and how I shifted between analytic familiarity and distance from the data. It is hoped that being transparent about the research process in this fashion will strengthen the field and be useful to fellow researchers embarking on similar studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Singapore
• Singlish
• bidialectal pedagogy
• ELT
• reflexivity
• classroom ethnography

Acknowledgments

The study referred to herein (with ethical approval number IRB-2018-05-045) was supported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its Academic Research Fund Tier 1 (RG160/18). Much appreciation also goes to the teachers and students who accommodated the research project in their school.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This fear of having my research terminated or rejected by potential fieldsites is not unfounded. As it transpired, Channelnews Asia, a local news broadcaster, wanted to produce a documentary that featured my completed bidialectal study. The initial plan was to reproduce the study by using the same fieldsite as backdrop and some of its students, and approval was sought with the Ministry of Education (MOE). This request was never acceded to. Without any explicit reason provided, one can only surmise that it is the topic of Singlish that is sensitive and to be avoided by the MOE.

2. The implications of being a researcher-teacher will be further discussed in the next section when I address the data collection.

3. In order to characterize the dynamic manner in which Singlish features are deployed by users, Wee (2018, pp. 167–194) most recently invokes Deleuze’s notion of an “assemblage” to denote its contingency and multiplicity of relations between semiotic resources.

4. Both Erickson (2010) and Wilson (1977) observed a rising trend of researchers in the US employing ethnographic techniques in educational research by the late 1960s and early 70s. Both also described how the majority of studies had the researcher as an outsider entering school settings.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Ministry of Education - Singapore.