The globalisation of English as the world's lingua franca has direct influences on Singapore, which acknowledges the importance for its people to be proficient in English by adopting the language as the medium of instruction in all schools. However, the emergence of a local variety of Singapore English known as Singlish has often been linked to the deteriorating standard of English in Singapore students.
Despite the increased interest in the area of teachers' attitudes towards the use of Singlish as well as the relationship between teacher beliefs and practices, limited studies on the teachers' beliefs regarding Singlish and the influence of such beliefs on their classroom instructional practices have been conducted. This study, therefore, attempts to fill the gap in the literature on the area of teachers' beliefs and practices with regards to Singlish.
Specifically, this study examines the beliefs of three primary teachers concerning the use of Singlish in English classes as well as how these beliefs influence their actual classroom feedback practices through a series of classroom observations and interviews to collect information about the actual classroom feedback practices and elicit the teachers' beliefs regarding the oral usage of Singlish in English classrooms respectively.
In general, the study revealed that while some of the beliefs stated by the teachers during the interviews were in alignment to their actual feedback practices, others were not. The findings illustrate how conflicts between the individual beliefs held by the teachers exert different degrees of power and influence on their final observable instructional practices.
The results point to the need for teachers to be engaged in more reflective practices to enhance their grasp of their implicit beliefs and hence have a better control of their instructional practices. It is hoped that this study can encourage teacher reflections so that teachers can communicate more efficiently with their students to achieve the desired outcome of English language learning.