English Literature - what does it refer to?
You know, this confused me somewhat when I was in school. Is the subject English Literature, meaning the study of the works of writers from England, or writers in English? Then I realised that while it started out as an examinable subject, its origins were in literary works in the English Language. Problem is, this subject is something we inherited from our colonial masters and we tended to think (or at least my father's generation viewed it thus) that what we were focussing on the works of a culturally superior country.
So we are now going to cover more Singaporean literary works in the Singapore secondary school syllabus. I worry that when some of you go forth into the world of further education and find yourselves in foreign lands that you might find that you cannot hold your own when others talk about well-known works and you have not heard of them much less read or studied them.
There is a reason why British actors are perfectly comfortable acting in theatrical productions that require them to stay in character for three hours at a stretch. For most American actors honed on a resume of television work, this would be a challenge. So there is a distinct difference in your skill-set depending on your core training.
What about the study of literature? A British actor would have more familarity with textually challenging study and analysis than his counterpart in Los Angeles television land. So what does this tell us about moving away from the classics? No doubt, there will something lost but I think there are clear merits in allowing for more local stories to be heard and studied. As it is, text selection in schools have progressively moved from the canonical to the current, so the change to Singaporean literary works would allow more pupils to empathise with settings and characters more like people they know.
But I still wonder, how do we fill the content gap for Singaporean students? You get an A1 in Literature in English and all you have done are Singapore works. How now?
So we are now going to cover more Singaporean literary works in the Singapore secondary school syllabus. I worry that when some of you go forth into the world of further education and find yourselves in foreign lands that you might find that you cannot hold your own when others talk about well-known works and you have not heard of them much less read or studied them.
There is a reason why British actors are perfectly comfortable acting in theatrical productions that require them to stay in character for three hours at a stretch. For most American actors honed on a resume of television work, this would be a challenge. So there is a distinct difference in your skill-set depending on your core training.
What about the study of literature? A British actor would have more familarity with textually challenging study and analysis than his counterpart in Los Angeles television land. So what does this tell us about moving away from the classics? No doubt, there will something lost but I think there are clear merits in allowing for more local stories to be heard and studied. As it is, text selection in schools have progressively moved from the canonical to the current, so the change to Singaporean literary works would allow more pupils to empathise with settings and characters more like people they know.
But I still wonder, how do we fill the content gap for Singaporean students? You get an A1 in Literature in English and all you have done are Singapore works. How now?
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