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With disruptions such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic drastically changing our lives and challenging all nations to rethink our current paradigms of teaching and learning and paradigms of living and working, the world needs to educate our young to be future-ready in more deliberate ways. Future-ready learners need to have a lifelong learning mindset that is instilled with the right values, attributes, skills, competencies and knowledge so as to ensure that their nation survives upcoming disruptions and crises and thrives amidst and in spite of the great challenges faced. Singapore is learning to adapt to the fast-changing and unpredictable landscape, seeking solutions to succeed beyond the difficulties and seizing opportunities amidst the myriad challenges faced. Drawing lessons from international best practices while contextualising them to our local needs and developing our own brand of innovations, teacher education at the National Institute of Education (NIE) anchors itself in taking a values-driven, evidence-informed and future-focused approach, building upon the past foundations. This article will detail how Singapore's sole teacher preparation institute is rethinking teacher education by seeking to articulate the archetype of the future-ready teacher, provide greater learner agency and flexibility and develop interdisciplinary programmes, and reimagining, restructuring and streamlining teacher education programmes. Ultimately, the aim is to nurture teacher educators, teachers, students and the entire education ecosystem to be future-ready.

Following multiple disruptions and crises, global education stakeholders grapple with the issue of how to prepare learners for a future wrought with uncertainty and unpredictability. During the COVID-19 pandemic that caused global school closures, disruptions to learning occurred in differing scopes and magnitudes across different countries. International organisations reported that some students have incurred a 1-to-3-year learning loss, which might have ramifications on their holistic development and, further down the line, their socioeconomic prospects. An equitable solution must be sought for the world to move beyond recovering to flourishing. This article attempts to elucidate the underlying principles of Singapore's education system through Dewey's concept of democracy and education, defined from an apolitical stance. For Singapore, democracy is also balanced with pragmatic meritocracy, which is upheld as a means to provide equal opportunities for all, regardless of socioeconomic background. This paper describes Singapore's democratic and meritocratic society, setting the backdrop for an education system that seeks to develop its citizens into resilient, values-anchored, and lifelong learners ready to confront the challenges of the future.

The uncertain future that the world faces has forced us to rethink our fundamental paradigms of teaching and learning. To meet new demands, students need to possess adaptability and resilience to thrive lifelong. In tandem, teacher educators need new dispositions, competencies, skills and knowledge to prepare pre-service teachers for such demands. This paper articulates key issues that international and Singapore teacher education faced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and what priorities were taken. It presents interview findings conducted on pre-service teachers and highlights some dilemmas faced, allowing for a critical evaluation of a Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme. The research aimed to gather insights on the aspects of the programme that participants found most relevant to their teaching role. Challenges posed by the pandemic on education in Singapore naturally surfaced. It will then discuss insights learnt and how Singapore and other countries may seize the opportunity to reimagine teacher education.

Horseshoe crab is an ancient marine arthropod that, in the absence of a vertebrate-like immune system, relies solely on innate immune responses by defense molecules found in hemolymph plasma and granular hemocytes for host defense. A plasma lectin isolated from the hemolymph of Taiwanese Tachypleus tridentatus recognizes bacteria and lipopolysaccharides (LPSs), yet its structure and mechanism of action remain unclear, largely because of limited availability of horseshoe crabs and the lack of a heterogeneous expression system. In this study, we have successfully expressed and purified a soluble and functional recombinant horseshoe crab plasma lectin (rHPL) in an Escherichia coli system. Interestingly, rHPL bound not only to bacteria and LPSs like the native HPL but also to selective medically important pathogens isolated from clinical specimens, such as Gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae and Gram-positive Streptococcus pneumoniae serotypes. The binding was demonstrated to occur through a specific molecular interaction with rhamnose in pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) on the bacterial surface. Additionally, rHPL inhibited the growth of P. aeruginosa PAO1 in a concentration-dependent manner. The results suggest that a specific protein-glycan interaction between rHPL and rhamnosyl residue may further facilitate development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for microbial pathogens.

Amongst the variety of /r/ allophones is a labialised variant commonly described as the labiodental approximant [ʋ]. This seems, in recent times, to have become quite a common variant for young British English speech and is 'established as an acceptable feature of mature speech in non-standard accents in the south-east of England'. Deterding and Kwek have also reported the existence of the labiodental approximant [ʋ] in the speech of some young speakers of Singapore English, presenting preliminary impressionistic findings of its existence and attitudes of Singaporeans towards its use. This article further substantiates these previous claims by providing acoustic evidence that the labiodental approximant [ʋ] is indeed present in Singapore English and that it can be differentiated from the more common post-alveolar approximant [ɹ] by comparing the nadir values of their third formants as well as the calculations of third formant rises towards the onset of following vowels. The article also provides further empirical evidence of the phonological environments that condition the realisation of this variant and also of its users. At its core, this article sets the foundations for further phonetic and phonological studies of /r/ variants in Singapore English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the rhythmic properties of varieties of English found in each of the concentric circles of Kachru's model can, in any way, be elucidated by the ‘Three Circles’ model. A measurement and comparison of the rhythm of three varieties of English: British English (from the Inner Circle), Singapore English (from the Outer Circle) and Mainland Chinese English (from the Expanding Circle) is done from recordings made of one subject from each variety reading The North Wind and the Sun passage. Measurements are made of successive vowel durations and the pairwise variability index (PVI) developed by Low, Grabe, and Nolan is calculated in an attempt to capture the rhythmic properties of the three varieties. The PVI has been shown to effectively capture the broad rhythmic typology between stress-based and syllable-based varieties of English. In particular, this paper examines whether it is the case that Mainland Chinese English (a norm-dependent variety) differs significantly in the rhythmic domain from Singapore English (a norm-developing variety) and be proven to be statistically similar to British English (a norm-providing variety). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into Singapore English (SgE) has undergone many paradigm shifts from the 1970s to the present. This paper first begins with a consideration of how variation in the English language used in Singapore has been studied. It then identifies the two main varieties of English commonly described in Singapore, namely, Standard SgE (SSE) and Singapore Colloquial English (SCE). The existence of these two varieties poses problems in language teaching as student teachers are not always confident in their own use and when to execute the two varieties appropriately and they may also lack the linguistic tools to help them distinguish between the two varieties. This paper examines the level of effectiveness of a particular course known as ‘Features of SgE’ has in introducing and helping undergraduate student teachers to distinguish between standard and non-standard features of SgE. Consequently, the features that need to be addressed in the classroom are identified. The results of a questionnaire administered at the start of the course and again at the end of the course designed to test students’ knowledge of the differences between SSE and SCE are analysed. Finally, the main findings from the course feedback are discussed in order to ascertain whether the course has been effective in fulfilling its objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early works on Singapore and Malaysian English used to consider them as a single homogeneous entity based on their shared history as previous British colonies. However, since 1965, both Malaysia and Singapore have been independent from each other. It is interesting to investigate, some four decades post-independence, how different the English speech patterns of Malaysians and Singaporeans have become taking into account the different language planning policies undertaken by both countries. This paper compares one particular aspect of pronunciation, i.e. the vowel qualities and durations of both varieties. The formants of the vowels of the read speech of five male and five female speakers of Malaysian English (MalE) are compared to an equivalent sample of speakers of Singapore English (SgE) in order to compare the vowel qualities between the two varieties. In particular, we compare the vowel quadrilateral space of MalE in comparison with SgE. Vowel durations are also measured for vowels produced in citation forms only. It is found that SgE speakers did maintain some distinctions between the long/short vowel pairs in terms of duration while the MalE speakers tended to conflate the long/short vowel pairs durationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to investigate the formation of student teachers’ teacher identity from pre-service to the end of the initial year in teaching. We explored why student teachers in Singapore have chosen to enter teaching and tracked changes in their attitudes and beliefs towards teaching at three time points: entry and exit of the initial teacher preparation programme and after 1 year of teaching. The findings showed that, in agreement with previous research, those who are attracted to the teaching profession were mainly motivated by altruistic or intrinsic factors. They also entered the initial training programme with a positive perception of the profession. However, at the point of exit, perceptions towards teaching showed a significant dip. After the first year of teaching, attitudes remained the same as they were at the point of exit. These factors influence the emerging sense of teaching identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initial teacher education programmes are seen as the first step in the professional development of teachers. The overall goal is the improvement of teachers' practice. This goal can be achieved through enhancing the motivation, competence, and confidence of (student) teachers in teacher education programmes. Research has shown that the extent to how well prepared teachers feel (motivated, competent and confident) is correlated with the sense of teaching efficacy and responsibility for student learning. This study examines the changes in perceptions (if any) of graduating student teachers' motivation level to be a teacher, teaching competencies, and confidence as a teacher at the exit point of the initial teacher preparation programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Postgraduate Diploma in English Language Teaching (PGDELT) programme at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore provides an interesting case study of how economic and entrepreneurial concerns and aspirations in modern university settings have played a role alongside pedagogical motivations in shaping the development of the curriculum of English Language Teaching (ELT) teacher education programmes. In this article, we trace the development of the PGDELT which began as a programme to train the classroom practitioner to one that aspires to also develop the transformative intellectual. While this evolution has clearly been motivated by sociocultural and pedagogical concerns viz. changing teacher education paradigms and national educational initiatives, economic developments such as China's rapid economic progress and the expanding role of English as a global language in the region have also provided a significant impetus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has established that old or given information is often deaccented. The assumption is that unimportant information ought to be weakened and attenuated in speech. Consequently, given information is often deaccented and new information is usually accented in most varieties of English. However, some normative varieties, such as Singapore English (SE) appear not to deaccent given information. The present article seeks to investigate the apparent absence of deaccenting in SE by attempting a cross-varietal comparison with British English (BE). The data comprise three main categories of given information: repeated lexical items, anaphoric reference, and sentences that cue deaccenting by inference. Results indicate that SE speakers showed no acoustic evidence of prosodically attenuating given information unlike their BE counterparts and that in the informational domain. SE does not appear to have a comparable prosodic means of signaling new and given information. Implications are given for the international intelligibility of normative varieties of English that do not distinguish between new and old information via differences in accent placement. This article will also discuss ramifications for pronunciation teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]