Bendemeer Secondary School has chosen to focus mostly only Singapore Literature since the standard of English in the school is not too high. The Secondary 1 students are focusing on "Little Ironies" by Katherine Lim, Secondary 2 students are studying Minfong Ho's Sing to the Dawn and the Secondary 3 students are covering Boom by Jean Tay and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Interestingly, although local works were chosen in an attempt to help students relate to the text, apparently most Sec 1 students dislike Catherine Lim's "Little Ironies".
Unfortunately the lower Secondary students only have 2 periods of Literature per week. From what I observe, the texts are mostly taught chapter by chapter. Teachers systematically go through the contents of each chapter and have to help students break down the texts. The focus on most classes (regardless of whether it is dealing with a specific text or a genre) seems to be on getting students to understand the content simply because the students' standards of English is quite poor.
For the Upper Secondary students, the school is getting students to attend local productions of Boom. Students are also expected to put up a drama performance and write drama scripts based on the play. As a whole, literature classes are very small due to a lack of interest and demand.
"chosen to focus mostly only Singapore Literature since the standard of English in the school is not too high. " - does that imply SG Lit uses a lower std of English? :) "Interestingly, although local works were chosen in an attempt to help students relate to the text," - itself an irony? Why do the Sec 1 students find Little Ironies tedious?
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