Talk:Language education in Singapore/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: EddieHugh (talk · contribs) 17:57, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I will post initial comments here soon. EddieHugh (talk) 17:57, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

At first viewing, this does not look close to GA standard. The main problem is criterion 3, breadth of coverage. I would expect an article entitled "Language education in Singapore" to include something on private sector provision and what is done at university, but these are not mentioned at all. I would also want at least one section describing language education successes/strengths/problems. There's also not much detail on what is actually done by pupils/teachers, but a lot of lists of aims and areas of assessment.

Criterion 1b is also a problem. The lead is much too short and does not summarise the main content. The lists can also be regarded as a problem for meeting 1b.

Work towards 2b is also needed. e.g., (starting at the beginning) ref 2 is 144 pages long, so a page number should be used; ref 3 states that "In 1966, a bilingual education policy introduced by the Government required all schools to teach English either as a first or second language", which is not the same as "The bilingual education policy was first introduced by the government in 1966"; ref 5 needs a page number; the English History prose section has no sources cited.

The prose (1a) also needs to be improved, especially for clarity for readers with little background in the topic. e.g., "During British colonial rule" (when was that?); "the local schools in Singapore" (local as opposed to what?); "in consideration of the merger between Singapore and Malaysia" (what and when was that?); "English emerged as the common tongue to be taught in school" (emerged how?); "All subjects are taught in English, and curriculum time is set aside weekly in all government schools for Mother Tongue lessons" (so MT lessons are taught in English?).

If these points are dealt with in the next 7 days (bearing in mind that the above examples are just a selection), then I will continue with a more detailed review. Otherwise, it will fail, as the basis for a reasonable article is there, but a huge amount of effort is required to make it a GA. EddieHugh (talk) 18:55, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I am celebrating Chinese New Year and doubt I can address these issues within seven days. Feel free to fail the article after a detailed review. The Singaporean linguistics articles were written by a group of Nanyang Technological University students for an assignment. Impressed by the quality of the articles, I decided to polish them and your feedback is greatly appreciated. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 03:40, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

In addition to the above, then...

Mother tongue section. This needs a copy edit for ease of reading and clarity. The History bit stops 30 years ago, so needs to be updated. The intro to schooling (how many years at each level, etc.) needs to go at the beginning of the main text (before English) and an indication of ages should be added.

Mandarin Chinese section. This, and the ones that follow, is part of Mother tongue, so the hierarchy of headings should reflect this (or change the structure). Source needed for 1st para. Beware of terms such as "currently"; use "as of 2014" or similar. Copy edit again: use "between 1978 and 1997" or "the period 1978–1997" and dashes (spaced endashes or unspaced emdashes) instead of hyphens for things such as "schools – these schools" (these are not required for GA, but are best done anyway). The list of SAP schools can be cut, or moved to See also.

Malay. In the tables, it's more helpful to add a source for each item instead of clustering them in one of the headings. A basic copy edit is needed.

Outcomes. Who is Quentin Dixon? Keep to one method of citing.

There's a lot to take on... EddieHugh (talk) 11:52, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Nothing done, so failed this time. EddieHugh (talk) 21:06, 10 February 2014 (UTC)