The Fastest way to improve your English ¨C by Mr Lee

From the Straits Times dated 6th July 1979

PRIME Minister Lee Kuan Yew says his experiences with language learning have convinced him that the fastest way to improve is when someone points out mistakes soon after they are made.

The Prime Minister, who says he has gained much from this style of learning from his school days and into his busy public life today, adds that mistakes corrected in this manner are unlikely to be repeated.

This was why, when he met his cabinet colleagues and senior civil servants at the Regional Language Centre on February 27 to discuss ways of improving English in the civil service, he suggested that this method of learning be looked into.

The text of Mr Lee's talk that afternoon was reproduced in the latest issue of Management Development, a quarterly publication of the Management Services Department and the Civil Service Institute.

On this topic, Mr Lee said: "It (English) is learned fastest when your written mistakes are pointed out to you : by a teacher, friend or senior officer.

Essays

"That was the way I learned. When I was at school, my compositions were marked.

"When my children were in school they simply got grades for their written work. Their teachers had so many essays that they never attempted to correct the compositions. This has contributed to our present deplorable situation."

On the importance of clear, unambiguous written communication, Mr Lee said: "When I was a law student, I learned that every word, every sentence, has three possible meanings: What the speaker intends it to mean, what the hearer intends it to mean, and what it is commonly understood to mean."

He told the meeting: "When you write notes, minutes or memoranda, do not write in code so that only those privy to your thoughts can understand.

"Write so simply that any other officer who knows nothing of the subject can still understand you. To do this, avoid confusion and give words their ordinary meanings." Even in his work today, Mr Lee tells his personal assistants to point out his mistakes. "When going through a draft three or four times, I am concentrating on and amending the meaning. So I miss the consequential mistakes in grammar.

"My PA who puts up a clean draft is not so hypnotised and by re-reading the phrases,spots these errors and sidelines them. I tick the correction off, indicating 'Yes, incorporate.' If I do not do that, I will make more mistakes."

In his Chap Goh Meh speech (which he made at the Istana on 11th February 1979), Mr Lee said: "I do not think the corrected script that I have seen circulated of my Chap Goh Meh speech gives you an accurate impression of the effort required.

Obvious

"I made the speech off the cuff. In that way I sensed the mood of the gathering and pitched my thoughts on a note and in a way which mad e my listeners receptive.

"Then it had to go into print. I had to pencil it through, to tighten, to clarify, so that in written form it would be clear and clean.

"Remember: That which is written without much effort is seldom read with much pleasure.

"So do not be ashamed that you have got to learn. I pencilled I through my answers to the Asian Wall Street Journal (Mr Lee gave an interview to the paper at the Istana on February 9).

"It was 45 minutes of questions and answers on tape. I took one hour and 30 minutes to pencil through. And yet when I re-read it in the newspapers, I noticed a grammatical error, an obvious one, which I should have corrected. So this needs discipline."

Later on in his talk, he again re-emphasised the value of personal tuition when he said: "When I had my Chinese forum on education using Mandarin, I had three successive lessons after that with my teacher who had watched it.

"He had noted all my wrong pronunciation, wrong grammar, wrong syntax and we went through them. The errors that I made, I am not likely to repeat because it was already telecast and I winced with embarrassment when my errors were pinpointed."