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."