Stein & Tan - How does it relate to Singapore?

Based on both articles by Tan and Stein:
"There is a need to broaden the the base of representation in classroom to include multimodal forms of communication that allow everyone to have a fair chance in expressing their 'voice'. Alongside that, the idea of multimodality also aims to address issues of diverse culture, nationality, identity and leading it to 'productive diversity' (Michaels & Sohmer, 2000)."

I guess this is especially relevant in Singapore where most of the time, it seems that teachers focus mainly on written work (compo, spelling, tests, exams) with little time for students to express themselves in other ways. Teachers also have their own way of viewing the topics and subjects taught in schools, and in our hurry to teach students as much as we can for them to 'academically excel', we forget that the written form and our "standard English" that we take for granted may not be familiar or easy to all our students; considering their identities, home background, culture and etc. Hence, when we neglect other forms of representation, we are depriving and marginalizing students in our class by not giving them a fair chance to prove themselves in ways that they are familiar with or accustomed to. For example, a student who is encouraged to talk and express him/herself freely at home rather than do written activities will feel restrained in classrooms which then leads to a restraint in literacy development.

As i read Tan's article, i realised that some of it has actually been applied in some of our lower primary classrooms, albeit at a much smaller scale. Group projects or rather group work have been implemented in classrooms around a common theme (for example, animals), where students of different abilities and cultures have been grouped together to learn from each other, contribute individual skills, and transform their acquired knowledge to achieve a common goal within the group (to come up with a mini-presentation on a chosen animal). Although the group work that have been carried out in school pale in comparison to the group project described by Tan, it does achieve certain elements of multiliteracies framework; one of which is to encourage students to work out their cultural and linguistic diversity.

However,i note that much more needs to be done in ensuring that every individual in the classroom is provided with equal opportunity to be active 'everyday' participants in literate societies' (Freebody & Luke, 2003) - be it on the teacher's, government's and society's part in implementing a truly effective multiliteracies approach to language teaching and practice.