WISH is in essence an adult literacy programme by SRL that serves women in Singapore. Its goals are to:

• provide women with an opportunity to learn basic, functional English for day-to day communication.
• to have “women helping women” to raise their literacy in the English language.
• to address the needs of homemakers, often the “forgotten workforce”, who need to improve their communication skills, and their self- respect in order to be effective foundation builders of families.

WHY teach women who do not need to work?

• to communicate in English and be seen as ‘literate’ by grandchildren & children
• to be empowered to seek information, read/write in English ON THEIR OWN
• to be able to make choices in an English speaking environment
• to have fellow-learners who appreciate their ‘inadequacy’

Profile of Women in the WISH programme:
WISH participants used to be home-makers, grandmothers, and in general women who are not working outside their home. Limited to Singaporeans and Singapore Permanent Residents (PR). Age ranges from mid-30s to 75 years.

NOW - changing profile
Foreign wives (e.g. from India, Taiwan, China), young mothers who want to monitor children‘s schooling – almost all subjects in English, ladies who need to read labels in English – medicine bottles, canned food, most products on the shelves at supermarkets, department stores, doctor’s clinic, transport etc., those who need to communicate in English with younger generation, service personnel etc., make choices of food in supermarket, and understand public notices, warnings, MRT signs, road signs.

What is taught?
The curriculum has been revised in late 2002, and a new set of teaching material has been developed by team led by Ms Kwah Poh Foong of the NIE and she is assisted by Dr Cheah Yin Mee, Lim Kwee Keng and Wong Yim Kuan. They are all English Language teaching specialists who have volunteered their time and effort to develop the teaching material.

The whole programme consists of four modules, each module consisting of four units. Each module is expected to take about six to nine months to complete, assuming classes run once a week for one to one-and-a-half hours each time. There is no hard and fast rule, the time taken to complete each module will vary from class to class – the volunteer tutor has full discretion on the time needed to complete each module.

Society for Reading & Literacy Singapore
E-mail: srl_wish@yahoo.com.sg