I REFER to Ms Jessica Walker's letter on Tuesday, 'Teachers can't do it alone'. Although I agree that teachers cannot do it alone, they are the starting point for our children and society to start speaking proper English.

It is wrong of her to compare the prawn noodle seller to teachers when it comes to proper English. We do not send our children to the noodle seller to learn English but to teachers. Teachers have a moral obligation not only to teach our children proper English but also to set a good example in terms of proper pronunciation and so on.

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I have four children, three of whom have completed secondary school, and I must say that over the years, I have had my fair share of experience in dealing with teachers. I am appalled at the way some of them communicate. More often than not, they speak very poor English and do not pronounce words properly. Many times, I had to correct my children and steer them to the correct way of pronunciation, for example, to emphasise the 'th' and 'r' sounds in words.

I was lucky to have had a wonderful English language teacher when I was in primary school. Her name was Ms Gomez. She spoke slowly and pronounced every word properly and expected us to do the same. She never failed to emphasise the correct way of speaking. Till this day, I can still hear her words that 'dare' and 'there' are not the same and do not sound the same.

Therefore, Ms Walker, although I agree that teachers are Singaporean too, they are entrusted with a job to educate our children. It is their responsibility and not the noodle seller's. I agree that should society as a whole speak good English, it would make the teachers' job a lot easier, but it has to start somewhere and that somewhere is the teacher.

Zal Hassan (Mrs)

This article was first published in The Straits Times.