1 REPORT ON THE 2 ND MEETING OF THE SINGAPORE CHILD LANGUAGE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP A Survey of the Current Research on Language Norming in Singapore Lee Huiying Nala Department of English Language and Literature National University of Singapore Organized by: Singapore Child Language Special Interest Group Date: 14 October 2006 (Saturday) Time: 9.00am – 11.30am Venue: NUS, AS5/02-02 (Video Room 1) Opening of the 2 nd SCLSIG Meeting: The second meeting of the Singapore Child Language Special Interest Group (SIG) was convened by Dr. Madalena Cruz-Ferreira in October this year. Its 25 participants come from diverse backgrounds but share a common interest in child language research. Among the participants were teachers, researchers, students and speech-language therapists. The meeting commenced with a welcome address by Dr. Cruz-Ferreira. The first meeting had taken place one year ago, and the theme for this year’s meeting was decided upon then. While the past year’s meeting had offered an outline of child language research in Singapore, the second meeting related more specifically to the issues surrounding current language norming efforts in Singapore. Language norming is particularly crucial with the new Masters of Arts degree in Speech Language Pathology jointly offered by NUS’ Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine set to take off in January next year. In her opening address, Dr. Cruz-Ferreira also suggested a couple of themes that can possibly be taken up at the next meeting. The first of these is child multilingualism, which is especially important in light of Singapore’s language environment. The second is school language or languages, those spoken by children and those taught by teachers. Feedback and other suggestions are welcome on this matter. Dr. Cruz-Ferreira continued to highlight the recent activities of the SIG, which now comprises 80 members. An online network (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sclsig ) has been created in a bid to keep most of the SIG’s activities online and accessible. This network will also allow members of the SIG to stay connected and engage in online discussion on issues of child language research. Members are to feel free to propose discussion topics or request for information on the network. Other than the online network that has been set up, the Bibliography of Child Language Research in Singapore (Cruz-Ferreira, 2006) was updated recently in August. It has been made available on the website of the SAAL (http://www.saal.org.sg/sigsmadalena1.html ), an organization which has been exceptionally supportive of the SIG and its activities. In addition, it is now accessible internationally, through incorporation in the CHILDES bibliography (http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/bibs/singapore.html ). There are plans to update the Bibliography annually and Dr Cruz-Ferreira requested that researchers, project supervisors and students alike, keep her updated on their research efforts where child language is concerned. Besides current research, past research in other languages such as Malay,