Widely hailed as an educational success story, Singapore, a multilingual island nation in Southeast
Asia, embraces an officially bilingual education policy. English is the medium of all content-area
education from the start of schooling, with students’ official “mother tongue” required as a single
subject. Although called the student’s “mother tongue,” these languages may not be the student’s
home language, resulting in many students studying two non-native languages in school. I will
address the following questions in this paper: What assumptions about second language acquisition,
bilingualism and language planning underlie Singapore’s bilingual education policy? How does the
case of Singapore illuminate current theories in second language acquisition and language planning?