Judge May Mesenas left it to Jeremy Tan Wei Liang to choose between writing the letter in English or Chinese.

But she told him to explain what he did and why he did it in the letter and to be sincere in his apology.

Tan had pleaded guilty to using vulgar language, with intent to cause the 36-year-old Chinese-language teacher distress in class last April.

The teacher reported to the police four days later.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Benjamin Yim said that while the teacher was conducting class that morning, she caught Tan's classmate using his MP3 player. She promptly confiscated the item.

Tan confronted the teacher to get it back, and when the teacher refused to hand it over, he pointed at her nose and used abusive words on her.

He then rummaged her bag but could not find the player, whereupon he hurled the bag on the table, and kept up his stream of invective, which included Hokkien vulgarities.

His lawyer S. Balamurugan will present a mitigation plea next month.

For using abusive words, Tan can be fined up to $5,000.