Samuel Lim ,Sec 2
47 to 67 percent,
41.5/50(Oral)(2nd in class)
53/70 Compre
He is actually a typical student who has not much interest towards the language. With a relatively weak foundation,I still recall his struggle in completing "Journey to the West" novel review. I started teaching him from January this year.During the SA1, he scored 47% overall for Chinese. Although disappointed, Samuel's parents did not quit the tuition halfway. They continued to have faith in me. Samuel's poor performance could be due to the limited number of lessons which 1 per week. However he is one who is "academically-conscious". Nearing the exams, I increased the number of lessons so as to prepare him.(Started work 6 weeks prior to exams). This led to his remarkable improvement from 47 to 67. This shows that sometimes the result do not come as fast which may instead take 6 months to one year to surface. If their parents had stopped the lessons 6 months ago, they may not be able to see Samuel progress. Normally he is not fluent in speaking Chinese, speaking in bits and pieces and afraid of making wrong tonation of pinyin. Surprisingly, he did exceedingly well for the Oral component this year even standing out as second best in class. From this year onwards, the syllabus for Chinese Oral took a turn to picture discussion rather than the usual topic discussion. Due to intense practice with me, he probably sat for the exam with new found confidence, with knowledge of what to expect. Thus, this gave him favour with the examiner amongst his peers who could be uunfamiliar with the new syllabus.
Usually a jump of 4 grades need a time of two years. However Samuel has surpass normal expectations and make vast improvement within half the time. Hence, students with weak foundations need at least two lessons per week to be able to improve. Another alternative will be to go for intensive lessons during the holidays.
James,Sec2
Overall: improved from 48 to 54(in 3 months)
Although James has a stronger foundation, he is the type who has lower expectations . Nevertheless, he improved,due to the pull up in paper 2 component.
