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Testimonial: From a C to A in primary & FAIL to B4 in secondary!!!

Hi this is Sandra. In the past, you could probably say that I was not the smartest girl in town. When I was in primary school, Nanhua/CHIJ, my results were just a borderline pass or fail. I only scored a mark of 53 for my Chinese SA1. I was not good at my creative writing and my comprehension. That was when my parents decided to let Mr. Kok teach me for the next 4 months. When I got back my results for my SA2, I scored 70 marks and I started to regain my confidence through Mr. Kok’s teachings. And, most surprisingly, I got an A for my PSLE!!! Like all mothers, my mother was uncomfortable with a male teacher teaching me. But once she saw the change in my brother’s attitude towards learning Chinese, she let Mr. Kok teach me. I found him really comfortable to talk to as he is very funny and friendly. In the past, I found Chinese tuition boring as I had no interest in studying. But ever since Mr. Kok taught me. I started to grow an interest in learning Chinese as his method of teaching is different from other teachers, unlike using books all the time. I enjoyed learning on the computer especially using OMY.com.sg. When I went to CHIJ STC, I was very stressed out as there were many subjects to learn and I thought that it would be much better to self-study. To my shock, I only scored 48 marks which is a fail. It was my first time failing Chinese so it was a great shock. After receiving my results in July, my mom started to get worried and called Mr. Kok for help. This time, I started to do my work diligently and cautiously. Through all the programs on the computer, I got to learn many Chinese vocabularies which I have never encountered before and I was even top in my Chinese class. This year, I scored 64 marks for my SA2. My parents were very happy when they heard the news. I hope that I can get an A1 for my O-levels and through Mr. Kok’s teachings, I am sure that I can get an A1 for Chinese.

Achieving A1 from D7 !!!

I am Randy, and I have a twin brother, Gordon, although he has the basic grasp of Chinese, he doesn't like to work hard. Despite having tuition for Chinese his results are always C's or D's. He even failed Chinese Language in SA1. He complained that the Comprehension Passage was difficult and he didn't understand a lot of the words. After realization, he has decided to work hard. Gordon started paying attention in class and in tuition, he even did the exercises in the workbook that were not taught. He also automatically wrote down all the HanYu PinYin for the tough words in the Chinese Textbook. Just before the SA2 exams, he even came for 2 more extra lessons to ensure that he remembers the good phrases,format and technique for Chinese news article review. Post-examination, Mr Kok sent an SMS asking him for his Chinese results and surprisingly, Gordon got an A1! Mr Kok was extremely surprised as he had only expected at most a B3 from Gordon. Chinese is a subject that requires a strong foundation to score well unlike Math or Science. Gordon unexpectedly managed to jump from D7 to A1, skipping 6 grades altogether! Such cases of this happening is extremely rare. Most of his students get a F9 for O Levels as the Chinese Essay they have written is usually out of point and the Comprehension passage wasn't done properly. Overall, the big jump in results can be attribuited to Mr Kok's analysis and teaching, students are able to find out their mistakes and correct them. They even became more versatile to changes, being able to adapt to whichever topic given to them, hence making them self-reliant during exams.

*SST* Student from B4 to A2 !!!

I first took Mr. Kok’s lesson about 4 years ago. I was P5 then and was not amused as I did not like tuition in general as I had found them boring and thought of them as a waste of time and energy. Mr. Kok’s lessons are far from that. He utilized various resources and media, such as online websites and videos, to help keep the lesson interesting and engaging, while still imparting new knowledge and teaching new skills. He is fun and easy to talk to and makes me feel comfortable while learning Chinese. Soon after, I saw an improvement in my results from a low A to a high A especially in my Chinese writing, in which he taught me many great concepts and methods of writing. Sometime later, the PSLE was coming up soon and I was getting rather stressed and nervous about it as it was the first national exam I was taking. However, thanks to him teaching me his useful examination techniques and significantly increasing my Chinese vocabulary bank, I found the examination to be a breeze and was able to score yet another A.

I am now Secondary 2 and have gotten into the secondary school of my choice and is currently taking Higher Chinese. Mr. Kok still assists me and allows me to do decently well in the tougher secondary school environment. For example, helping me improve from a B4 to an A2 for my Chinese within half a year. Overall, throughout the past 4 years I have learned a lot from Mr. Kok as his lessons are super interesting he is a very interesting and humorous person to communicate with. I would highly recommend those whose Chinese are weak to attend Mr. Kok’s tuition.

-Wei Jun (SST)

*SJI* Secondary 2 Student Testimonial

My name is Randy. I had transferred from Maris Stella to SJI when I managed to pass the entrance examination. As I was in HCL in MSHS, I would also subsequently join a HCL Class in SJI. In SJI, the HCL standard of that was different from MSHS. We had to practise Chinese Essays and Email every single week! When the SA2 exams came, I neglected Chinese as only a pass was needed to continue Higher Chinese next year. However, Mr Kok made me memorise all the techniques and good phrases for my Chinese News Article review. He even set up 4 extra lessons for me to attend. Unfortunately, I could only attend 2 out of 4 lessons, he decided to SKYPE at night, solving the problem of not attending the 2 lessons missed.  When I sat for the paper, I was shocked! The comprehension passage and summary was extremely difficult, there were many foreign words that I didn't know. When I received my SA2 Higher Chinese results, I had already expected my score to be borderline pass or even a fail. Indeed, I had failed my Paper 2 obtaining a score of only 33/80. However, for Paper 1, my Chinese News Article review managed to obtain a whopping score of 46/70. If not for my Paper 1, I would have failed HCL! Although I didn't get the marks I expected for Paper 2, but hey, at least I improved my Chinese Essay writing skills. Many have the idea that there's not much of a difference between EXPRESS and HIGHER Chinese, well, let me tell you : There's a major difference. For example, someone gets A1 for express Chinese, however in Higher Chinese standard, that grade would only be a B3.I have found Mr Kok's lessons to be extremely interesting as most tuition centers have a standard routine of doing things. However at Mr Kok's lessons, I got to use various multimedia platforms such as the net book/i Pad to learn Chinese via News Articles online such as the recent "Singapore Haze, Boston Bombing and H7N9 disease".  He also improved my Oral Skills by recording myself saying a passage, then listening to it again, picking out the flaws and mistakes and correcting them. Although there wasn't much practice to do, I could still learn the techniques and memorized the methods as his lessons are fun and interesting. In future, I will work even harder for the O Levels to improve my Chinese written paper as Chinese is a very important subject.

Should I let my child take Higher Chinese in Secondary School?

After deciding on the school for your child, a common question in the minds of many parents would be if my child has done well for Chinese, should I encourage him to take Higher Chinese? After all, the perks of it are enticing; 2 points off your L1R5 aggregate as long as your child passes Higher Chinese during his/her O level exam and the choice of not taking Chinese during Junior College (JC) term.

The criteria taken from the MOE website is as follows:

• Top 10% of the PSLE cohort
• top 11-30 % of the PSLE cohort who scored an A* grade in Chinese or at least a Merit in Higher Chinese

*For students who want to apply for Higher Chinese but did not meet the above criteria, the secondary school shall consider it on a case-by-case basis.

Particularly for students who have not taken Higher Chinese Language (HCL) at primary school level, what problems are there if he/she were to take up the challenge?

There are generally 5 types of students which I have classified from my present students.

1) I have a very studious primary school student who did so-so for his normal Chinese in PSLE. He applied for Higher Chinese after entering ACS(I). His HCL results turned out to be unexpectedly bad as compared to that of his Chinese grades in primary school. All his tests and exams were all borderline pass. He could not complete his assignments and book/newspaper reports due to his inability to comprehend the main gist of a reading and to construct proper sentences

2)Another student from Nan Hua Primary School did not take Higher Chinese in primary school and subsequently cannot catch up with the pace of Higher Chinese taught in Nan Hua High School. Assignments proved to be too much for him to handle due the extremely high standards of Chinese they uphold. He had failed his year-end examinations and had to retake it. If he still could not pass his exam, he may have to drop the subject.

3)A student who is currently studying at SJI transferred to Higher Chinese. Although the workload is heavy, he treats his academics lightly. Tests and exams are handled with little preparation. As a result, his grades are disappointing. Fortunately i manage to teach him this year and pushed him to work hard towards his year-end examination. I spotted some "popular" questions and prepared ample practice papers for him. In the end, he was able to pass with flying colours.

4)There are also some HCL students i taught that are from Anglican High School(AHS). Usually these students faced enormous difficulty in even passing tests and examinations due to high expectations set by the school. This is more so for students with a weak language foundation (unable to grasp basic vocabulary). Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools like AHS and Chung Cheng instill Chinese culture in them.

5)The HCL students from RGS, RI, Victoria School and SCGS that I have taught have to memorise large chunk of texts and phrases in preparation for tests, yet they have no problems facing the normal "听写"  and "成语" (idioms). However if there are long comprehension passages for them to understand, they will feel a little helpless. Also, Higher Chinese is also unique because the paper 2 format involves summary in Chinese too! Many without solid vocabulary will find it challenging to select points and paraphrase them. Their Cloze passage(选词填空)will also take a toll as they have to rely on guessing to select a word out of 4 unfamiliar words.

I personally feel that if your child has these attributes, only then will he feel no pressure studying HCL.
1)Willing to develop a  (daily if best) habit of reading chinese newspapers or watch local news on Channel 8 or U as well as some news-worthy shows like "焦点" and "特写".

2) If your child reads Chinese novels like martial arts fantasies (武侠小说），modern literature and science fiction, he or she would definitely attain a certain level of language proficiency which will enable her to endure reading long texts as demanded by HCL syllabus.

3)If your child is willing to try writing chinese journals or blogs or even have their writings been put up on the newspaper before, your child's writing proficiency is definitely suited for the rigour of HCL.

4) If your child is able to answer the last two comprehension questions of the normal tests and exams quite comfortably and on top of that, has no problems writing a 800-word essay with techniques and thought process meeting the expectations of the teachers, then Higher chinese would not be too much of a hassle for him.

All in all, if you find that your child does not like Chinese at all, has a weak language foundation in primary school and does not feel the need to study HCL, it is of a little benefit to force and push him to take up HCL. This is because HCL is demanding and it may incur a opportunity cost that could be spent on other subjects for him to do better, remember that Secondary school have as many as 7-8 subjects for your child to manage.

Elective schools in Singapore

Elective schools that are available in Singapore:
-School of Science and Technology (SST)
-School of the Arts (SOTA)
-Singapore Sports School
-International schools

1) If your child has immense interest in IT and score A for either Mathematics and the Sciences or both, you can consider enrolling him into SST. SST offers an alternative academic path which focuses on the teaching of IT skills, offering your child an option of not having to go through the normal rote learning. From my student's experience, classes are mostly discursive, with frequent usage of laptops. This innovative method can trigger students' interest to learn. From what i have noticed, the school does not put undue pressure on its students and those who obey their basic rules and regulations have no problems fitting in.
However, here is a big caution! For students who have little self-control over their computer activity be it facebook or cyber gaming, will suffer a deterioration from their academic performance. If they are consistently under-performing, they may be requested to transfer out.
2)Your child may detest rote learning, have problems accepting the academic path and constantly feel stressed out, yet he/she puts their undivided attention on music, singing, dance or the Arts. You are told that they have gifts and talents in the Arts and there's a lot of potential to be uncovered. Consider enrolling them in SOTA! Although secondary schools do have performing arts CCAs that are dedicated to nurture that talent, bulk of their time will still be on academics. SOTA offers a equal emphasis on the arts and academics, even allow the arts to be examinable as a subject. It will be pointless if you send your child to a mainstream secondary school despite his/her desire to enter SOTA. He/she will not be happy there and academics will take a toll. I have students who entered top schools and yet drop out halfway and transfer to SOTA because they simply cannot cope with the rigour and stress. There are even some students who just came back from overseas and prefer SOTA to the mainstream secondary schools due to their more flexible and liberal curriculum.
3)If your child is physically very active, and extrovert and a kinesthetic learner, he/she may just be a sports person. If your child has difficulty coping and is in the normal (technical) stream but he/she is outstanding in sports, why not allow him to pursue his passions in Singapore Sports School (SSS)? Allowing him to enter SSS will not just give him the chance to pursue sports without any restrictions, it will spare him learning technical and vocation skills if he is not at all interested.
4)If your child detests Singapore's rigorous and conformist academic system and he/she already intends to pursue their career overseas, however the time is not right to send them overseas to study, consider enrolling them into international schools. International schools have curriculum that offers a fresh perspective on education with discussion seminars, intensive scientific laboratory work and liberty to decide which subjects to choose. Students are able to express themselves freely, nurturing them to be bold and outspoken individuals which could be highly sought after by employers nowadays. Despite that, the downside is exorbitant school fees and bad influence from western students who engaged in vices.

To Worried Parents

I guess after today's release of PSLE results, there will be 3 groups of parents. First group will be those elated parents who share the joy of their child's fruits of labour. They have scored well above your expectations. Second group involves those who have children that did reasonably "ok" to your standards. Maybe you were planning for your kid to enter the top school but your child didnt do as well but still manage to secure a place at a reasonably good school with an aggregate of above 240. However, this blog post is targetted to the third group of parents who feels disappointed at the results. It is like the higher the hopes for your child, the higher the disappointment if he or she fails. You are worried of your child's future in secondary school. Well of course people say primary 6 is still too early and PSLE is too minor to direct your child's future. But certainly the PSLE result is sure to make an impact of your child's education. Your child has just lost an edge to the better students who is able to go through IP without taking O lvl and even have one more extra year to complete secondary school if he or she scores below 200. The nightmare of your child entering N level has arrived.

It is true when they say children are just sad over their results for a few days, but parents worry over many months and even a year. Well even though it is your son's future that is beyond your control but at such a young age of 12 taking its virgin national exam, you can't help it but to worry what to do. Well the thing about PSLE is this that there is a score range that is commonly referred to as the "taboo" range(210-235) where scoring within this range leads you to nowhere. Your score is just a couple of points away from the eligibility to enter the decent autonomous schools. But the score is too high for the next tier schools which may not sound so pleasant. This is repeatedly one of the flaws of our PSLE.

You just feel defeated and dejected at your child's plight. It sometimes feel as if you have failed as a parent. Did i spend enough time coaching my child? Was i too busy with work? The lasting agony often goes to the parents for a reason. They are faced with dozens of friends, relatives and colleagues that are eager to know your child's results. Who doesn't want to feel proud of your child's outstanding results? But also, when your child is performing way below expectation, your pride will shatter if you have to reveal the inconvenient truth about the results. Avoiding phone calls and visitations, it is just so uncomfortable to talk about it even months down the road.

Well dejected parents, I empathize with you! i have been that, done that three times after my youngest son have crossed the " PSLE regime". Wish you all the best in choosing the right secondary school for your child.

What are the major differences between Chinese taught during primary school and secondary school?

Well the key lies with the foundation. Does the student possess the required level of reading,writing and listening skills?Well, the student who did higher Chinese in primary school will be better equipped to handle the rigors of Secondary School Chinese. Students who are not apt in reading, writing and listening will have to lean on memorising (背). If a simple sentence  is not able to be penned down by the student, he will face immense challenges where the bulk of the syllabus is on writing. Is is Sec school Chinese difficult?

1) Secondary school Chinese composition no longer consists of picture composition unlike that of primary school and the minimum word requirement is above 200 to 300 words.

2) Situational writing will be the additional component for paper 1 where students are required to write letters or email under a given scenario. Students with weak written vocabulary will find this challenging.

3)The written essay component will be either a newspaper article review or narrative. Most teachers will prepare students for it by going through a student's newspaper called comma or （逗号）every week. After getting the insight to current affairs happening in Singapore, students will then need to pen down their thoughts, comments, suggestions and whether they agree or disagree according to a required format. Many students are marred by the inability to recognise difficult words of a report. Reading the the article or question statement will be a challenge, much less writing the essay.
4)Besides being filled with long passages, paper 2 consists of many difficult words. The cloze passage for example has options that are very similar to each other. Many students can get away by using the "tikam" or guessing method during their primary school days but that is no longer the case for secondary school.

5)Next, 3 comprehension (MCQ) and 2 Comprehension (open-ended) occupy the rest of the sections. The most challenging of the questions are the last two which requires you to give an opinion, a philosophy or real-life example that the story can apply.The weaker students do not understand the question or are unable to construct their own sentences based on their knowledge. The medium standard students who feel for the passage will find it hard to find accurate words to express them. This could be attributed by the fact that every comprehension question allow lifting of texts and this question could be the only one that students had to phrase their own sentences. Normally these questions are worth a heavy 5 marks. Some schools even set them as 6 to 8 mark questions. With an average of 2 questions from comprehension open-ended A and B, the marks at stake will be 24 to 32. Imagine students who are not prepared for this type of questions who may only manage to secure 1 to 4 marks and lose 20 marks from the comprehension. Time constraint is another evil that could cause the above scenario to happen when students doggedly do the paper by sequence neglecting the time allocation for each section. Even Higher Chinese student may fall into this trap.

6)For the oral component, the primary school and secondary school both have picture descriptions. However the subtle but significant difference is that the primary school deals with illustrated picture whereas the secondary school deals with photo. Many being used to picture have difficulty describing orally a photo. Students who come from an English-speaking background and do not speak mandarin frequently might startle their way through, unable to achieve fluency.

All in all, the interest toawrds writing, speaking, listening and reading have to be picked up in order to ace sec school chinese.

To Worried Parents:

 I know many of you have gone for the Meet-the-Parents session and Parent-teacher conference, i trust that there are mixed reactions as always. Your child either received a bad report card or a positive one brilliant enough for you to book your holidays right away. However for those who have their children receiving bad results, it can be disappointing for you that all the exam papers you have given your child to do did not seem to work. Or maybe the tuition class you enrolled your child do did not do the wonders as expected.

I can very much understand the feeling as i am a parent of 3 kids. I do believe in tuition just as i teach it and sometimes results just do not seem to show up. For this group of parents, I strongly urge you to seize the opportunity holidays could bring. Yes the year is coming to an end and you may have already made plans to bring  your child on overseas trips and even signed them up for them to learn new skill, never underestimate what holidays could bring. Holiday is the perfect time for your child to catch up! It is a time of flexibility in your child's schedule as he is no longer bound by rigid school timings. He just needs to commit time to complete his holiday assignment and go for CCA trainings. One would never expect school time to have such liberty with crashing remedial and CCA sessions, long school hours and if you add normal tuition classes, your child is sure to be exhausted. Therefore, especially for the weaker students in Chinese, I urge you all to sign up for tuition for your kids to brush up on his Chinese. Do not wait till school reopen if u intend to have tuition got your kids for the reasons that your child might have already missed a lot in a class or that it will not be effective enough with your child;s busy schedule.

 I guarantee that your child absorbs the most during holiday classes without the need for them to care about so many ongoing content taught in sch. Your child is in the freshest of mind with adequate rest and time for leisure. Did i mention about Chinese being a language? Yes. In order to brush up on a student;s Chinese, just signing up your child weeks or months before major examination is not going to help. Language needs to be taught, applied and lived out. Thus, holidays again will be the best time providing ample opportunities for your child to change any negative attitude towards the language as a useless and mundane one and also to strengthen your child;s foundation in the language.

So what are you all waiting for? Contact me, Vincent, the language specialist at 97641616 to book a class slot with me! Improvement G'teed and I look forward to working with you towards better grades for your child.

Q and A on my tuition.

Who are the target students?

Students who are studying in schools around the Marine Parade Vacinity like Victoria,CHIJ(Katong),St. Patrick(Sec) and Tao Nan, Kong Hwa, CHIJ Katong(Pri), Ngee Ann Pri will have the convenience to my house if they are attending my lessons. They could come for lessons right after school depending on their dismissal times. On a particular day of the week,some schools do have earlier dismissal time than usual.Hence students could attend lessons on that day.It would be even better if i have students studying in the same school,they could come together then forming a goup no more than 3.I have mentioned before and i wish to highlight it again that I strongly believe in the importance and effectiveness of small group and individual tuition and will not neglect that whenever I am admitting students.

How about students who are not from the above mentioned schools?

Students who are not from the schools nearby my place do not fret!You are still most welcomed to join my tuition.But students who are living in the west and areas that are quite far away would have inconvenience travelling to my place for group tuition. They might want to consider signing up for home tuition that is I will come to their house to teach. If not, another flexible and bold alternative would be during the holidays, your child could attend the intensive lessons at my house during the holidays and when school reopens,if your child is really busy we could continue with once a week and your child could communicate his/her doubts through skype.(refer:to RGS Yi Chen's testimonial)

What do you normally teach?

I teach textbook content,through multimedia like iflash,audio CDs and through educational games from websites like asknlearn.com or lead.com and my CDs. Nearing the exam, I would impart exam techniques through analysing of past year Top Sch papers and notes.I would also spot the hot topics or questions that will likely come out in your child's exam. I would also go through with your child the PSLE past year papers or ten-yrs series if he/she is taking the major exams next year.I balance my teaching with fun and seriousness. Firstly, your child's interest towards Chinese is my utmost concern. Maybe the results would be you parents, your utmost concern but again i emphasise again that doing well in a language needs interest and initiative from your child.That is why your child would usually do better in Mathematics and Sciences as they have the interest and inquisitiveness towards those subjects.But i would not neglect the importance of exams and teach those heavy-duty or "laborious" your child would describe in effective yet efficient way.

What is the difference between Group and Home tuition?

Group tuition is what I would describe literally as a small group of students sitting around the table during my lessons with everyone's attention on me as I teach or on the work given. But i would describe group tuition outside like those premier tuition centres as a group of at least 10 people sitted in a classroom style manner.Some students would sit with their friends and began to chat about K-pop and DOTA(teen stuff) things not related to Chinese at all. Not to mentioned some will sms,or even play game consoles during lessons unnoticed by the teacher. Once some hyperactive or attention-seeking student do some "stunt", the whole class starts laughing and the teacher outnumbered by 1 to 10 is unable control the class.The whole class loses concentration and even those diligient and disciplined students would get affected.
Although the above may be exaggerated but it is really true for many tuition centres. Therefore parents would have to ask themselves this question: Why am I sending my child for tuition? Most answers would be " I would want my child to get additional help to do well in Chinese." I would have to ask you why send your child to another "school classroom" environment if your child needs additional help in the subject.

Another problem with "big class" tuition is the lack of interaction between students and teachers.Thus it is no surprise your child could feel so stranger towards the teacher despite many years of enroling in her classes. This would be disastrous as all the money spent was not put to good use!I believed tuition is built on communication and relationship where the students are bold enough lift some doubts so that the teacher could clear them once and for all. Yes i am talking about interaction. In my small group tuition the speed of learning would be quickened with interaction and discussion,be it between students and students or teacher and students.

What is the address of your place?

Blk 15,Marine Terrace,above the Marine Parade Fire Post near Tao Nan School,opposite the Town Council

Specializes in preparing for P5/6 for their PSLE

 Teaches Chinese EXAM techniques to ace your PSLE!

1)Using top schools *Oral Exam papers and video recording to improve
your speech.
2)Analyzing Top schools *Compositions. WRITING SKILLs to taught to
increase your paper 1 marks !
3) Reading *COMPREHENSION passages from top schools and learning the
EXAM techniques in answering each question.
4)Looking at top schools MCQ. Analysis of new words to add to your *Vocabulary.

IS PSLE CHINESE DIFFICULT?

The Primary School Leaving Examination is one that every student must take to move on to Secondary school. How well one does in this examination will determine which school he/she will enter. Is PSLE Chinese difficult? It depends on your child's foundation, and his/her exposure to the language. They will be tested on areas like writing, listening, and comprehending. Steps have been taken by MOE to adjust the marks allocated for each segment to decrease difficulty and increase relevance.
Some would question the importance of the subject in the overall aggregate score. A question frequently heard from parents is,"Why don't I allow my child to concentrate on English, Mathematics and Science first rather than Chinese?" The answer is the weightage of all the subjects are equal, and therefore a drop in Chinese will bring down the total aggregate score. I have students who missed out by one or two points to enter their desired schools of choice like ACS, Victoria they end up regretting not putting enough effort into Chinese.
Getting a huge improvement in grades is something that cannot be done overnight. To achieve the desired result, one must prepare for at least a year.  Students should have a sturdy foundation and familiarise themselves with most of the common words by Primary Five. This is because during Primary Six the teachers will be too busy doing intense revision of the past two years to go through the basics. A deadly and unfortunately common mistake are students who prepare for the Chinese Examination at the very last minute. Students will not be able to study properly under the pressure and will likely panic on the day of the examination, which is not recommended. I strongly urge parents who have Primary Five children to send them for tuition classes during the upcoming November to December holidays if they are weak in the subject. Prepare early and you will have no regrets.