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.

2013 PSLE Oral Exam ( Chinese )

This picture shows a scene at a school canteen. There are a lot of students so I think that it might be their recces time. In the bottom left corner there are two students one boy and one girl. They seem to be returning their bowls to the collection point. I think that what they are doing is right and we should learn from them. Behind them there are a couple of students queuing to buy food from the noodle store. I think that they are good because they are not pushing one another aside to be first in line. Beside them there is a small boy who is carrying a bowl of noodles next to him a bigger and taller boy seems to be trying to help him. I think that he is doing good and we should learn from him as it is a good act. If I were there I would have done the same as it is the right thing to do. Next to the boys there is a teacher telling two mischievous looking boys playing with the water at the sink. If I were there I would have helped the teacher stop them as they are wasting water and making the floor wet. If the floor is wet someone might slip and fall causing an injury. We should not be wasting water as water is precious. Behind the two boys there is another boy who is eating his food next to him there is a plate with bones around it and flies flying around it. I think that whoever did this is wrong because it is wrong to leave food around like that he should he returned the plate like the rest of the pupils as this may attract insects and pests. If I see any one do this I would stop him/her to come back and return the plate/bowl. Behind the boy there is a group of pupils. One boy and two girls they are talking and eating their food. I think that this is how recces should be spent as if we run and play we might sweat a lot and maybe too tired to have lessons. In conclusion the canteen is a place for us to eat our food and talk to our friends we should take good care of it as without it we might not be able to talk and eat with our friends.(Rough translation to English)

-Spoken by Nanyang P6 Student

2013 O Level Chinese Examination

School	Name	Years taught	Written	Oral
FFMS	Junwei	4 years	A1	Dist.
FMSS	Zhenwei	4 years	C6	Merit
GMGS	De Yao	9 months	C3	Merit
ACS(IB)	Matthew	2 years	C5	Dist.
MSHS	Yao Ming	7 months	C4	Merit
Montfort	Anthony	3 months	C6	Merit

Was the 2013 O level Chinese Written Paper (June) difficult?(2014 New Syllabus)

For my students, especially those who are from top classes in their schools, they were full of grievances and disappointment upon leaving the exam hall.

 "Why was it so difficult? I thought that it was supposed to be easier!"

"I had no idea what the comprehension passage was talking about!"

"The MCQ options were all very close!"

"The words that they give for the close passage, I haven't seen them before!"

Such were the reactions of the students after they took the "the killer" exam. Even for those students who normally score A1 for their school exams shared the same pessimism! I was still in doubt so I handed the question paper to my son who was a Higher Chinese student that scored A1 for Chinese. He too agreed the paper was hard with some words from the close passage that were beyond his understanding. He felt that the standard of comprehension resembles that of a typical Higher Chinese paper rather than that of Chinese.

So in all, was the change in syllabus for 2014 going to be easy or difficult? Next year, with the revamp of  Sec 4 textbooks in addition to the 6 new textbooks (A and B) from Sec 1 to 3, students will need to grasp more words on their fingertips. Components that were formerly scrapped like 造句，填写汉字，填写词语 are back again, occupying 40% to 50% of paper 2. How are the students who are not inclined to memorizing going to cope? With the other "non-textbook" components weak, how are they going to score? In the past few years, I have seen some of the rather strong students failing to get an A1 despite working very hard. How are students going to do that now with the odds against them?

2013 O level Chinese Written Paper (June) Questions

Hot topics for Chinese O level Paper 1 (报章报道）

1报章报道： 国家环境局指定多座的熟食中心设立碗盘回收处，鼓励人们积极自觉归还碗盘。

2反映地铁不时发生故障并提出建议

3报章报道：教育部不公布全国状元和优秀名单

4成绩优异就是好学生?

5报章报道：政府考虑在早晨繁忙时段前，让公众免费乘搭地铁。

6你发现新移民面临生活上的问题，甚至与邻居发生误会。

7你常去的一间小贩中心的卫生情况越來越差，给食客带来了很多不便。

8报章报道：越來越多人鲁莽开车，导致意外伤忙的车祸有増加的趋势。

9本地学生只注重成绩，却忽略了品德教育。你同意吗?

10报章报道：组屋居民强烈反对在组屋楼下建乐龄活动中心或残障人士中心。

11在公共场所，人们应该怎么表现优雅行为?

12报章报道：越过50%的新加坡人面对极大的工作压力，不仅无法排除压力，甚至把不良情绪带给家人和朋友。

13你发现你居住的组屋区不断发生有人蓄意破坏公共设施，其中还包括涂鸦，给居民带来许多不便与烦恼。

14报章报道：保健促进局推出＂健康小贩计划＂和＂健康咖啡店计划＂，以普及与提高公众的健康意识。

15报章报道：教育部将颁发教育储蓄品德奖。试针对这则新闻，发表你的看法。

16有人认为，在教育学生方面，表扬胜于批评。你同意吗?

17网上购物的利与弊 

18谈谈科技的发展给人类带来的利与弊

19报章报道：乘客在巴士上起争执或打架，并惊动警方到场调解的事件日趋增加。

20如何正确使用社交网站

Who is suited for this type of tuition?

1) Sec 4 Express students:
They should ideally pass their Sec 3 end-of-year or SA2 exam. The intensive lessons are aimed to impart techniques to help them cope with the language. The techniques include Oral, Comprehension, composition and cloze passage.  These will at least help them attain a one-grade or two-grade improvement in May this year. The best is that if they scored a C6 last year, then they could aim towards a B3, if they were to score a B3 last year, the A1 should be targeted. All these goals will be towards the Nov paper.

2)PSLE students:
They should at least had a B for their SA2 last year in order for me to safely say I could help them to achieve at least an A/High A. Last year I was more focused on helping those v weaker students who frequently fail in their normal exams or had an extremely weak language foundation (couldn't speak proper mandarin). I thus could only help them with a one-grade improvement. Thus this year I hope that at least a handful of my students can begin with a moderately strong foundation.

3)Sec1-3 students:
Even if they fail their normal examinations, the situation is not as bleak as those mentioned above. They should have at least 1 year or 1 year plus to beef up their standard. Usually the common problems faced by students in passing Chinese include a limited word bank (not that they didn't learn enough words but more of retaining them in memory), inability to read or write or to recognise the meaning of the words. Thus when this repeats itself, the students get demoralised after numerous failed attempts and want to give up.

The root cause could be due to PSLE Chinese being an exam that emphasises too much on  memorising, rote listening and writing (Picture composition) without being taught practical methods. Rote learning would only result in "rote forgetting". Failing in composition, comprehension and cloze passage are the results of this. Therefore, techniques are more sustainable in that sense. Through learning simple "news" vocabulary, constructing sentences, writing short paragraphs and with the aid of multimedia and devices like e-dictionary, they will be able to make improvements. With visible improvements, their interest will slowly pick up. This will progress to the student setting goals for his or her O level Chinese in the long-run. With such motivation, he or she definitely has a high chance to succeed. Pls click my previous posts on students' testimonials for examples.

4)P5 students:
Even when faced with the problem of a weak foundation, if you have seen the testimonials of my previous foreign students, you will be surprised that they can make tremendous improvement! If a foreign student who did not grow up learning Chinese can do it, what more can normal students like your child do? It all boils down to effort and time. If the student is willing to give it their very best, I as a tutor will  commit to all means to raise her marks up. But of course Chinese being a language subject, we have to be realistic that vast improvement cannot be done overnight.
Here's how a typical primary school kid views Chinese, especially boys:
Just the day before Spelling or "听写", they are able to recall how to write the words but the day after they would have forgotten completely what are the characters they have learnt. With a short concentration span, they are easily distracted by trivial things during lessons. Their only goal in Chinese? To do well enough to satisfy you parents so that you can reward them. They fear 作业，they dread 听写. Their words are illegible! Sounds familiar?
Well let me tell you that you need not satisfy with this status quo! Constant encouragement from parents and teachers is key to turning the situation around. I feel only with a good teacher-student relationship, can the student's interest towards Chinese be unlocked. So let me help you, give me a call on my hp no. at 97641616 to start the change!

P6 Intensive Tuition

*Highlight P6 syllabus & Exam techniques

*Lessons on 6A textbook (emphasis on important vocabulary words)

*Teaching of composition through computer usage

*Oral Techniques through webcam and videos

Objective of Holiday Intensive Program: To create an awareness of the rigorous P6 syllabus to prepare for PSLE. This will cause the students to be more alert when school reopen. Starting early in preparation will mean allowing students to set their individual targets for Chinese. After the whole program, each student will be briefed on their present linguistic level of Chinese and how far are they from the targets.

O level Preparation

-Cover Exam Syllabus (sec 1 to 3) 

-Newspaper readings and further research on omy website: http://www.omy.sg/- a news portal website likened to stomp that has videos, pictures to supplement important news reports.

-Lessons drawn: how to get the main gist from huge chunks of texts, selecting good phrases for composition or "default" news phrases for the purpose of cloze passage. How to pronounce and articulate difficult words in preparation for oral exam.

-Oral, Compre and Compo techniques

Ryan who got an A for PSLE Chinese has worked hard to achieve his remarkable T-score. Indeed, this is another testimony that sheer hard work is able to overcome shortcomings for Chinese language. As introduced in my earlier posts, Ryan is a rather soft-spoken boy who comes from a English-speaking family. When he came in to sign up for tuition in June, I originally thought that there is too short a time to teach to raise his score and if i would succeed, it will only be to 65. But Ryan prove to be a different student. He is obedient, diligient and motivated. Although he also has his playful side sometimes, when you tell him to get back to work he will do as so. He improved from 50 to 65 during prelims before securing the A. Oral component is especially challenging for him who speaks Chinese with a weird intonation. But he overcame the odds by doggedly doing what I say. Everyday he will read some passages and record his voice so as to detect his mispronunciations. By practicing numerous times upon his mistakes, he was definitely confident during the day of the oral exam which gave his grade a push towards A.

Qian Xi, a studious girl, was searching for a right tuition to help her fill her missing gap in Chinese. She enrolled in one of the commercial composition classes but found out that the dry lessons did not aid in her improvement. She joined also in the period of june and in the last three months leading to her PSLE exam she opted for 1-to-1 individual tuition to enhance the effectiveness.She saw her fruits of labour early during the prelims where she scored 74 marks before proceeding to grab an A. She also has a very positive learning attitude motivated by the fact that she has already decided which school to go. She expects a lot from herself and thus it is this attitude that produces this good result.

Giacomo (Zhi Ming) is a half-Italian studentComposition, her weakest component became better due to continuous effort to commit important,appealing phrases to memory. During the crucial few weeks before exam, i added extra lessons up to 4  per week. He did not lament of tiredness. He persisted on. For Zhi Ming, comprehension and listening comprehension are huge challenges. He is a diligent boy but he is not as hardworking as Ryan and Qian Xi. What i meant by that is that he does he is hardworking to do the intensive bare minimum but has not reached such hunger for success to go the extra mile and practice on his own. he has the potential to score A but has not really breakthrough because of his weak foundation in the language.

For this year's batch of PSLE students, those who achieved A despite joining the tuition at a later time, have high self-expectations which drive them to work extremely hard. They are the one who are willing to carry out daunting yet important preparation work such as going for extra lessons, memorising good vocabulary words and practicing oral exam. The majority which got B are relatively as weak yet playful and not motivated. Although i can choose to give up on them whenever they crossed the line and takes learning lightly, I have the obligation to continue teaching them even if it means knowing they are not going to score well. If i did not continue teaching, they will give up on themselves and Chinese have gotten worse. Don't I feel disappointed that so many are getting B? Well, definitely but fortunately i take comfort in that almost all the parents are actually quite satisfied with their child's chinese grade. for the weak students, they were expecting that they might even fail Chinese. For these students, it is time to re-build their foundation to prevent history from repeating itself in secondary school.

2012 PSLE Oral

PSLE Oral exam:

 PSLE Oral exam:

PSLE 2012 Composition

Helping words:
水沟                                       指着                                    大布袋
漂浮                                       水流得急                           大声喊救

General Description: One rainy day,there were two students sharing an umberalla and they came across a canal.The canal was flooded with the ferocious rain and from a distance, a crowd has gathered and they were pointing at a particular big black bag floating along. In no time, the two boys jumped in and tried to reach for it but they struggled and appeared to be drowning.

Ryan
Balestier Hill Pri Sch

He joined my tuition class from July. Equipped with only two months of preparation, he has to face the PSLE Oral exam in August. Personally i find him a child who is obedient and studious but with low confidence and thus he has problems even speaking fluently. Furthermore, he does not come from a mandarin speaking background and has problem speaking out simple sentences.I know i had to drill him real hard to enable him to take the oral in august with optimum confidence.
  Ryan: Mr Kok uses voice recording which other tutors never use before. This method helps me to recognise my weakness. For example, some chinese words or phrases i might pronounce them wrongly but when i listen to them through recording, I will know where have i read wrongly. Through teachers' help and many more practices, I can slowly correct my mistakes and speak better.

Is P6 Easy?

This year i am faced with a daunting task of teaching a bunch of "challenging" kids. First of all they were scoring 35-55 marks for their normal examinations. However, they made a tremendous improvement in their SA1 and prelim Chinese exam with them scoring 50-74 marks. They are very weak in their mother tongue, proficient in English but almost illiterate in Chinese. They do not know how to speak and write simple words often needing to check on the e-dicitonary for every two to three words when writing compos. On top of that, their attitude will make you think teaching them is impossible. Unless the tutor is their family member or relative, nobody will have the patience to teach them.  All the bad habits you name it-Not doing any homework, not paying attention to you, distracting other students, playing computer games during lessons. To sum it up they are hyperactive, unable to keep still and listen. They will move about to distract other students making learning inconducive. It came to a point that even the last lesson before their PSLE exam, they still bother if they are able to play computer games if they do their work. 

Originally, i do not have much confidence in teaching them well. But being in a desperate situation, i accepted their behaviour and approached teaching with a different set of methods. Firstly i take an effort to talk to them and build relationships with each student. Through rewarding them snacks and adequate breaks i try to win their favour in order for them to listen to what i say. 

1)Knowing that their concentration span is relatively shorter than the average student, i emphasise the usage of laptops during class as a means to capture their attention. 

2)When teaching a new chapter of the "ke ben", i will maximise the use of iflashbook (MOE recommended software) to teach them  the new words or chi yu and how to read the text. When preparing for oral exams, i will use webcam and voice-recording softwares to effectively correct their mistakes in pronunciation and articulation in a yet interesting way. This will aid in their reading-the-passage, picture description and conversation components. Conventionally, teachers uses newspapers to teach students of news events.

3)But i rely on omy.com.sg news portal to allow them to learn the phrases commonly used in news events so as to expose them to the news report-style of cloze passages. Omy is a mandarin new portal where it has unique functions such as voice reading of the news article and with interactive videos and picture montouchs, the interest is kept alive. Composition wise, using news articles to impart vocabulary will give them confidence to write 150-280 word essays in the long-run, not forgetting comprehending skills when doing comprehension. 

4) Allowing students to type out their essays rather than writing it out will reduce their difficulty in writing essays.

Normally during holidays, only with 12 to 20 lessons in total can the student fully grasp the basic skills required to undertake a national examination. Upon 3 weeks of returning to school, this can change the attitude of the students and speed up the progress of your child's Chinese language if they were to apply my techniques. With improvement shown in the school examinations such as SA1 and Prelims, your child will then have greater confidence to take the PSLE. This is similar to what happened to the four boys i taught this year. They made a tremendous improvement in their SA1 and prelim Chinese exam with them scoring 50- 74 marks. Hopefully they had brought this confidence to the examination hall to earn the A or A* they were aiming for.

Sec 1/ Chinese preparation course start next week, (19 Nov)

Sec 2-3/

Sec 4 O lvl preparation is already underway