2019 PSLE Discussions and Strategies (Children born in 2007)

[chenlaoshi]

phtthp:

Hi chenlaoshi,


Thank you so much for your generosity, in sharing the intricate technique (as well as other exam information), in this forum.
Very much appreciated !

Would you by any chance during this year-end 2018 (November / December) school holiday : conducting any crash course for 2018 P5 students, in Chinese (Oral video answering format / Comprehension answering technqiue), for both Normal Chinese & Higher Chinese ?

Once again, Thank you, very much

Hi phtthp, don't mention it, just 举手之劳.

Actually, this thought did cross my mind. As I have 5 P5 home tutees this year, I am exploring the possibility of setting aside one or two of my time slots next year for small group PSLE preparatory classes to maximize the use of the resources I have prepared/will be preparing. Thus, I am planning to offer 4-6 lessons of trial classes (mcq + graphic stimulus + open ended compre sections and/or compo + oral) during the upcoming school holidays. After all, there will be a maximum no. of students I can take in eventually so to me, the more participants who come for these free lessons and can benefit from them, the merrier (even if they come just because it's free. haha ).

[phtthp]

Hi chenlaoshi,


Thank you, very much. I will pm u

[phtthp]

someone:

DOWNLOAD FREE 2018 P6 PAST YEAR EXAM PAPERS


https://sgfreepapers.com/free-downloads/primary-school-exam-papers/free-2018-primary-6-exam-papers-psle-past-year-test-papers/

(found only P6 2018 SA2)

may we know where to download P6 2018 (SA1 and CA1) Science papers ? Thank you, very much

[FantasyLandDreams]

Asking on behalf of a Friend, anyone knows if there is a P5 talent camp organised by HCI this year? If yes, when was it held? Thanks.

[bluepencil]

phtthp:

Hi chenlaoshi,


Thank you so much for your generosity, in sharing the intricate technique (as well as other exam information), in this forum.
Very much appreciated !

Would you by any chance during this year-end 2018 (November / December) school holiday : conducting any crash course for 2018 P5 students, in Chinese (Oral video answering format / Comprehension answering technqiue), for both Normal Chinese & Higher Chinese ?

Once again, Thank you, very much

This thread is very useful for down and out parents like me.
My girl is struggling with chinese comprehension. The teacher marks so strictly that almost every question is deduct marks for wrong copying (which I don't know how to ask her to improve as she is weak in chinese and flipping up and down between passage and questions, she loses focus and copy wrongly). Or if not it is no marks as the question is those opinion type ones which require strong chinese ability (and she has a lot of weak sentences construction - by the way I find that these days schools do not do as much sentence construction 造句 too, hence my girl is weaker than ever).
May I know if anyone is like me, how to improve??? where do we start? will doing more compre exercises work but what if the exam compre is a topic that my girl can't understand well?
These days the chinese comprehension passage is not too difficult. But the question requires so much thinking, reasoning, opinion, it's like the comprehension questions are out to catch you.
As you know many of us even parents have weak Chinese, why does the standard become so hard. my girl actually loved Chinese - she loves the school textbook stories sooooo much for example. I must admit that we do not read as much chinese story books as I myself happen to be stronger in English. But nowadays she says she hates Chinese, because every day is lots of red marks on the compre paper, compo paper. She certainly is a case of chinese interest killed by academics.

I will be if anyone can point us to any chinese compre tips. I have read 20 pages of this forum but have not found any yet. Thanks in advance

[bluepencil]

Chinese in Singapore


I remember decades ago, I learnt Chinese in a very hard way and unsuccessfully too. A very nice Chinese tuition teacher will come to my house and breathe down my little neck saying "you have to do this, learn this, revise this". She was extremely nice and yet it was one ear in and one ear out. I eventually failed Chinese at A levels and luckily resat the paper to get min pass.
Back to the present, I feel Chinese learning in Singapore has not become better it seems, I still find kids struggling to learn Chinese. Like I have friends whose daughter too dread Chinese dreadfully.

These are modern days, with much technology etc. I feel the landscape for learning Chinese in schools could be improved. Chinese teachers in schools could use more interactive videos or apps etc to engage children - who happens to tune in better to such materials that paper and teacher methods. If we don’t have the schools to bring up this interest in kids, then god bless you if you happen to have the best engaging Chinese tuition teacher in the world. I never had such luck.
Even as I say this, regardless, my girl is already a casualty from this learning Chinese for grades. I hope future generations will have a better landscape to learn Chinese in Singapore. I could not have one in my old days, and my girl did not have one in the new age… and I found out too late. Now we can only hope to pass by as many marks as possible by finding a tutor. And maybe pick up a chinese story book to read and likely my girl knows more chinese words than me as I have forgotten much chinese sadly …

[zac's mum]

bluepencil:

This thread is very useful for down and out parents like me.
My girl is struggling with chinese comprehension. The teacher marks so strictly that almost every question is deduct marks for wrong copying (which I don't know how to ask her to improve as she is weak in chinese and flipping up and down between passage and questions, she loses focus and copy wrongly). Or if not it is no marks as the question is those opinion type ones which require strong chinese ability (and she has a lot of weak sentences construction - by the way I find that these days schools do not do as much sentence construction 造句 too, hence my girl is weaker than ever).
May I know if anyone is like me, how to improve??? where do we start? will doing more compre exercises work but what if the exam compre is a topic that my girl can't understand well?
These days the chinese comprehension passage is not too difficult. But the question requires so much thinking, reasoning, opinion, it's like the comprehension questions are out to catch you.
As you know many of us even parents have weak Chinese, why does the standard become so hard. my girl actually loved Chinese - she loves the school textbook stories sooooo much for example. I must admit that we do not read as much chinese story books as I myself happen to be stronger in English. But nowadays she says she hates Chinese, because every day is lots of red marks on the compre paper, compo paper. She certainly is a case of chinese interest killed by academics.

I will be if anyone can point us to any chinese compre tips. I have read 20 pages of this forum but have not found any yet. Thanks in advance

Hi...let me try to understand a bit more about your situation...

Is she having real “copying” errors? I mean look at her English comprehension, does she have similar copying mistakes? If yes, then it’s easily solved by training her to use a highlighter to highlight the phrases, then meticulous copying the highlighted portion.

Or is she having trouble converting the highlighted portion into the correct Chinese grammar/sentence structure for her answer? This would be related to 造句. Which can be practised also. I have seen worksheets that teach kids the basic grammatical structures for Chinese, much like what English “synthesis & transformation” practices look like.

And I’m sure there are certain fixed formats for giving opinions that she can pick up (usually they don’t vary too much - primary school Chinese in SG always has a moral theme haizzzz).

So, is it any of these issues? Or is she having trouble with the inference questions? Those are much harder to solve.

[bluepencil]

Hi…let me try to understand a bit more about your situation…


Is she having real “copying” errors? I mean look at her English comprehension, does she have similar copying mistakes? If yes, then it’s easily solved by training her to use a highlighter to highlight the phrases, then meticulous copying the highlighted portion.

Or is she having trouble converting the highlighted portion into the correct Chinese grammar/sentence structure for her answer? This would be related to 造句. Which can be practised also. I have seen worksheets that teach kids the basic grammatical structures for Chinese, much like what English “synthesis & transformation” practices look like.

And I’m sure there are certain fixed formats for giving opinions that she can pick up (usually they don’t vary too much - primary school Chinese in SG always has a moral theme haizzzz).

So, is it any of these issues? Or is she having trouble with the inference questions? Those are much harder to solve.[/quote]

Thanks for helping!

I think fundamentally my girl has a weak foundation in chinese. It is like a friend of mine, who is brilliant in chinese unlike me. But her son, by the time he reached P5, he could not cope with the complexity and therefore had to have tuition using P3/P4 material. So when my girl copies the compre words, along the way, characters become messed up like difficult characters copied with the strokes wrongly and certainly marks deducted (for nothing). It’s like such kids have a weak working memory for the characters, just like me, I know a word but struggle to write it.

Conversion - she also has conversion to smooth sentence structure problem. It is like me- I sometimes cannot speak fluently in one complete sentence. May I know what is a good 造句 book to get. If you look in popular, there is also very few 习字 book nowadays.

And then this poor sentence structure problem is a run on problem with any questions like opinion qns. I spoke to her teacher what to do. She said in our bad case, just copy from text. Erm… but it still is a problem not fully solved.

Zac mom, if you can recommend me a good chinese compre book to get, i will go and buy. I am walking this painful journey with my girl. i even wonder if i can do the P5 /6 assessment books …

thanks

[bluepencil]

My father could barely speak Chinese. My mom could speak Chinese but broken chinese. My chinese was poor in such an environment. And now the cycle continues to my girl. I guess I was not kiasu enough to send my girl for more tuition. She actually went for group tuition, but she did not improve. Now I am getting private tutor. I wonder if once a week is enough. Cos language is like an iceberg. It is not learnt quickly like say math - percentage for example. I guess what I want to say is that our kids can really struggle if the environment is not ideal for learning a language. In the end it is just learning for marks…

[Estéema]

For kids who need help with English main paper, please prepare your kids early. Language skills need time to master.


Academia has been strong in preparing students for main paper & very strong with Oral & DSA prep. Just rec'd their latest info (I don't suggest those doing this year's PSLE to attend as it'll surely put too much expectations & stress on yr child being so close to exams).

I just recall that Mr Sherman Tseng used to instruct us parents they're more keen to counsel & motivate kids abt what they want to achieve in life & how learning the English language well & speaking well in oral will help them in life rather than us parents look at grades as guide. I believe he's looking to spur the child & sparkle their interests to put in effort in their learning with a purpose rather then mopping in/out tuition. Happened for my child who initially hv not gel in as he joined in late in Aug of P5 when the P6s were prep ard this time of year. He didn't want to continue his lesson but we survived thro past Oct & he started enjoying learning with Sherman & his P6 CA1 scored showed immediate improvement (I still use sch grades coz I can't teach S&T well).

Hope parents help kids to persevere once they find a good educator & not give up too soon. But of course if it cuts into loosing interests bcoz no chemistry with teacher after a couple of months, then listen to your child. Make informed changes.

https://mailchi.mp/085613933c99/examination-preparation-our-way?e=bd3ebc1070

For English Composition, we found Writers@Work hv good methodologies. But maybe other parents hv better learning centres to recommend.

Hope kids going into P6 year in 2019 prepare well ahead.