Berries - Discussion

[titank]

tamarind:

mum05:

[quote=\"vicki\"]Mine's at K2. And so far no spelling.

Oh, hmmm, I dunno how the new age teachings are now, to ensure the children remember the words. I remember in our times, we were made to do 'listen & spell' to remember those characters. In this case, how do you(all parents with kids attending Berries ch) find Berries is, in helping the children's vocabulary in Ch language?

Perhaps that's why so many Singaporeans complain that Chinese is difficult to learn, writing a word repeatedly will not enable a child to be good in Chinese.

I used to be the top student for Chinese all the way to A levels, I was in RGS and RJC. I did not remember practicing to write Chinese characters for many hours a day. All I did was to read as many Chinese story books as possible. There are no Grammar textbooks for Chinese, reading story books is the only way to learn sentence structures in Chinese. When in school, I write Chinese essays effortlessly, all because I read extensively, never had Chinese tuition or enrichment classes.

So how did I remember how to write so many Chinese characters ? I did not remember each word by its individual strokes. Each complex Chinese character is made up of 边旁, 部首 and the simple characters as building blocks. I only had to remember the parts that made a word, it's actually easier than English spelling(without knowledge of phonics, it's really tough). My Chinese teacher used to teach me that, I wonder why this is not taught in schools anymore.

Berries is teaching using the correct methods, that is, teach a child to recognize as many Chinese words as possible, so that they can read short stories independently by the age of 6 or 7. They do not make the child write words repeatedly, personally I would avoid any Chinese enrichment schools that make a child do that. That will only turn off a child's interest in Chinese.[/quote]Yes I do agree with you during our time the way the chinese teacher teach us is remember the chinese character. By reading more would improve the chinese vocabulary. it is only until P3 the school introduce Hanyu Pinyin. During that time,i find that HYPY not easy to learn where keep repeating the Po, Fo, Mo For..etc etc.

Now P1 when they start P1, they start HYPY. Come to 2nd half of the year they start to use HYPY a lot where character they sometime don't even able to recognise.

[CJS]

RRMummy:

In the Berries center my gals are attending, they actually called us up in advance and ask us to pick which day we want to have the makeup lesson (within the same week). Eg. holiday on Thu Wk25, then replace any other day in Wk 25

You might want to clarify with them again.

I checked with them before, they said that there is no replacement lesson if PH falls within their lesson schedule. Instead they used 15 mins of the prior lesson to teach the lesson they are going to miss the next week. Somehow, I felt this is unfair but they insist that parents are \"happy\" about the arrangement which I doubt so.

[cherrygal]

Just to share, my K2 son just joined Berries few weeks ago and usually attends classes on Sunday mornings at Berries Bishan (formerly thomson). Due to the National Day holiday, we placed him in a makeup class on 7 Aug (Saturday) at 3pm. Another girl from his class attended the same makeup lesson.


The male teacher of the Saturday class had informed his own class earlier that there would be Hanyu Pinyin spelling test on 7 Aug. My son and his own classmate were taken by surprise as the Sunday class teacher never mentioned tests.

Not only did the male teacher not excuse those 2 children from the spelling test, he was also impatient and passed comments that my son was "no good" in his work. Both children bawled in class as they could not do the spelling test and were also slow in completing the exercises.

My son kept crying at the school and continued crying at home as he was badly affected by the incident. We only managed to find out what happened after much questioning. The male teacher’s insensitive comment about him being "no good" also hurt his self-esteem. He is afterall only 6-years-old.

There may be differing standards among the different classes and teachers. The male teacher should be more understanding of students who only join in for the makeup lesson.

Very disappointing but thank God, his own Sunday teachers are ok.

[cherrygal]

RRMummy:

vicki:

[quote=\"mum05\"]any Berries kids in K2 level? Just wondering, any spelling work done at this level?

Mine's at K2. And so far no spelling.

Mine in K2 Berries also no spelling[/quote]Mine also in K2, no spelling but another K2 class has spelling... no consistency. See my other post above.

[cantbearit2]

Hi all,


My gal is in Hougang Berries at K2 level but also no spelling leh…

[lostbunny]

My DS1 is currently in P1. He is with Berries since 3+ and for so many years already, I have not seen them giving even 1 ting xie.

[singapore45]

Which branch of Berries is better? How is the one at Bishan?

[cherrygal]

singapore45:

Which branch of Berries is better? How is the one at Bishan?

OK, very crowded and most classes are full. Just dun go to the class with the male teacher. He's not patient.

[singapore45]

Any recommendation on which branch? Thanks for your advise

[autumnbronze]

Bishan is super crowded on weekends. Don’t know about weekdays and off- peak timings though.