P1 Chinese - General Discussion

[BlueBells]

My P1 girl take higher chinese (her school only offered this), and her SA1 is 80% HYPY, 20% Chinese characters. She ws struggling a little with her HYPY because she can't get the chinese phonetics of it and the tonation of it right. Coaching was tough.


In the end, I told her to coach her Daddy in HYPY because Daddy is worse in it. She had fun being a teacher to Daddy, teaching him and giving him spelling in HYPY. After that, she simply picks it up. She took pride in being able to mark Daddy's spelling and teach him. She simply teaches my hubby the exact same way her teacher taught her in school, so it kind of reinforces what she learnt in school and she was revising her own work without realizing it.

The best part of all this is - she had fun, she learnt, and I don't have to :stupid: while coaching. SA 1 Result? 96/100

[ChiefKiasu]

BlueBells:

... In the end, I told her to coach her Daddy in HYPY because Daddy is worse in it. She had fun being a teacher to Daddy, teaching him and giving him spelling in HYPY...

An excellent approach. You only really learn something when you have to teach it. It's a true-and-tried principle. I use the same thing on my daughter when it comes to learning things like Yuquan's idioms and San Zijing. She gets to play teacher and say it first and the whole family has to follow what she says. But because she is so competitive, she now refuses to let us teach her new phrases to say :stupid: Needs a bit of fine-tuning

[lurline]

yes, i agree that 1-1 tuition is quite boring for him. Will change to berries or molin to see if he will improves.


How to tell he tutor that I am stopping tuition tactfully? She is so nice, I feel so bad.

[schellen]

lurline:

yes, i agree that 1-1 tuition is quite boring for him. Will change to berries or molin to see if he will improves.


How to tell he tutor that I am stopping tuition tactfully? She is so nice, I feel so bad.

I have a friend who's looking for a Chinese tutor for pri level. Does your tutor teach in the eastern part of S'pore? Or is she willing to? You can PM me her details. Thanks. ^_^

P.S. Please also let me know that besides being nice, what other qualities does she have that made you hire her? Thanks.

[jedamum]

lurline:

How to tell he tutor that I am stopping tuition tactfully? She is so nice, I feel so bad.

she may be nice, but is she effective?
you can tell her that you'll keep her contacts for future references if she teaches upper pri chinese too.

[mowmow]

lurline:

He told me that it is normal and most of his classmates failed their chinese papers.

Originally, I also thought that most P1 kids will be bad in Chinese. But I am wrong, as both my boys are in P1 this year, and surprisingly, both their classes do well in Chinese. I think only one child fail the paper in their classes. BTW, my kids are in a non-SAP school.

[ProTutors]

maybe you can try to understand where he is weak in? essay? or writing characters?


for language, it’s really more of reading and speaking. try playing chinese word games. it might gather some interest from him.

for the tutor, im sure she will understand where you are coming from. if there is a need, you can refer her to us, and since she is good from your recommendation, we will try to find her a new assignment

[rocklee]

Perhaps I can share with you my personal experience. My son went to PCF kindergarten. Throughout his k1 and k2, there was absolutely no chinese spelling. There was very little writing too. I actually had no idea what was taught in class as there were not many worksheets done. So when my son went to P1, the no. of chinese characters that he could recognised was very limited. The school started the first term with HYPY. My son found it interesting as it was something new and fresh to him. He had absolutely no problem in this area. However, my nightmare began when term 2 started with chinese characters. He was so dependant on HYPY that he could not read a complete passage without the help of HYPY. He was totally handicapped. He told me he could only read two characters during his oral reading in SA1. He must have failed his oral badly. I decided to help him by focusing on word recognition and matching of words through flashcards. After he was able to recognise the words, I made him write 5 words a day, with each word written three times. I would repeat the words until he could read and remember before giving new words. My son dreaded it. I had to coax him into writing. Through our consistent efforts, it paid off as he managed to get from band 2 for SA1 to a near perfect score in SA2. He was overwhelmed. Now he believes that writing is an important part of learning and it has become his daily habit. I am also thankful that he has a good mother tongue teacher who helps to keep his interest in learning.


I am not sure if this method will work on your child but for the sake of those desparate mums, it is no harm trying.

[MMM]

I totally agree with rocklee. Though my son attended enrichment classes since K1. He is just not the academic type so his english and chinese reading skills are ltd at end K2. I’ve also been busy with my P1 girl then to be able to spend time to coach him.


There was some things we did in Q4 last yr to prepare him for P1. Sending him for intensive hypy classes as well as 1-1 advanced phonics. This helped.

But more importantly, starting from this yr, I made it my new yr resolution to spend time with him coaching him every evening. We would spend around 2 hours every weekday where they will do their homework, learn spelling, read, etc… For chinese I was really worried as though his hypy is good but his character recognition sucks… how is he able to read if he can’t recognise??? The good thing was his enrichment class is always at least 1 lesson ahead of school so we made use of this opp to expose him to the words more often. Also, I made him practise writing the words before giving him tingxie. His Molin teacher also paid more attn to him as I highlighted to her his weakness of not being able to focus,etc…

We are very happy as it all paid off as he scored Band 1 for all subjects in his recent SA1. I am happy because english was also a problem for him and my aim was I should bring him to a level that he don’t get invited for lsp. After 5 months, he now developed a habit for reading too every nite.

It made me realise that just sending them for enrichment classes alone is not good enuf, if there are consistent support at home to help them (eg. revision) as well, then they will benefit alot more. But of course, there are alot more sacrifices on our part eg. no watching TV or doing your ow stuff when you reach home. No going out shopping,etc… after work as we need to reach home by 8pm,etc…

[lurline]

Have to admit that the problem is me.



I tried to do chinese homework with him but most of time, I do not know the answers and don't know how to write the chinese characters too.

I love to teach him maths and english but was bored to death when i have do chinese with him. Pretty sure that he can feels it, so I can't really blame him for the lack of interest.

Instead of boring him at home, I think it is better to send him to an enrichment class.