Chinese Assessment Books

[ladeline28]

Hi all,


Thanks for all your responses. I agree that my son has not been exposed to Chinese enough. I’m the only person in the household who knows Chinese and we watch only English TV programmes. Moreover, my standard of Chinese is not good enough so I don’t read to him. I have engaged home tutor and had put him in holidays programmes whenever possible for more exposure.

The problem is that he hates the language and have "shut-off" from speaking, listening, reading and watching Chinese related. I have constantly reminded him of the importance of the language and that he needs to learn it as he is Chinese. After all that have been said, he still refused to work on improving his Chinese.

Is there any mothers who have the same problem as me who can share some light on how they managed to deal with this situation?

[Charmaine_chong]

Dear Ladeline,


Does he likes the home tutor?

I have a friend who encountered such experience but her son was P1. After getting a right home tutor, he is ok. He finds that the home tutor is funny and loves learning afterwards.

Did you scold him when he refuse to read?

May be you try to encourage him or take a book out to read if you can? Alternatively you could borrow cd that comes with book, turn it on and look at the book.

Hope it helps.

[pixiedust]

ladeline28:

The problem is that he hates the language and have \"shut-off\" from speaking, listening, reading and watching Chinese related. I have constantly reminded him of the importance of the language and that he needs to learn it as he is Chinese. After all that have been said, he still refused to work on improving his Chinese.

We are in similar situation except ds is 1year older and he doesn't have the same negativity in the language. Why does your ds dislike the language ? Is it because he has been constantly reprimanded or pressured ? It is very discouraging for the child if he has put in work and yet unable to get good grades for the subject. Is the school exam paper very difficult ?

For us, I explained the banding mechanism and got him to check with his friends. ds could see his weak chinese affected his cohort position. Then I went on to explain about T-score and secondary school selection. Sometimes we watch the news and I highlight the impact of the growing economy, how is one to set up co-operation or business deals if you can speak the language ? Over time, I think it began to sink in. These may not be the right 'carrots' but for us, it worked. At least ds tries to work on the language. Just that there's so much catching up to do so we set realistic expectations too. I just hope he does well enough not to let the overal T-score be pulled down too much.

As for assessment books, I target the area more likely to acheive improvements in marks. Example compo and compre - very hard to gain even 1 - 2 marks even if you work through tonnes of assessments.

[sleepy]

ladeline28:

Is there any mothers who have the same problem as me who can share some light on how they managed to deal with this situation?

Children naturally shun away from difficult task.

When my dd was around 5 to 6 years old - whenever I asked her to learn or write, tears would roll down her cheeks and she would chant 'I hate learning Chinese, I hate learning Chinese'. I've no choice but to spoon feed her, sit down with her to learn all the required 生字, look up dictionary to translate new words to hanyu pinyin for her

Over the years, she gained confidence and doesn't hate the subject anymore because she realised Chinese language isn't as scary or difficult as she percieved it to be. Nevertheless when asked to read a Chinese book, her default answer is 'I don't know how to read'

She doesn't have regular tuition or enrichment as I discovered she couldn't catch up in class. So I've been coaching her personally since K2. I do despatch her to creative writing at CC once a week because it's an uphill task to get her to write compo at home

Although she's still a potato at heart but she can read (reluctantly) when shove a Chinese book & write those words required in tingxie list. I don't expect her to read 四大名著, I'm contented as long as she knows enough to survive exam

[ladeline28]

Charmaine_chong:

Dear Ladeline,


Does he likes the home tutor?

I have a friend who encountered such experience but her son was P1. After getting a right home tutor, he is ok. He finds that the home tutor is funny and loves learning afterwards.

Did you scold him when he refuse to read?

May be you try to encourage him or take a book out to read if you can? Alternatively you could borrow cd that comes with book, turn it on and look at the book.

Hope it helps.

Hi Charmaine,

Thanks for your sharing.

My son's liking for the tutor actually depends on his mood and also on whether the tutor has scolded him before. He may like the tutor initially but he will change his feelings towards the tutor some time later, if he get reprimanded or when the tutor was impatient with him. Well, you can say that I have not found one whom he looks forward to having lesson with.

[ladeline28]

sleepy:

ladeline28:

Is there any mothers who have the same problem as me who can share some light on how they managed to deal with this situation?

Children naturally shun away from difficult task.

When my dd was around 5 to 6 years old - whenever I asked her to learn or write, tears would roll down her cheeks and she would chant 'I hate learning Chinese, I hate learning Chinese'. I've no choice but to spoon feed her, sit down with her to learn all the required 生字, look up dictionary to translate new words to hanyu pinyin for her

Over the years, she gained confidence and doesn't hate the subject anymore because she realised Chinese language isn't as scary or difficult as she percieved it to be. Nevertheless when asked to read a Chinese book, her default answer is 'I don't know how to read'

She doesn't have regular tuition or enrichment as I discovered she couldn't catch up in class. So I've been coaching her personally since K2. I do despatch her to creative writing at CC once a week because it's an uphill task to get her to write compo at home

Although she's still a potato at heart but she can read (reluctantly) when shove a Chinese book & write those words required in tingxie list. I don't expect her to read 四大名著, I'm contented as long as she knows enough to survive exam

Hi sleepy,

Thanks for your sharing. In fact, I did the same as you. I spoon fed him since K2. I still write the hanyu pinyin and English translation for him on his tingxie lists and textbooks. However, I felt he has relied on me too much and is thinking that it is mummy's job to do that. Sigh!

[Chenonceau]

My son’s Grandma was a great believer in assessment books. She was a Chinese Tutor after leaving MOE as a Chinese Teacher. She was my son’s Tutor up until last month. It killed my son’s interest in Chinese. Also, it was ineffective because the exams test far beyond the scope of what is taught.


I absolutely had to get my son to start reading or there is no way to do well.

However, the major focus now is to get him to start reading in a big way. I have some good initial results with audiorecordings of stories/compos. He has the text and he follows the tape alongside. He has to memorize the stories/compos in blocks of 6 lines. Then he recites to me each block of 6. He is happy with this because he can easily manage 6 lines and he will seek me out to recite them before he forgets. At the end of the whole story/compo, he can read the whole compo/story fluently. That’s what I want… and he feels good that he can do it.

In the beginning, I had to sit next to him and encourage him along… but now, he is quite independent… and he has started reading something called ma xiao tiao. We hunted high and low at Bras Basah to find a set of books about "a naughty boy who has adventures". Seriously, I can’t read Chinese so that was a shot in the dark for me… I wanted books that would engage him, and I marched into the store and asked really asked for books about "a naughty boy who has adventures".

You really should check out Tamarind’s blog for a list of books suitable for younger children. It’s a precious resource indeed. I will be getting some of her recommendations for my son.

Instead of assessment books, I now use a collection of the previous year’s test papers from various schools. You can download these from the internet. About 1.5 months before the exam, I let him do one a week so that he is used to the exam format.

[ladeline28]

pixiedust:

As for assessment books, I target the area more likely to acheive improvements in marks. Example compo and compre - very hard to gain even 1 - 2 marks even if you work through tonnes of assessments.

Hi pixiedust,

Thanks for the ideas.

I'm not sure if I got you correctly about areas which you target for improvements in marks. Do you mean the sections before compre in Paper 2?

[ladeline28]

Chenonceau:

We hunted high and low at Bras Basah to find a set of books about \"a naughty boy who has adventures\". Seriously, I can't read Chinese so that was a shot in the dark for me... I wanted books that would engage him, and I marched into the store and asked really asked for books about \"a naughty boy who has adventures\".


You really should check out Tamarind's blog for a list of books suitable for younger children. It's a precious resource indeed. I will be getting some of her recommendations for my son.

Instead of assessment books, I now use a collection of the previous year's test papers from various schools. You can download these from the internet. About 1.5 months before the exam, I let him do one a week so that he is used to the exam format.

Hi Chenonceau,

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I will try your method of using audiorecording but where do you get them? Did you get someone to do the recording of their reading for you?

Could you please recommend the books you used and mentioned here? I really need to start doing something fast.

[Chenonceau]

Hi ladeline28,


Yes... I get Grandma to record the audio and to write up the meanings of the words. Then, I sit with Little Boy and memorise together. That's as close to reading together as I can manage because I am completely illiterate in Chinese (never did Chinese in school). The first thing I wanted to do at the start of these holidays was to get rid of his Chinese phobia.

I promised him that doing Chinese with Mommy would be fun. We started the audio recordings and memorising shortly before the holidays started and he told me 2 days ago that Chinese is now way more fun than doing assessments with Grandma.

Here is how to make it fun...

(1) Sit with him and memorise together (doing it alone is hard and lonely). When he gets into the groove of things, then he can do it by himself.
(2) Demonstrate genuine interest and appreciation of some of the more interesting words and phrases
(3) Pretend that you don't get some phrases (which you know that he already grasps). I don't have to pretend because more often than not, I genuinely dunno.
(4) Break it up into easy parts at first and once he gets into the groove of things, you can lengthen each part.
(5) At the end, get him to read the whole story (keep the stories short) to you, and make a big fuss about how smart he is... and how he is able to manage Chinese so much better than you. Lay on the flattery.
(6) There is no need to get him to really recite the whole story. I am very pleased as long as he can recite each short part. Even if he forgets the next day, I don't care, because when he has the text in front of him, he can REALLY READ!! And he is proud and I am thrilled.

I think this way helped my son in speaking too because he has to articulate the words out loud to read to me. Maybe strategies need to be different when parents are not at all conversant in Chinese. The audiorecordings did help a lot as a first step to getting my boy to read.

Recommendations of Stories
My son is going onto P5 next year. I am exposing him to the best Chinese compositions from last year's PRC PSLE-equivalent cohort. The stories are short and the language is pitched at difficulty level of Sec 2 (Singapore). I don't think this is suitable for your son as yet.

I can't really help you to choose books because I have difficulty myself. But do look into Tamarind's blog for age appropriate reading material... I am assuming that you can read a little bit of Chinese. I cannot at all so I get my husband to translate. Perhaps you can ask friends etc to translate... and point you to age appropriate reading material?

I can share my recordings but unless your child is in P5 and preparing for PSLE, I fear my recordings may be too difficult. When your child gets to P5 next year then I would gladly pass you some of my recordings.

Making Recordings
With a computer and a microphone, this is easy to make, and free. If no one in your entourage can read for you, then you might wanna hire a cheap tutor to do it. The person comes just to record and explain words to your child (plus write down the meanings)... and then both of you can have fun reading and memorising till the next tuition lesson. I think this might be a more effective way of using the Tutor. Grandma was my son's tutor and this is how I am now using her.