All About English Composition

[Happy Mama]

csc:

[quote]Oh yes, I love Alfred Hitchcock, Secret Seven, Famous Five and Nancy Drew's series... my all time favourite. I wonder if they do sell Alfred Hitchcock's books, as I don't seem to recall seeing them at the bookstores.

You are right, Happy Mama...I have never seen them around too. My children only get to read my own old copies which I intend to pass to my grandchildren, if any Just joking lah.[/quote]Hey csc, that's a good idea... It can be some kind of family heirloom.. it's a treasure and very precious, though not in the monetary form.

I should have kept mine too. :stupid:

[tamarind]

sleepy:

TAS asked students to memorise the essay. I don't see any value add in this case. I have tonnes of model essays & award winning books at home. Good essays with personifications, tension building, etc. If I want my dd to learn creative writing through memorising essays, I do not need to send her to classes, right? I expect more than this from TAS.

I am surprised that TAS does this.

When I went to work in China last year, I sent my girl to a creative writing class taught by native speakers. No memorizing of compositions at all. The teacher taught very useful techniques and I am happy to read the essays written by my girl. But then my girl has been reading many wonderful children's classics, so writing is very easy for her. If a child has not been reading extensively, then no creative writing class can help.

I always think that native speakers know the proper way to teach English.

[tamarind]

csc:

If there is a need to model, make sure you model the masters of writing.

And write NATURALLY! :lol:

(reading and writing happen to be my fav topics :))

I absolutely agree.

Those kids who read only Beast Quest or Rainbow Fairy books will not be able to write well.

I know there are many fans of Enid Blyton books, but personally I feel that her style and stories are too monotonous. I don't think that kids will learn much even if they read all her books.

The masters of writing are E.B. White, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, C.S. Lewis, E. Nesbit, etc. Roald Dahl is good but I don't advise kids to read all his books. Some books, like George's Marvelous Medicine, may cause your kids to do very mischievous things.

[Herbie]

Memorising good phrases is essential if the child does not know how to ‘create’ them initially as they get the ‘hang’ of it, i believe they can create yr own creative phrases.


But certainly not memorising the entire essay… memorising part of the compo is also ok for me.

My ds a avid reader and he reads anthony horowitz book’s and many other books too… his vocab is good but his compo writing is only average… and he does not enjoy writing comp…

[metz]

Herbie:

Memorising good phrases is essential if the child does not know how to 'create' them initially as they get the 'hang' of it, i believe they can create yr own creative phrases.


But certainly not memorising the entire essay... memorising part of the compo is also ok for me.

My ds a avid reader and he reads anthony horowitz book's and many other books too.. his vocab is good but his compo writing is only average... and he does not enjoy writing comp...

Second that wholeheartedly! My son can write but he doesn't seem to enjoy it. When his P1 teacher first started him on journal writing last year, he would write at least 2 pages. But soon, it dwindled to just 3 sentences ... Here's something he wrote last June.

The sensors focused. As I snuck inside the base, other machinery focused on me. Behind the reflective material was Alexander. I have known him for many years and we have shared perilous secrets. We called base. Nearly ready. 5.4.3.2.1. I took out EXPLOSION 1 BASE 22 and stuffed it inside a few sensors. We made it out just in time and got inside the machine and flew away seconds before the explosion.

I'm hoping there are some classes that will inspire him to enjoy writing.

[Chenonceau]

chamonix:

Herbie:

Memorising good phrases is essential if the child does not know how to 'create' them initially as they get the 'hang' of it, i believe they can create yr own creative phrases.


But certainly not memorising the entire essay... memorising part of the compo is also ok for me.

My ds a avid reader and he reads anthony horowitz book's and many other books too.. his vocab is good but his compo writing is only average... and he does not enjoy writing comp...

Second that wholeheartedly! My son can write but he doesn't seem to enjoy it. When his P1 teacher first started him on journal writing last year, he would write at least 2 pages. But soon, it dwindled to just 3 sentences ... Here's something he wrote last June.

The sensors focused. As I snuck inside the base, other machinery focused on me. Behind the reflective material was Alexander. I have known him for many years and we have shared perilous secrets. We called base. Nearly ready. 5.4.3.2.1. I took out EXPLOSION 1 BASE 22 and stuffed it inside a few sensors. We made it out just in time and got inside the machine and flew away seconds before the explosion.

I'm hoping there are some classes that will inspire him to enjoy writing.

Chamonix, if he can write, then it is even easier to make him like. It boils down to motivation strategies... not compo training. You, as the parent, would be more effective to make him LIKE than a compo class...

May I know how you respond to his completed compositions? And what do you do when he is in the process of writing? You can PM me if you want. I'll see if I can troubleshoot your motivation style and environment.

That is... if you wanna.

[metz]

Chenonceau:

Chamonix, if he can write, then it is even easier to make him like. It boils down to motivation strategies... not compo training. You, as the parent, would be more effective to make him LIKE than a compo class...


May I know how you respond to his completed compositions? And what do you do when he is in the process of writing? You can PM me if you want. I'll see if I can troubleshoot your motivation style and environment.

That is... if you wanna.

Of course, I'd love to have your comments and advice! I have been following your posts silently and even showed my son Little Boy's blog. He was rather quiet after reading his posts. I believe he was digesting Little Boy's style of writing quietly.

Thanks for offering. I'll drop you a message soon.
:thankyou:

[jasmineong]

chamonix:

sleepy:

[quote=\"24hr-mum\"]oh u mean the TAS not effective? the first time i heard not positive feedback. can tell me how tas teach compo, sleepy?

wat abt the compre?

It's precisely because of the positive feedback on KSP that I decided to give TAS a try. But I think too much hype la, like learning lab :roll:

TAS asked students to memorise the essay. I don't see any value add in this case. I have tonnes of model essays & award winning books at home. Good essays with personifications, tension building, etc. If I want my dd to learn creative writing through memorising essays, I do not need to send her to classes, right? I expect more than this from TAS.

And I noticed TAS took a long time to cover one theme. Sometimes as long as 4 to 5 weeks on one theme, basically memorise over & over again. I'm not impressed la.

Compre is not satisfactory either. Usually only the first few questions were covered in class, the rest as homework. I am fine with homework if they went through the compre thoroughly and were taught the technique to tackle compre questions. I don't see that le. End up I need to sit with my dd to coach her how to answer every single question. Frankly speaking, if I have to go through every question with her, how is it different from asking her to do assessment books at home? I also sit with her.

TAS teachers are passionate about teaching. This I agreed. It is a valuable attribute so I think TAS did a great job in hiring teachers with right attitude.

Just sharing my opinion la. TAS supporters please don't hammer me

Hi sleepy,

Thanks for your honest sharing. I am surprised to hear that the compre was not completed during class. The samples I saw were marked and corrections made, so I pressumed it was all done within the lessons. If that's not the case, then the lessons may not serve much purpose.

I understand the normal English program includes Grammar, Comprehension, Vocabulary and Creative Writing. How about the Creative Writing course that focuses on writing alone? Any idea if writing is taught the same way as the normal English program?[/quote]Hi Sleepy,

Haha, I like and support TAS but no one will hatam you lah, you are just being honest and I believe no one centre can meet the needs of every child.

Maybe I could share a bit about how my child has been learning. He has to memorise key parts of the compo but not the whole compo but for lower primary, if I am not wrong it is the whole compo. For P3 and above, it is usually important parts. The memorisation helps because he does not have that rich vocabulary to write well so now when he writes, I notice his vocabulary is much better.

But above the memory work, what I like is the teaching of how to use different ways to write a sentence, the teaching of personification and the teaching of how to build tension. My son's compo has improved a lot in his content because of this. His teacher also recently commented that she can see a lot of improvement in his composition.

For compre, my son comes back with work always marked and done in class. There are only a few times where there are 3-4 questions not done, they have been gone through already in class but he needs to finish it for homework.

The way of teaching compre at TAS is also very interesting. My son tld me they are supposed to read the qns first and think of possible answs when they read so when they read the passage they have some idea of what to look out for and also it sharpens their inferring skills. He likes the teacher going thru the compre as she will keep asking inferring qns to make them think.

Hi Chamonix,

I think the creative writing class alone does creative writing, should be taught in same way as normal class just no grammar, compre and all.

Your son seems to write very well from what you have shown, does he still need creative writing classes?

[atutor2001]

chamonix:

The sensors focused. As I snuck inside the base, other machinery focused on me. Behind the reflective material was Alexander. I have known him for many years and we have shared perilous secrets. We called base. Nearly ready. 5.4.3.2.1. I took out EXPLOSION 1 BASE 22 and stuffed it inside a few sensors. We made it out just in time and got inside the machine and flew away seconds before the explosion.

Wow! This is very good work - way beyond pr level.

[pixiedust]

Herbie, I 100% agree with you. My ds reads Roald Dahl, Andrew Noriss and Anthony Horowitz is the latest craze. I dare say he doesn't read trash but maybe he's not matured enough yet to intelligently translate what he reads to writing. True, he enjoys reading much much more than writing.


To me, memorising phrases or parts of compo is a quick and dirty way, and okay for me. Some people like to eat durians, some people don't so I am not concerned ds does not enjoy writing if he can write well enough to get 30-35/40 for compo.

chamonix, I can't write like your ds ! The paragraph you quoted is good and gripping ! wow !

Btw, TAS is not the only place that teaches creative writing via memorising ?

Regarding reading widely and writing well - I believe that is no argument about that e as reading widely is the only way to have a good grasp of the language. However, there are children who read widely but the writing skill is not emerging yet (hopefully it will later on but not quite yet). Due to our academic system, there is the pressure that they write and this is where all the writing classes and memorising of phrases all come in. I mean, we can allow/get the child to read and read (ok, not trash) but the writing is mediocre (not failing but average), then what ?