Comparing English Enrichment Programmes

[bigsnoopy]

@ Jamestancx997 OK you have pm with text.

[awfullyKS]

Hi TAS,


May I know if you are going to do a Parents workshop for TAS parents again as I missed the last one. :sad:

[GamJiongBaBa]

Hi TAS


Is it possible for you to organize another English Workshop for TAS Parents?

I understand there is one for non-TAS parent on the coming 16July, is it full? Can I(TAS parent) register?

I think last time you did organize one for TAS parent, but I did not manage to sign up my son for your English lesson due to timing clashes. Recently I just manage to sign up my son for your English lesson but you are having English Workshop for non-TAS Parents.

May I know what is the different between the workshop for TAS parent & another for non-TAS parent?

[mummy so kiasu]

Hi ccgoh,


May I know what does TAS stand for? I am looking for creative writing class for my P5 boy. Just check out Morris Allen and British council. They are quite costly and don’t know whether it is value for money.

[hquek]

hi mummy so kiasu,


TAS = the alternative story.

Their usual classes covers the whole gamut of english - grammar, vocab, compre, creative writing. I think they do (or did??) have classes that focus only on creative writing. They offer a one time free trial and an assessment so they can figure out where to place your child.

Teachers are generally young and enthusiastic locals (ie no native speakers like BC or probably MA). so far feedback is kids do enjoy attending the classes. But if you are looking for hot-timings (eg weekends), be prepared that there may be many kids in the classroom.

[ccgoh]

mummy so kiasu:

Hi ccgoh,


May I know what does TAS stand for? I am looking for creative writing class for my P5 boy. Just check out Morris Allen and British council. They are quite costly and don't know whether it is value for money.

Hi mummy so kiasu,

I find that the difference between TAS and Morris Allen and British council is British council focuses more on enrichment, Morris Allen is a bit more attuned to our education system. TAS is different in that they really break down the creative writing learning so your child will learn how to make his compo interesting by having a variety of sentence structure, use good vocabulary and build tension. Recently, they added another component which is to give the children phrases without the composition and train them how to craft a story that has not been taught before. They explained that they want to teach the children to apply what they have learnt to compos that are different. I find that their teaching is not stagnant, they keep adjusting it as the students progress and now their compres focus more on inferential questions and they teach some technique called SIF to get the children to answer more precisely.

I suggest going down to get a trial lesson to see how your child finds it. Their weekend classes are almost full already I think.

[bbsin]

Can I know if the Bt Timah Centre one is good?


Any parent’s kids are there and show results?

It seems that TAS is good and have good results on creative writing.

My kids overall English is ok, but find that she does not understand when she read a book, writing not very good too.

[quirkymum]

My kids used to be at AMK, then we switched to Bukit Timah as the timing was more suitable. Both are good. My oldest one showed a lot of improvement in his writing. He did well for his SA1. His compre is still getting about the same marks but I can see that his understanding has improved so I am ok about it. To me, English is not something that can see drastic improvement over a short period of time.


My youngest also likes to do comprehension now and can write quite ok. Teacher commented that there is room for improvement. But I can see that she is moving towards that and the teachers at TAS are dedicated. Have you tried other centres before?

[allcc6]

ccgoh:

I find that their teaching is not stagnant, they keep adjusting it as the students progress and now their compres focus more on inferential questions and they teach some technique called SIF to get the children to answer more precisely.

What does SIF refer to? How does it help in compre?

[ccgoh]

allcc6:

ccgoh:

I find that their teaching is not stagnant, they keep adjusting it as the students progress and now their compres focus more on inferential questions and they teach some technique called SIF to get the children to answer more precisely.

What does SIF refer to? How does it help in compre?

Hi allcc6,

I may not be fully accurate. However, from my understanding of what my son's teacher said, it stands for S-Specific, I-Infer, F-Fit into the question.

She said that comprehension is about precision and accuracy and many kids may get the rough idea of the answer but because their answer is not precise, they lose marks, so they use SIF to help get the children to see how their answers can be more accurate.

I will use my son's passage from last week to try to explain. There was a question that asked whether swimming was an option for the couple and why or why not. My son put down \"Swimming was not an option because Carlo was a competent swimmer but he lacked stamina...\" and he was marked partially wrong because he was not specific (the S in SIF). The teacher said he had to give the specific information. The answer was that swimming was not an option for Carlo and so the information needed to explain that was that he did not have stamina and the part about him being competent was not important.

She did say that there might be some teachers who are more lenient who would allow that but they wanted to get the children used to being specific.

As for inferring, she would get the students to imagine they are in that situation and get them to infer the answer. For example, there was a question that asked to explain in their own words what it meant to be picked off by a trigger happy soldier. She told the students to look at the key words, 'trigger' and 'happy' and from them infer that it means a soldier who likes to shoot, then to imagine they are soldiers who are trigger happy, what would that mean, what makes them different from normal soldiers who are not trigger happy. So from there, my son said he could infer that a trigger happy soldier is someone who shoots without thinking of the consequences because most soldiers would think of the consequences and that prevents them from shooting.

I hope this rambling answer helps. I may not have explained it very well, best to get input from your tas teacher.