Marymount Convent

[Tinkerbelle]

michyms:

Tinkerbelle, what do you think we can do to help our kids with oral? I have been making dd read CHinese books everyday (by rewarding her with iPad games)... but maybe i need to get her to watch chinese dramas too! That's how I picked up Chinese when I was young

Hi michyms,
Reading Chinese books with your DD every day is a good start. With more exposure, hopefully, she will develop more interest in Chinese and can recognise more Chinese characters. Reading will help her greatly as one of the components of the oral exams is reading a passage.

Make learning Chinese fun.....For example, bring her to the park/playground and describe different scenarios at the park. This will be similar to the Chinese Oral, except for oral, you are looking at a picture of a park.

For example, a boy is pushing a girl on a swing. They seem to be enjoying themselves. Some children are playing on the slide. A few children are queueing up to wait for their turns but one boy is jumping the queue. The girl in front of him looks angry. I think the boy should queue up in an orderly manner.

Get your DD familiarised with common vocab in the park, such as swing, see-saw, slide, exercise, cycling, skating etc. Some common places tested in Chinese oral for P1 are park, playground, zoo, classroom, beach.

If you are interested, you can go to Popular & flip through some P1 Chinese Oral book to get a feel of the common topics tested and the vocab used for each topic. I bought 1 set of Chinese Oral book with a CD-Rom and let DD listen to how the picture can be described and she enjoys it. The pictures are colourful and it's easy to follow. After listening to the CD a few times, she picked up on the sentence structure for each scene and is able to repeat most of it.

Yes, I find watching Mandarin dramas help too. DD2 used to hate Chinese but now, she'll watch Chinese shows and she's picking up more vocab from the shows too.

[Tinkerbelle]

cantbearit2:

Tinkerbelle:

Hi,
Yes, we are going to the fun fair this Saturday. DD1will be helping out at the fun fair and DD2 just want to meet up with her friends and play to her heart's content.

Hope to see some P1 (2012) parents bring their kids over for some fun. It's a great way to introduce the kids to their new school. Hopefully, they will associate 'fun' with their new school. :evil:

Hi Tinkerbelle,

We r gg to e fun fair too. Which stall will yur DD1 b mending? We will patronise tat stall. Hee.... :evil:

Dun forget to come up & say hello if u c me ya?!

Hi cantbearit2,
All P6 will be mending different stalls at the Fun Fair on Saturday but DD1 is not sure where she'll be posted yet. Will let you know once she hears anything. Thanks for your support. :salute:

Yup, will definitely chase after you to say hello if I spot you...keke. Hope I can still recognise you.
DD2 is so ecxited about the Fun Fair. She's already telling me which teachers she want to dunk. Then she told me : Mummy, you can dunk the Principal.\" :evil:

[Tinkerbelle]

michyms:

gorilla:

No worries michyms. Yes a good idea! I've borrowed the books from the library

but long wait list so might just get it for my girl.

Nope, she doesn't attend any chinese enrichment class but I've recently send her for this Chinese P1 Prep, a 1 to 1 session. Need to desperately bring her level up to speed.

gorilla :hi5: I am desperately trying to bring my girl's standard up to speed as well before P1, so every night she is having intensive Chinese lessons conducted by me (which means this potato mummy is studying every night to prepare lessons too)

Just for your info, for P1, the first 3 months is purely HYPY; no Chinese characters at all. If your DD's kindergarten covers HYPY, your DDs should do well for Term 1. In Term 2, still HYPY but with some exposure to very basic Chinese characters.

Oral exams will only start end of Term 2 in May so plenty of time to get your DDs ready for oral.

[gorilla]

Thanks Tinkerbelle.


The standard of Chinese in her kindy is not good but after numerous feedback, I'm seeing improvements. HYPY is taught but I guess it's not enough cos it's only 45 min daily to cover HYPY, reading, writing etc. I bought the HYPY disc and the 'singing' helps her memorise! I'm focusing more on chinese characters recognition since HYPY is only for 1 semester.

Also speaking to her more so that she'll be able to at least hold a simple conversation when she starts P1. Keeping fingers crossed!

[michyms]

Tinkerbelle:

Just for your info, for P1, the first 3 months is purely HYPY; no Chinese characters at all. If your DD's kindergarten covers HYPY, your DDs should do well for Term 1. In Term 2, still HYPY but with some exposure to very basic Chinese characters.

Oral exams will only start end of Term 2 in May so plenty of time to get your DDs ready for oral.

Thanks for the info, Tinkerbelle. I recall you mentioned that the girls will take some kind of mini test around week 7 or 8 so that teachers can \"stream\" them unto different classes for Chinese lessons? Wouldn't it be quite unfair to determine their standards based a HYPY test? :scratchhead: very unfair to kids who did not do hypy in kidney (understand some kindies do not teach hypy)....

[michyms]

Tinkerbelle:

Hi michyms,
Reading Chinese books with your DD every day is a good start. With more exposure, hopefully, she will develop more interest in Chinese and can recognise more Chinese characters. Reading will help her greatly as one of the components of the oral exams is reading a passage.

Make learning Chinese fun.....For example, bring her to the park/playground and describe different scenarios at the park. This will be similar to the Chinese Oral, except for oral, you are looking at a picture of a park.

For example, a boy is pushing a girl on a swing. They seem to be enjoying themselves. Some children are playing on the slide. A few children are queueing up to wait for their turns but one boy is jumping the queue. The girl in front of him looks angry. I think the boy should queue up in an orderly manner.

Get your DD familiarised with common vocab in the park, such as swing, see-saw, slide, exercise, cycling, skating etc. Some common places tested in Chinese oral for P1 are park, playground, zoo, classroom, beach.

If you are interested, you can go to Popular & flip through some P1 Chinese Oral book to get a feel of the common topics tested and the vocab used for each topic. I bought 1 set of Chinese Oral book with a CD-Rom and let DD listen to how the picture can be described and she enjoys it. The pictures are colourful and it's easy to follow. After listening to the CD a few times,
she picked up on the sentence structure for each scene and is able to repeat most of it.

Yes, I find watching Mandarin dramas help too. DD2 used to hate Chinese but now, she'll watch Chinese shows and she's picking up more vocab from the shows too.

Tinkerbelle, thanks, the CD sounds like a great idea! I think I am the one who needs it because as I was reading what you wrote about the playground, I was furiously thinking about what slide, see saw etc in Chinese and can't seem to recall :faint: how did I even get through my A levels chinese??? :oops:

[michyms]

gorilla:

Thanks Tinkerbelle.


The standard of Chinese in her kindy is not good but after numerous feedback, I'm seeing improvements. HYPY is taught but I guess it's not enough cos it's only 45 min daily to cover HYPY, reading, writing etc. I bought the HYPY disc and the 'singing' helps her memorise! I'm focusing more on chinese characters recognition since HYPY is only for 1 semester.

Also speaking to her more so that she'll be able to at least hold a simple conversation when she starts P1. Keeping fingers crossed!

Gorilla, same here, :celebrate: I am also focusing on her character recognition as I feel that the goal in the long run is to encourage her to be able to read Chinese independently and actually enjoy the process of reading, hopefully as much as she would like English books!

[Tinkerbelle]

gorilla:

Thanks Tinkerbelle.


The standard of Chinese in her kindy is not good but after numerous feedback, I'm seeing improvements. HYPY is taught but I guess it's not enough cos it's only 45 min daily to cover HYPY, reading, writing etc. I bought the HYPY disc and the 'singing' helps her memorise! I'm focusing more on chinese characters recognition since HYPY is only for 1 semester.

Also speaking to her more so that she'll be able to at least hold a simple conversation when she starts P1. Keeping fingers crossed!

Hi gorilla,
Yes, HYPY CD sounds great....Learning thru songs is fun too. Sounds like your DD is ready for HYPY in P1.

Great that you are exposing your DD to Chinese characters. This will help to build up the foundation for future learning. I'm sure with your dedication & efforts, your DD will find Chinese a breeze. :boogie:

[Tinkerbelle]

michyms:

Tinkerbelle:

Just for your info, for P1, the first 3 months is purely HYPY; no Chinese characters at all. If your DD's kindergarten covers HYPY, your DDs should do well for Term 1. In Term 2, still HYPY but with some exposure to very basic Chinese characters.

Oral exams will only start end of Term 2 in May so plenty of time to get your DDs ready for oral.

Thanks for the info, Tinkerbelle. I recall you mentioned that the girls will take some kind of mini test around week 7 or 8 so that teachers can \"stream\" them unto different classes for Chinese lessons? Wouldn't it be quite unfair to determine their standards based a HYPY test? :scratchhead: very unfair to kids who did not do hypy in kidney (understand some kindies do not teach hypy)....

Hi michyms,

I don't know if there'll be any changes next year but yes, the 2011 P1 gals sat for a mini streaming test around week 7 or 8 to determine which Chinese class they'll be allocated to in Term 2. For DD2's time in 2010, their batch only had the Chinese streaming test end of Term 2.

You are right, the test will be in HYPY but there will be vocab & sentence structures tested too but in HYPY. In order to do well, the child will need to be well-versed in HYPY and be able to understand the meaning of sentences.

In addition, the teachers also assess the child's oral skills during class and their apptitude for Chinese. Those who are weaker in HYPY and/or oral skills will then be allocated to a class where learning is tailored at their level. Conversely, those who excel in Chinese will be further stretched to their potential.

Yes, some kindies do not teach HYPY so these kids might be slightly disadvantaged in the first part of the year. In such cases, parents are encouraged to send their kids for some form of HYPY lessons externally or teach the kids some HYPY themselves. Does your DD's kindy teach HYPY?

[Tinkerbelle]

michyms:

Tinkerbelle, thanks, the CD sounds like a great idea! I think I am the one who needs it because as I was reading what you wrote about the playground, I was furiously thinking about what slide, see saw etc in Chinese and can't seem to recall :faint: how did I even get through my A levels chinese??? :oops:

:rotflmao: I totally understand what you mean.....I have the same problem when I guide DD1 for upper pri. Chinese oral. The pictures and vocab get harder & I don't know many terms in Chinese so I also need to 'cheat' with the CD.... :oops: