Maris Stella High
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I do wonder about the way the school teaches chinese and english. i am not sure whether it is pertaining to just maris stella. maybe all MOE schools are the same.
my son is in P1. there is english spelling nearly every week, whereas there is less frequent tingxie. each english spelling has only 5 words. each tingxie has 10 words/terms/sentences, where each term/sentence comprising multiple words is counted as 1. given the importance of constant exposure to learn a language, i wonder why tingxie is not structured with less words but tested more often, just like the way english spelling is done.
in addition, his next week’s english spelling has simple words like "see". on the other hand, his chinese tingxie is full sentences made up of complicated words with as many as 10 strokes in a word. given that the boys are learning both spelling and tingxie at the same time, it is inevitable that they will compare and find chinese a lot more difficult, and hence lose interest in it.
for SA1 computation, the english teacher will choose the best 4 scores of 6 spellings, whereas each single tingxie counts towards the SA1 point. again, why the different treatment in the school?
i understand the need for the teacher to ramp up chinese. yet the first 3 months have been ‘wasted’ just teaching HYPY with rarely any exposure to chinese characters. i pity the chinese teachers who painstakingly taught our sons chinese characters in kindergarten, because by march in P1, most of them will have been forgotten.
guess that is where tuition fills the gap… -
Need_Help_Mummy:
I do wonder about the way the school teaches chinese and english. i am not sure whether it is pertaining to just maris stella. maybe all MOE schools are the same.
my son is in P1. there is english spelling nearly every week, whereas there is less frequent tingxie. each english spelling has only 5 words. each tingxie has 10 words/terms/sentences, where each term/sentence comprising multiple words is counted as 1. given the importance of constant exposure to learn a language, i wonder why tingxie is not structured with less words but tested more often, just like the way english spelling is done.
in addition, his next week's english spelling has simple words like \"see\". on the other hand, his chinese tingxie is full sentences made up of complicated words with as many as 10 strokes in a word. given that the boys are learning both spelling and tingxie at the same time, it is inevitable that they will compare and find chinese a lot more difficult, and hence lose interest in it.
for SA1 computation, the english teacher will choose the best 4 scores of 6 spellings, whereas each single tingxie counts towards the SA1 point. again, why the different treatment in the school?
i understand the need for the teacher to ramp up chinese. yet the first 3 months have been 'wasted' just teaching HYPY with rarely any exposure to chinese characters. i pity the chinese teachers who painstakingly taught our sons chinese characters in kindergarten, because by march in P1, most of them will have been forgotten.
guess that is where tuition fills the gap....
Hi, actually there is both spelling & tingxie each week. U can look up his worksheet again.
Spelling (5 words each week, total 7 worksheet = 7*10 = 70words)
Tingxie (10 words each week, total 7 worksheet = 7*10 = 70words sentence)
U can also lookup to the timetable worksheet that is given by the teacher on the 1st few days of school on the schedule for both spelling & tingxie. Based on the schedule u will see overall both spelling & tingxie frequency are quite even. Just that spelling they have split into 5 words each week whereas tingxie is 10 words each week.
Sorry is your DS in p1 this year? i dont remember my son learning \"see\" for his spelling next week. -
Zoji:
yes, my son is P1 this year. this week's spelling has \"dancing, riding, imaginary, slippery, home\". next week's spelling has \"following, see, there, swimming, after\".Need_Help_Mummy:
I do wonder about the way the school teaches chinese and english. i am not sure whether it is pertaining to just maris stella. maybe all MOE schools are the same.
my son is in P1. there is english spelling nearly every week, whereas there is less frequent tingxie. each english spelling has only 5 words. each tingxie has 10 words/terms/sentences, where each term/sentence comprising multiple words is counted as 1. given the importance of constant exposure to learn a language, i wonder why tingxie is not structured with less words but tested more often, just like the way english spelling is done.
in addition, his next week's english spelling has simple words like \"see\". on the other hand, his chinese tingxie is full sentences made up of complicated words with as many as 10 strokes in a word. given that the boys are learning both spelling and tingxie at the same time, it is inevitable that they will compare and find chinese a lot more difficult, and hence lose interest in it.
for SA1 computation, the english teacher will choose the best 4 scores of 6 spellings, whereas each single tingxie counts towards the SA1 point. again, why the different treatment in the school?
i understand the need for the teacher to ramp up chinese. yet the first 3 months have been 'wasted' just teaching HYPY with rarely any exposure to chinese characters. i pity the chinese teachers who painstakingly taught our sons chinese characters in kindergarten, because by march in P1, most of them will have been forgotten.
guess that is where tuition fills the gap....
Hi, actually there is both spelling & tingxie each week. U can look up his worksheet again.
Spelling (5 words each week, total 7 worksheet = 7*10 = 70words)
Tingxie (10 words each week, total 7 worksheet = 7*10 = 70words sentence)
U can also lookup to the timetable worksheet that is given by the teacher on the 1st few days of school on the schedule for both spelling & tingxie. Based on the schedule u will see overall both spelling & tingxie frequency are quite even. Just that spelling they have split into 5 words each week whereas tingxie is 10 words each week.
Sorry is your DS in p1 this year? i dont remember my son learning \"see\" for his spelling next week.
though english spelling has 7 sheets. each sheet has 2 sets of spelling, which are tested in 2 different weeks. so in total, there are 14 spellings. the tingxie is 7, as you said. -
Need_Help_Mummy:
yes, my son is P1 this year. this week's spelling has \"dancing, riding, imaginary, slippery, home\". next week's spelling has \"following, see, there, swimming, after\".Zoji:
[quote=\"Need_Help_Mummy\"]I do wonder about the way the school teaches chinese and english. i am not sure whether it is pertaining to just maris stella. maybe all MOE schools are the same.
my son is in P1. there is english spelling nearly every week, whereas there is less frequent tingxie. each english spelling has only 5 words. each tingxie has 10 words/terms/sentences, where each term/sentence comprising multiple words is counted as 1. given the importance of constant exposure to learn a language, i wonder why tingxie is not structured with less words but tested more often, just like the way english spelling is done.
in addition, his next week's english spelling has simple words like \"see\". on the other hand, his chinese tingxie is full sentences made up of complicated words with as many as 10 strokes in a word. given that the boys are learning both spelling and tingxie at the same time, it is inevitable that they will compare and find chinese a lot more difficult, and hence lose interest in it.
for SA1 computation, the english teacher will choose the best 4 scores of 6 spellings, whereas each single tingxie counts towards the SA1 point. again, why the different treatment in the school?
i understand the need for the teacher to ramp up chinese. yet the first 3 months have been 'wasted' just teaching HYPY with rarely any exposure to chinese characters. i pity the chinese teachers who painstakingly taught our sons chinese characters in kindergarten, because by march in P1, most of them will have been forgotten.
guess that is where tuition fills the gap....
Hi, actually there is both spelling & tingxie each week. U can look up his worksheet again.
Spelling (5 words each week, total 7 worksheet = 7*10 = 70words)
Tingxie (10 words each week, total 7 worksheet = 7*10 = 70words sentence)
U can also lookup to the timetable worksheet that is given by the teacher on the 1st few days of school on the schedule for both spelling & tingxie. Based on the schedule u will see overall both spelling & tingxie frequency are quite even. Just that spelling they have split into 5 words each week whereas tingxie is 10 words each week.
Sorry is your DS in p1 this year? i dont remember my son learning \"see\" for his spelling next week.
though english spelling has 7 sheets. each sheet has 2 sets of spelling, which are tested in 2 different weeks. so in total, there are 14 spellings. the tingxie is 7, as you said.[/quote]
Hi, thanks
To me its still an total of even 70 words for both spelling & tingxie
probably the teachers try to input some simple words on and off in order not to kill the interest of the kids.
mayb we should montior and see how after the school holidays... -
I find mshs does have a good system of teaching Chinese. Ds doesn't go to any tuition or enrichment, has no inkling what is hypy before pri one because his kindy doesn't teach it and I didn't let him go to any Chinese prep class. Before primary one, he is also a kandang, doesnt speak much chinese. But now, he is reading short stories with hypy and he converse rather fluently in Chinese at home with me, albeit with a lot of reminders. And his results are satisfactory by my standards.
I spend 30min to 1 hour coaching him everyday in all subjects. So maybe about twenty min on chinese. We rely heavily on all the school/ recommended resources like 课本，字卡， 好朋友，亲子活动 and xuele. I like it that all test content and format is given clearly, so I can help him prepare. I stick very closely to the format like 辨字测验， 短文填空，etc to prepare each tests. So far he is doing well for tests. some careless mistakes when it comes to hypy 声调, but otherwise he understands what is going on.
Ds also learnt very difficult Chinese in k2 like 弟子规，听写 words like 水蒸气，过滤.... But all give back to teacher le. Here in pri one, I find whatever new characters he learnt is reinforced all round in the books, flash cards, xuele, 好朋友 (I read this newsletter with him cover to cover every week). So the words stays with him and he uses them in daily conversation. And these easier words build up his confidence.
I think the teachers really work hard with the students, so I really commend their effort. Btw ds is in 1I. Aside from the usual chops and stickers for encouragement, I heard from ds that they have a group point systems whereby each group accumulate points for answering qns in class and they earn presents like chocolate and sweets. Sound like hogwarts
I don't mean any offense to anyone here. I just feel that mshs does have a system and we can try to work with it and also not stress our kids. Even for ds who doesn't have tuitions, his daily curriculum is grueling as compared to my time. He studies the whole morning, reach home about two plus to three, bathes and lunch. Then does his school homework. After that he has sometime for fun. After dinner when we r home, he has to study with me again. So on days when he is tired, I just read him stories and he just listens or I let him play xuele. -
wow interesting reading one another comments. I feel much "better" after hearing from some of the mummires here!
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The cl system in the school (or my ds’ class) is very structured. I know what is happening in the class. Ds is coping well in chinese also because of the dedication of the cl teacher. Sadly, I can’t say the same for the el / ma teacher.
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ptr:
same class as my ds... so far im also ok wif ds progress thou he can do better and make lesser careless mistakeI find mshs does have a good system of teaching Chinese. Ds doesn't go to any tuition or enrichment, has no inkling what is hypy before pri one because his kindy doesn't teach it and I didn't let him go to any Chinese prep class. Before primary one, he is also a kandang, doesnt speak much chinese. But now, he is reading short stories with hypy and he converse rather fluently in Chinese at home with me, albeit with a lot of reminders. And his results are satisfactory by my standards.
I spend 30min to 1 hour coaching him everyday in all subjects. So maybe about twenty min on chinese. We rely heavily on all the school/ recommended resources like 课本，字卡， 好朋友，亲子活动 and xuele. I like it that all test content and format is given clearly, so I can help him prepare. I stick very closely to the format like 辨字测验， 短文填空，etc to prepare each tests. So far he is doing well for tests. some careless mistakes when it comes to hypy 声调, but otherwise he understands what is going on.
Ds also learnt very difficult Chinese in k2 like 弟子规，听写 words like 水蒸气，过滤.... But all give back to teacher le. Here in pri one, I find whatever new characters he learnt is reinforced all round in the books, flash cards, xuele, 好朋友 (I read this newsletter with him cover to cover every week). So the words stays with him and he uses them in daily conversation. And these easier words build up his confidence.
I think the teachers really work hard with the students, so I really commend their effort. Btw ds is in 1I. Aside from the usual chops and stickers for encouragement, I heard from ds that they have a group point systems whereby each group accumulate points for answering qns in class and they earn presents like chocolate and sweets. Sound like hogwarts
I don't mean any offense to anyone here. I just feel that mshs does have a system and we can try to work with it and also not stress our kids. Even for ds who doesn't have tuitions, his daily curriculum is grueling as compared to my time. He studies the whole morning, reach home about two plus to three, bathes and lunch. Then does his school homework. After that he has sometime for fun. After dinner when we r home, he has to study with me again. So on days when he is tired, I just read him stories and he just listens or I let him play xuele.
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anyone of ur ds is taking the schoolbus?
ds is currently taking the mid-size schoolbus to school. recently ds is being instructed to sit with 2 other boys together in the 2 seaters. anyone know if that is ok or against the law? they are already not wearing any seat belt and now need to squeeze together…thanks -
My son is currently in P6 preparing for mid year exam now. I must say that I am very disappointed with the preparation the P6 students are receiving.
I have an elder son who was previously with Nanyang Primary. The quality and quantity of work sheets given by the 2 schools are quite different. For Math, MSHS worksheets were mainly from the practice workbook and some MSHS past papers, wherelse NYPS had a lot more in-depth challenging questions on top of the past yrs papers and workbook. My son’s Math tuition teacher who has students in St Andrew commented that MSHS’s Math homework are very much lesser as compared to other schools. Mothers of past MSHS P6 boys also complained to her that MSHS gave out little homework.
At the start of the year, son told me that his English teacher said she will not be giving out a lot of homework to them this year so as not to stress them out. Now that we are mid year through, i realised the teacher kept to her word, OMG. If the school dont prepare them well this last P6 year, then when?
Since there is the P1 registration coming along shortly, I thought I’d just share with parents that it might not be worth it to push too hard to come to MSHS.
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