Primary ONE English Assignment

[SAHM_TAN]

I’m not notti enough to know what’s LJ

[oxyleo]

limlim - I’ve cast my vote. And thanks for organizing this poll. The info shared also helps us understand what’s going on in schools other than those attended by our own kids. Most useful.

[laughingcat]

Hi Buds! Thank you for your earlier sharing. I followed your template and get my DS1 to share on his learning journey experiences. I was so delighted as he did it all on his own. His spellings are perfect and only 1 grammar mistake. But still I am proud of him. He was like \"Mummy, are you testing me?\" :evil:


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Hi limlim,

thank you for organizing this poll. If not for this thread, I will not know where is P1 standard. Also I learned alot from this thread from the experts. :please: Hope to see more of such thread.

[SAHM_TAN]

limlim,


There’s a need for a child to get use to Eng if from a primary Mandarin speaking environment.

We speak Mandarin at home too, as a result it takes dd1 some time to get use to kindy and primary school. Sometimes she will not fully understand the instruction. It’s getting better and it does not stop her from taking a great interest in science. Unfortunate my Chinese std not good enough to explain science facts in Mandarin but she still like to read science related books in Eng.

I still speak Mandarin at home becos I think Eng is a more attractive Lang and there’s no need for me to encourage it at home. I know according to the linguist, there’s no difference in difficulty level among the languages, it’s the exposure during childhood. BUT I’ve been speaking Mandarin to bb and though she does not speak yet, the words sound she made are "yes", "no" and "this", she’s not in playgroup yet hor.

[Imami]

SAHM_TAN:

limlim,


There's a need for a child to get use to Eng if from a primary Mandarin speaking environment.

We speak Mandarin at home too, as a result it takes dd1 some time to get use to kindy and primary school. Sometimes she will not fully understand the instruction. It's getting better and it does not stop her from taking a great interest in science. Unfortunate my Chinese std not good enough to explain science facts in Mandarin but she still like to read science related books in Eng.

I still speak Mandarin at home becos I think Eng is a more attractive Lang and there's no need for me to encourage it at home. I know according to the linguist, there's no difference in difficulty level among the languages, it's the exposure during childhood. BUT I've been speaking Mandarin to bb and though she does not speak yet, the words sound she made are \"yes\", \"no\" and \"this\", she's not in playgroup yet hor.

I kind of agree that it's the exposure that counts but there is still a little part of me which feels that Chinese is a harder language to master. My child was consistently spoken to in Mandarin from zero to two years old. He could converse in Mandarin effortlessly and his pronunciation could put some Singaporean Chinese adults to shame. Other than having me speaking to him in proper Mandarin (Chinese is my stronger spoken language, as compared to English), it helped a lot that he has many China teachers around him in the cc.

At around two years old, due to his keen interest in prints, I decided to put him on phonics enrichment classes. During the first month, the teacher (an English lady) commented that my child could not understand simple instruction and could not respond appropriately. She thought my child had some sort of speech delay problem but it could not be the case since my child spoke at twelve months’ old and his diction was always clear (acquaintances could comprehend his speech as early as he was fifteen months’ old). I believed it was because of the lack of exposure in English that caused my child to be non-responsive. So I decided to switch from 100% Mandarin to 50% English and 50% Mandarin just to brush up his English up a little. No other changes took place.

Fast forward to present, my child is effectively bilingual but it is obvious that he is stronger in spoken English. His Mandarin vocab is small compared to his English so he speaks in very simple and short sentences. I am now trying to speak in 100% Mandarin to him but unfortunately, I do not know all the proper Chinese terms to certain words all the time. It does not help that he is asking/discussing all the “technical” things like excavators, fire hydrants, colossus, gladiator…

Is there some kind of iphone/ipad application that does translation?

But whichever the language, to me
-\tit is important to learn and use it right.
-\tSpeaking singlish is ok in some social setting or among close friends/colleagues/family but proper English is a needed in classes
-\tHow one speaks has an impact on how one writes so it is very important to start right by speaking right.

[Busymom]

Chenonceau:

Poll results are interesting...


18% think the assignment is within the capability of P1 kids.

82% think the assignment can either not be done... or can be done ONLY with appropriate enrichment/parent teaching prior to Primary 1.

Chen

There is a flaw in your conclusion, hope you don't mind me pointing out since ts didn't.

To know what the voters of this poll think in terms of whether this test can be done with or without external help, you can only compare 1 and 2. This is because voters are allowed to choose more than 1 option in the poll. Therefore, one can actually choose 2) No and either 3) or 5) which is yes, with help from tuition and parents. That is double counting already for a one person vote.

[Funz]

Actually come to think of it, I was in pretty much the same position as limlim over DS’s chinese assignment for the school holidays. DS said he has to make a chinese storybook. Asked him on what topic, he said dunno, only know that he has to make one in A4 size, must illustrate and colour.


Naturally, same reaction, will a P1 kid be able to do that on his own? No topic given and to be written in Chinese to boot. It was only much later that I found this memo, written all in Chinese, on this assignment. Between my 1/2 past 6 and DH’s rusty command of the language, we figured out what was expected. But still we could not piece together a story in Chinese. So in the end, DS wrote the whole story in English and we plug it into a translator. All 3 of use learned some new Chinese terms. Correct or not, it is anybody’s guess.

I am still of the mind that, that assignment was too tough for a P1 kid since they were doing only HYPY for the better part of the 1st semester. But a check with other parents, showed that others felt that it was well within their kids’ ability. That got me wondering if DS is really lagging where Chinese is concerned. But his results tells me otherwise. So since he is only in P1, we shall not panic.

[Busymom]

Funz:

Actually come to think of it, I was in pretty much the same position as limlim over DS's chinese assignment for the school holidays. DS said he has to make a chinese storybook. Asked him on what topic, he said dunno, only know that he has to make one in A4 size, must illustrate and colour.


Naturally, same reaction, will a P1 kid be able to do that on his own? No topic given and to be written in Chinese to boot. It was only much later that I found this memo, written all in Chinese, on this assignment. Between my 1/2 past 6 and DH's rusty command of the language, we figured out what was expected. But still we could not piece together a story in Chinese. So in the end, DS wrote the whole story in English and we plug it into a translator. All 3 of use learned some new Chinese terms. Correct or not, it is anybody's guess.

I am still of the mind that, that assignment was too tough for a P1 kid since they were doing only HYPY for the better part of the 1st semester. But a check with other parents, showed that others felt that it was well within their kids' ability. That got me wondering if DS is really lagging where Chinese is concerned. But his results tells me otherwise. So since he is only in P1, we shall not panic.

Funz, I am with you on this one that such an assignment is too tough for P1 kids for the Chinese subject. Chinese is different from English. To write in Chinese, you really need to know how to write that word. Not the same for English. While P1 kids are taught to use Chinese dictionary, I doubt they could really effectively check the correct word from a dictionary when there are so many similar-sound words and almost similar-looking words in Chinese.

Plus, the focus of Chinese lessons in 1H of P1 is indeed on HYPY. I remember my DD's tingxie back then was all in HYPY only... although I find it harder for her to get perfect score actually... LOL.

[Chenonceau]

Busymom:

Chenonceau:

Poll results are interesting...


18% think the assignment is within the capability of P1 kids.

82% think the assignment can either not be done... or can be done ONLY with appropriate enrichment/parent teaching prior to Primary 1.

Chen

There is a flaw in your conclusion, hope you don't mind me pointing out since ts didn't.

To know what the voters of this poll think in terms of whether this test can be done with or without external help, you can only compare 1 and 2. This is because voters are allowed to choose more than 1 option in the poll. Therefore, one can actually choose 2) No and either 3) or 5) which is yes, with help from tuition and parents. That is double counting already for a one person vote.

We can adjust for it in broad strokes...

18:41

Latest figures...
16:42

[Chenonceau]

Busymom:

Funz, I am with you on this one that such an assignment is too tough for P1 kids for the Chinese subject. Chinese is different from English. To write in Chinese, you really need to know how to write that word. Not the same for English. While P1 kids are taught to use Chinese dictionary, I doubt they could really effectively check the correct word from a dictionary when there are so many similar-sound words and almost similar-looking words in Chinese.

Plus, the focus of Chinese lessons in 1H of P1 is indeed on HYPY. I remember my DD's tingxie back then was all in HYPY only... although I find it harder for her to get perfect score actually... LOL.

That's because your kids (and mine) are Potato Kids. There are rice kids that face the opposite situation.