sunflower, baong, thanks for your comments. Good to know I didn't waste bandwidth and other parents' precious time with my 2cents worth.


Ah, so the debate continues and I am back despite earlier note that I will make an exit. Debates do end, I think when \"winning\" is not important . Nevertheless, this is definitely my last say on this topic :

Notice the links quoted in 百度 -> 选高中课本, 北京语文教材. Not 小学. I maintain my opinion there are too many sexual connotations in some of the novels, to be suitable readings for upper primary children. Descriptions of fascination with female 胸部, 陆不群 自宫, then his wife noticed he lost facial hairs and their lack of 房事, 尹志平 touching 小龙女 all over the body and eventually 宽衣解带......no matter how small part in the novels, to me, is not suitable reading for children in primary school.

This is not a debate about which source (HK TV, channel 8, English romance.etc etc) has more sexual connotations. I will not introduced 金庸 to my primary school kid. I will also not introduce English romance (trashy?) novels ala Mills&Boon to my primary school kid. Reading the old thread on English books recommendation, I don't think other Singapore parents are ? So this is totally out of context comparison. There are better more suitable English books for this age group and I am sure we can find more suitable good Chinese books for them too.

Would I say it is WRONG to introduce 金庸 to the children then ? Not if you are aware of the contents and judged that the benefits outweigh the controversies. However, as parent to parent, I would warn against introducing these books to your primary school kids if you have not read them yourself or at least be aware of the controversy behind some of the novels (intent of my original post). That said, I don't think I have, at any point, misinterpreted or condemned 金庸 novels. To me, they are written and hence more suitable for adults.

Mastering Chinese language in our enviornment is challenging for most of our children. As long as we as parents, do not give up, do not belittle them (eg. reading books too easy for their age) and try within our means to support them, I believe they will achieve their potentials.

By the way, my child doesn't watch Disney anymore but surely he won't be reading 金庸 anytime soon too !

My original intent is to add some value to this discussion with my personal opinions (as stated). I am a fan of 金庸 and have read his books many times over the years. I thought it will be useful to share a different view, perhaps especially so for those who have not read 金庸 before.


I do not wish to engage in any verbal debate so I will take an exit here.

Edited to add back original post :


My personal opinion, most of 金庸 novel has many sexual conotations with descriptions of female body parts and rape especially 神雕侠侣 and 鹿鼎记. In 射雕英雄传, there are parts about 欧杨锋 fantasising about 黄容 and don’t mind risking injuries to touch her body (but of course she was wearing 软猬甲). Then 笑傲江湖, there’s castration and men exhibiting feminine behaviour. I personally won’t let my son read 金庸 at age 10-12.

To read chinese chapter books, the child must have a reasonable command of chinese. I find that my son will not read them unless I act as a walking dictionary and sits next to him to translate and explain any words he doesn’t know.

I wonder how many of our current P4-P6 can read 亦舒 or 卫斯理 ? Definitely those are out of my son’s capability.

So far the following were success hits with my son : 闹闹 (as mentioned earlier), 马小跳系列, storybooks by 梁红缨; comics : 漫画校本, 我们这一班, 小白龙.

I see. It is begining to make sense.


I don't mind letting my child go through SwimSafer programme but it is the hassle of finding the 'right' swim coach and date/time etc. I will look out for more info in May and June.

Appreciate your help and response so far. :celebrate:

bubblesnsplashes


Thanks ! I was waiting for your feedback. So parents can register children for the Swimsafer test from July 2010 at any SSC swimming pool ? There is also no need for coversion for those holding on to existing NASSA certificates ?

Blobbi!!!


DS received the Hugo Cabret book last Christmas. He enjoyed it. He says the book is like a movie. I haven’t read it myself though.

bubblesnsplashes


I think they will annouce it later but I am also interested to know the registration process for SwimSafer test not through coach, but ourselves ie. the parents/child. If this is mentioned in your upcoming class, please update us.

peterch

I think what bubblesnsplashes meant is not that your children need life jackets to swim but that there are certain components of the swim tests where the child is expected to demonstrate skills using aids. I guess what he meant was, without a swim coach, prior to the test your children can’t practise using these aids in a public swimming pool.

This is the information I found on internet. I quote :


" …Students midway through Learn-To-Swim will have to take a proficiency test before being allocated to a stage under SwimSafer. Those awarded bronze or silver under NASSA will be channelled to silver or gold, the final two stages of SwimSafer respectively…"

If it is written in the report card, email or write a note in your child's school diary to request the FT (form teacher) to contact you. Then, you can clarify with the FT and also be 100% sure you getting the right information.


As far as I know, bridging,core,enrichment are for the Chinese Modular System introduced in year 2007. The detailed and useful explainations are here :
http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/syllabuses/languages-and-literature/files/chinese-primary-2007.pdf

bridging 导入
core 核心
enrichment 深广

hdbtaitai8 (interesting nick! :D)


Perhaps there's no reply yet due to some missing information.

This is for Mother Tongue Chinese, right ?
I guess your child must be in P1 this year.

Took me a while to figure out the bridging,core,enrichement stuff too but I'll update with what I know upon your reply.