The ten steps to success in PSLE Chinese 2017.
Step 1, Know thy enemies, understand oneself and the battle is half won
A) Do you know when the PSLE is going to happen?
Here is the document from SEAB MOE Singapore (dated 7 Dec 2016).
From the document, your child needs to be prepared for oral by August, Listening comprehension and all written papers, that is composition and paper 2 by September. So from now to September is about 9 months or about 270 days.
B) The next thing about the exam is that you need to know how much your child should know in order to be successful.
The first things your child have should be a good foundation and that includes at least 3 things:
Firstly, your child should have a good understanding of all the words as taught in the primary 4 to 6 textbooks. And your child should be able to use those words to form simple sentences correctly.
By the way, your child need to roughly know the workload which is about 400 words or 1000 words.
Most children will see the above number and felt its impossible. well lets be proactive, and assume your child want to know all of them in 4 months. Your child could study 1000/4/30=8.3 words every day for the 4 months.
So by studying 8 words every day, your child will revised 1000 words in 4 months. That looks more workable than studying 1000 words in 4 months.
Yes a lot of children do not know the tactics to get what they want. by simply divide the work loan into smaller workable pieces will help your child do a lot in a short time.
And a lot of parents said, "my child will forget what they learnt fast." well that's why this process should be revised constantly.
Secondly, your child should be able to write grammatically correct Chinese sentences with minimum spelling errors.
This involved both reading and writing. Reading helps to reinforce your child's understanding of sentence structure and grammar in the same time helps with word recognition and understanding.. while writing forces your child to put words in paper. Your child will need to form the sentences, verify them grammatically and lastly write them down.
Conversation helps your child in their understand and usage of those words in real time and it helps your child in their thinking processes.
Thirdly, your child should be well versed in expressive phrases and be fluent in oral conversations especially those common nouns and adjectives. And the ability to tell stories fluently is important too.
By reading well written compositions and learning the authors' word usage, your child will gain an understanding into the thinking processes which helps to form good sentences and what are the good words to use in certain situations.
C) Lastly, your child should have an idea about success in PSLE Chinese.
Is it a pass, or a A? your child should know what are they getting now and project a target that they can achieve or want to achieve.
Why set a Goal?
Children without a goal will lose focus very fast and sink into their habits and eventually be as good as they are now. Your child cannot improve by doing what they are doing now.
To do different things consistently requires your child to be accountable for their own results. Most children expect teacher and parents to do for them while they continue their bad habits, their results will almost be impossible to improve.
But I have to forewarn parents and children not to set an aim as high as 2 times your children's present grade. For example Linda got an D grade and aim for a pass, that's a aim that is achievable with some effort like 30 minutes a day revision. However, if Linda is to set a target of A, that is 2 grades higher than her present grade, She would need to prepare to study 10 times harder than her peers to achieve her target that is to spend 2 hours daily on her revision and drill exercises.There is no free lunch, if you desire result, then you have to give out luxuries in life to study.
Furthermore the goal should be your child's desired success.
I can help your child in Primary 6 or before that in their PSLE and help them maximize their potential in Chinese. I had been teaching and guiding children outdo themselves in psle for 10 years. Every year I have students that got A or A* when they just passed a while ago. If you think I can help your child please drop an email at mrtan.sg@gmail.com for Mr Tan
Please use "A1 Chinese " follow by your name and email/tel no. Thank you.
continue step 2 at a later date.
