How to write a simple Chinese composition for your PSLE and ace your composition tests. Yes, good essays do not really need a lot of fanciful phrases and plenty of bombastic wordings. What your child needs is really a working vocabulary of useful words and phrases acquired via reading and listening, and a good sense of Chinese grammatical structure.
1) Read and remember
Reading and memorization of texts are the basic tenet of good compositions, you do not teach your child something they have not read before. Let them read a best graded composition. Do not think like a failure and question the ability of your child, saying, "they cannot comprehend such a difficult essay. why not choose a simple one?" The reason to choose a best graded composition is to provide your child with good vocabulary, good grammar and a good sense of the Chinese language. The best graded composition provides a role model whereby your child can learn from the best. If you choose a simple and easy composition, your child will not learn much at all.
then test them if they can recite the sentences one by one. Yes, do one sentence by one sentence. Until your child completed the last sentence. Read and recite repeatedly help your child build up mental power to handle Chinese language quickly.
Then test your child's comprehension by asking them to repeat the main story line to you and ask them tell you what they like/dislike about the story. Make sure they tell you at least 4-5 sentences long. anything shorter, you have to ask them add contents relevant to the discussion.
When one completes about 10 stories, he has build up a big stash of vocabulary words and phrases ready for the next examination, not only in paper 1, those are useful in paper 2 and oral too.
2) Write and practice
After reading, the next step is actually to find a composition and rewrite using your child's word and phrases as much as possible. There may be people who insist on not writing as they argue that there is no need to write at all when one can just think up a story. Let me ask you, if you had not practice riding a bike, would you be riding a bike now? Most properly no. We learn by practice, that's why you need to practice driving on a car and not rely simply on the theory tests.
However, parents you need to know that, writing is often the most difficult step to take for any child, so please do point out the good parts for the first 10 to 20 passages. you do not have to limit topic or words, Just let your child write something or anything for a week daily.
Prepare a writing pad and just make sure everyday your child writes something.
As your child are getting used to writing daily, then you start to point out little errors. Do not start the blame game, just tell your child your observation and let your child decide what to do. It may seems like you have lost of control, but as parents you must understand that building confidence in writing is a slow process, and control may just kill the interest.
The second thing about this practice, other to build confidence in writing, is to create a habit. Habits are just a daily repentance of some things that had to be done.
When you looked at graded composition, you will see 3 columns:
Content: /20
This would be graded according to the details provided, how well the bridge between pictures connect and the relevant of the words to depict the pictures.
Structure: /20
Structure would be the graded according to the fluency of the language, the presence of grammar mistakes and the completeness of the paragraph written. Overall the essay must be cohesive and purposeful.
The total mark is a sum of content and structure. /40
Good luck
I am a ex school teacher who have taught more than 10 years in schools. I have coached children from just failed in primary 3 to A in PSLE, O levels and A levels. He is in NS now and going to NUS.
If you are interested, please email Mr Tan at mrtansg AT mrtansg.com.
Important yet not urgent things are the most important things to do to improve your child's scores in the coming PSLE and yet a lot of parents and children totally missed the point.
First What is T score and How to roughly figure out your child's PSLE T score?
From pamela, you find a simple formulae to compute your child's T score in minutes
"So how do you estimate the T-score of your child? You can do that easily if you can get more than 40 random marks from a school with the same exams (or all the marks in one school). If you key that into an excel spreadsheet, you can pretty much generate the mean and standard deviation. Some schools provide the mean and standard deviation for each subject to parents. Do the calculation of the T-score using the formula given above using the mean and s.d. Repeat that for 4 subjects and viola! You can get the T-score of your child within that school. And since your sample size is greater than 40, is random and is a normal distribution, your chlid's T-score is pretty reflective of his/her T-score for PSLE." from https://www.facebook.com/notes/pamela-lim/psle-t-score/249665928428075/ Secondly YOU need to understand everyone has urgent or important things to do but you have limited time. So you need to classify those activities and prioritize them. This is the urgent vs Important Matrix
And this is the
Eisenhower's Urgent/Important Principle
In a 1954 speech to the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was quoting Dr J. Roscoe Miller, president of Northwestern University, said: "I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent." This "Eisenhower Principle" is said to be how he organized his workload and priorities.
He recognized that great time management means being effective as well as efficient. In other words, we must spend our time on things that are important and not just the ones that are urgent. To do this, and to minimize the stress of having too many tight deadlines, we need to understand this distinction:
Important activities have an outcome that leads to us achieving our goals, whether these are professional or personal.
Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are usually associated with achieving someone else's goals. They are often the ones we concentrate on and they demand attention because the consequences of not dealing with them are immediate.
When we know which activities are important and which are urgent, we can overcome the natural tendency to focus on unimportant urgent activities, so that we can clear enough time to do what's essential for our success. This is the way we move from "firefighting" into a position where we can grow our businesses and our careers.
1) Important and urgent is where most firefight takes place and it is best avoided by doing the important but not urgent things first. In PSLE, that would be your studying load, one would need to schedule the load and distribute the study load to different time period so that you can finish them. Some just avoid the pain of studying till the last minute and you would have a very huge study load in a very short time span.........avoid this by spreading out the studying load over a period of time and you will not have important and urgent things. 2) Important but not urgent things are things that help you achieve your goals including learning and planning activities. In PSLE that would be planning the study time and study load so that you spread out the study load over time and into manageable chunks of data. 3) Not important and urgent things that stops you from achieving your aims. delegate or reschedule them or outsource them.
Not important and urgent things are your chores, house cleaning or school CCA etc,
4) Not important and not urgent things are your games your leisure activities, during preparation for PSLE, you need to forgo them till PSLE ends.
Three real important things to study for PSLE Chinese is:-
1) Read and reread all the chapters in the textbook everyday. This builds your vocabulary, language sense and recitation skills all at the same time is enjoyable.
If you had trouble reading the texts, go to xuele. choose the level and chapter and they will read the text for you. Go ahead and listen to the texts a few times and start reading along the voice a few times and then you will be able to read a few sentences at a time.
If you are weak in Hanyu PinYin, be sure to include them in the writing.
If you are weak in meaning of words, do check up the dictionary and write down the meaning.
2) Find a composition book and study all the compositions, memorized them and later use the pictures to attempt to write a similiar essay. Then you compare your composition with that of the book and figure out the things that you lack to score.
Common things to help you score in compositions
a) Good phrases and good expressive words 好词佳句
b) achieve 0 wrong words with repeated writing of the spelling list from primary 4 to 6.
c) get 0 grammer mistake by reading all the essays that you can get including the essays in the test papers of the different schools. And try to learn from them by writing similar essays.
As you properly notice....practice and study hard is quite necessary to score A*.
3) Listen to Chinese songs, TV programmes and Radio shows do help in listening skills.
4) Write, write and write a composition everyday, with practice comes results.
Time is your best friend if you let it work for you.
By this step you have Identitied 3 things:-
A) Goal: Do your child want to get an A or a B or Just a pass? B) Workload: How much to study to get the Goal?
If your child is lacking in Primary 4, its about 1000 words to pass and 1500 words to get an A.
If your child did not do well in primary 5, its about 600 words to pass and about 1000 words to get an A.
If your child has been doing well in primary 5, then your child needs to revise every thing at least once and learn new words fast by reading compositions from China primary 4-6 child or reading secondary 1-3 compositions.
As the new Oral format requires some news knowledge about Singapore and local cultures, its best to listen and watch Channel 8 News video often. Here is the link.
Take an Example: Traffic accidents involving Motorist has been on the rise.
Now you go thought the video with your child, then ask them to firstly tell you the moral of the video, which is there had been a rise in traffic accidents involving motorists.
Secondly you asked them to outline the 3 reasons for the rise in motorist accidents.
Then you can asked them if they are the motorist, or the car driver or the the road user, what would they do on the road to be safe.
If you want to analyse your child's performance you could record your child's answer on video and analyse their performance.
There are 4 things to measure in an oral conversation:-
1) The language usage, is your child using the correct words and phrases to express themselves and are they using idioms and other more sophisticated way to express themselves. That is they are using not just simple grammatically correct sentences.
2) Your child should be able to correctly identify the theme or moral of the story accurately, take a stand and stand up to their viewpoints with reasons.
Yes students who took 2 sides of the stand and students who cannot make a stand are not doing well here.
Your child must have a stand.
3) Your child should be able to do some simple reasoning for his/her stand. 2 to 3 reason to support their stand will help a lot.
4) Your child needs to relate a story and tell the story well with a) expressions
b) emotions
c) idioms and phrases
d) and proper pronunciation.
4) Proper courtesy are essential like asking to be seated, smile at examiners, looks calm and polite, maintain some eye contact.
Do watch a video on Singapore affairs that are local and directly related to a student everyday and practice the above answering method.
Another new item is the simple letter writing segment.
There are some thing to look out for.
Firstly, the points are directly given in the notice or note, Do not fabricate facts.
Secondly, do write down the details as most marks are quite minor as every point is like 0.5 marks, so take care of the details and write them in.
Thirdly, Most questions is about the 5 w and 1 H so figure out them quickly will help with your answer a lot.
5W1H :Who,Where,When,What,Why and How.
Do take a look at all the Notes, Advertisements and Notices every where in your surrounds and learn to understand their word usage etc.
C) Plan you childs Daily activities and Add 30 minutes to 2 hours everyday to do just Chinese work.
There are just 4 types of work daily 1) Word recognition and quick spelling of primary 4 to 6 words and phrases.
2) Reading, Reciting Very good Compositions and memorizing them paragraphs by paragraphs.
3) Listening and watching Channel 8 news that are local and current. parents should try to let them tell you what did they watched and why such things happened.
4) Record down your child reading the textbook chapters, one at a time.
Step 2 to PSLE Chinese success is to gather your resources for the preparation.
(A) Study Notes
First you need to get hold of primary 4 to 5 Chinese textbooks. If your child's school has a set of notes, it would be fine. if you cannot get it, then you have to ask your contacts for the last few pages of the Chinese textbook which is the bilingual word lists for that level.
For primary 6 textbook word list, it is at the last few pages of the textbook. I have compiled a study guide using the word list with words, meaning, pinyin and even a model sentence for every word and its in this book (FYI I am the author and I will get some royalty when you purchase this book.)
(B) Edictionary
Next your child needs to prepare a eDictionary as required by SEAB for use in PSLE.
Most model now are similar in features and equally small in size.
Hansvision PX2051 is an old model while PX2131 is the latest model.
Compare Besta Models
All Pass 1 Features (On Besta website, All Pass 1 is not listed.)
Built-in with Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, strengthening your learning power.
Built-in with writing strokes for the basic 2000 words in accordance to the Chinese character list for Primary and Secondary schools in Singapore.
A special hot key to show the writing sequence of the Chinese word.
Able to display two different types of Chinese fonts.
Input method for Chinese words includes both Hanyu Pinyin and total strokes.
All words and phrases are pronounced in accordance with its Hanyu Pinyin symbol.
Able to display up to 6 level of explanation through highlighting the word or phrases.
All Pass 2 Features
新编学生实用词典 - 新亚出版社
现代汉语词典 - 中国社会科学院语言研究所
汉语词典 及 成语词典
手写辨识 - 手写即可输入中文
单字笔画顺序演示
切换显示字型大小
30层交互查询视窗
作文及中文学习资料 - 标点符号， 量词等
参考资料 - 常用题词/百家姓/三字经/弟子规
世家时间/日历/计时器/秒表
A Practical Chinese Dictionary for Students (Singapore Asia Publishers Pte Ltd)
The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences - Institute of Linguistics)
Chinese Dictionary and Dictionary of Chinese Idioms
Chinese Handwriting Recognition
Stroke Order Demonstration
Display Font Size Toggling
30 Cross-search Windows
Composition & Chinese Learning Materials such as Punctuation, Classifier etc
Reference Materials such as Common Epigraph《常用题词》, Hundred Family Surnames《百家姓》 , Standards for Being a Good Student and Child《弟子规》, The Three Character Classic《三字经》
World Time, Calendar, Timer
I would often recommend Hansvision model because it has two features that helps students in examinations:-
Quick and easy HansVision Initial Consonant Input method E.g. mmhh = 马马虎虎
Time saving intelligent wildcard search capability: E.g. 不*不* = 不卑不亢，不慌不忙，etc...
And the above features extend to phrases.
Besta All Pass 2 is similiar to PX2131 but is a bit more durable.
For a one time use, just get PX2051. If you want to pass down edictionary to younger brothers or sisters, get Besta All Pass 2.
If you need to use the pen feature to recognise the composition helping words, choice only PX2131 or All Pass 2.
(C) Model Compositions
To Excel in composition there are two roads that will achieve your aim:-
i) Read a lot of story book and reread all primary 5 to 6 textbook passages and your child will figure out for themselves the way of the composition,
ii) Read, understand, memorized model compositions in various situations and write a short paragraph daily which will help your child digest what they read.
So a few very good model essays which is A to A* graded would be a good start. Get them when your child's school do publish chinese composition books.
or get a compile of good compositions from friends or school.
The method from potato to 34/40 in composition is described here as a process.
"Little Boy memorized his very first Chinese composition last year in Nov-Dec 2010. We are now September 2011. It has been 10 months. The start was most onerous indeed. To describe the first 25 compo memorizations as long and hard toil, is perhaps an understatement. He could not recognize more than half the words in each compo. The compos were taken from a compendium of 1000 Best Compositions from the equivalent of China's PSLE. They were at least 3 to 4 years above his reading level then. Grandma read them into a digital audio file and Little Boy plugged in the speakers and listened and followed and memorized and recited to me.
The very first week, he spent 7 hours a day reciting these compos. I sat near him. I worked near him. It was, for me, like nursing a querulous sick child back to health. You stay there by his side so that he has the strength to carry on, and to not give up on a task that looked impossible to him. There was nothing I could do for him because I am illiterate in Chinese. It was a bit like watching your child battle critical illness and not be able to do anything but hold his hand and stay nearby.
From reciting others' works, he moved on to writing his own. We were thrilled that he could score 34/40 for a piece of compo homework. But those 3 pages meant 6 hours of sustained effort. Under the timed conditions of 50 minutes in the exam, he failed his compo at the mid-year exams. However, he did very well for his Comprehension because all the reading and recitation had improved his word recognition immensely. Thanks to the recitation, he scored wonderfully for Oral reading because he was expressive and he could recognise all the words in the text. Overall, he managed to do well enough to avoid being asked to attend supplementary classes. Even though he had failed his compo, I convinced him that it was still a triumph to be celebrated."
From the blog post : http://petunialee.blogspot.sg/2011/09/reaching-tipping-point-for-chinese-part.html
(D) For oral practices, Videos presents a normally 2D situation in a 3D way so that your child has not only need to pay attention to details in the video but they have to figure out the Big picture of the Video as Question 2 and 3 will be dircetly linked to the Moral of the story of the Video.
For daily practice, describe news videos segment by segment from News 8.
http://tv.toggle.sg/en/channel8/news/ch-8-news-tonight/episodes
Choose stories related to normal Singaporean children lifestyles will be nice.
Yes, daily practice all the news segments until your child can say them out loud and maintain eye contact.
Ok now is the important part, the 3 questions commonly asked about the video:-
1) Talk about one detail in the video that interested you?
For parents who think this is easy, try them out yourself in chinese!
2) What is the moral of the story of this video, and tell us about one thing that you have done to related to the moral of the story
3) What can we (as students) do to help enhance the moral of the story.
For an example see below
In short, try to gather the few things below:-
1) Textbook from primary 4 to 6, print out the last few pages which looked like a small guide book with words, pinyin, and English meaning.
2) Buy a Edictionary
3) Find A to A* composition either from school, friends or internet
4) go browse each news segment in channel 8 news, use toggle catch up video to watch and rewatch. Then ask your child to answer the 3 commonly asked questions.
That all for part 2, Wait for Part 3
For any enquires, email mrtan.sg@gamil.com for Mr Tan.
Thank you for reading. Hope it helps..
Now is December Holidays and those Primary 5 students should start planning for PSLE Chinese 2017 now. As the saying goes,"Failing to plan is planning to fail." so now I'm here to outline a few steps to help your child succeed in PSLE Chinese.
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.
The components in the practices of Just Practice for PSLE are written according to the exam format. The exercises consolidate pupils’ learning and reinforce their understanding of the lessons taught in the Chinese Language for Primary Schools Textbooks. This book comes with a comprehensive vocabulary guide to provide easy reference for revision. Just Practice for PSLE is also helpful as a supplementary material to strengthen pupils’ understanding of the lessons. Get it at http://www.timesbookstores.com.sg/Books/BookDetails/9789810129804 and all Popular Bookshop. ISBN 9789810129804
