Languages

It has been quite some time since i posted. I went to turkey for 10 days and turkey is seriously a beauty, worth the travel^^ Back to the topic of the day: Languages. I take English and Chinese.

Firstly, I would like to say that the teachers in the school really does matter. I honestly did not like my Chinese teachers from secondary one to three. There was a norm in my primary school not to like chinese, but i was not deeply affected by it. I met a really good chinese teacher in primary six, and she managed to pull my chinese grades up to an A in psle. Teachers do matter, or rather the way they teach is important. Luckily for me, I met a really good chinese teacher when I was secondary four. I am not going to do a comparison because it might seem unfair to do so. But i will explain what it takes to be a good teacher in a student's point of view. Also, i am doing this in appreciation to my chinese teacher.

About my Secondary Four teacher
My secondary four teacher believed in understanding the language. Our chinese class was a mix of two classes, one with quite a poor standard of chinese and one with a higher standard of chinese and are really hardworking. It was difficult for him, really, to teach us as a class. Firstly, homework is usually late from one class. Secondly, when he teaches us, half of the class understands and half doesnt. He did try his best by providing us with translation himself, but always ends up in embarrassment because of his weird accent. In our school, we usually have 3 chinese lessons a week, an hour each. One lesson would be taking a mock paper 2. Next lesson would be used to go through the paper. Last lesson would be used to teach us new words/idioms. But due to the extremes of the class, he would have to use two lessons to go through the paper. All this starts in January and lasts until a couple of weeks before olevels. Oh, and most importantly, he provides consultation all day long so long as he is free. And i really mean all day long. To encourage us to go for consultations, he initally "forced" us to go at least once. Slowly, people started going, including me. Consultation starts at 6.30 am, and he really arrives at 6.30, not once was he late. Consultations can go on until 6pm, and not that he has to go home, its just that the security chases people out. During consultations, we would go through our own essays in full detail and ask whatever we needed to. Weeks before olevels, he started hauling the chinese class to school at 7 am (school starts at 7.30am), to read essays for half an hour. Everyone dreads it, like who would rather spend half an hour reading aloud essays if they had the chance to sleep in class before school starts? But it helps, for oral and for essay writing. His style of teaching suited me a lot, and i am thankful to have him as my teacher. Within less than 6 months, my chinese improved tremendously. Without chinese tuition for the 4 years of my secondary school life, i still managed an A1 for olevel chinese.

How to improve on Chinese? 
1. Seek help from your teacher, dont be shy, just ask. If you're uncomfortable going alone, go with your friends. Even if you feel you have nothing to ask, you can request to go through your essay. It works much better than copying out the entire essay after correcting the wrong words for correction (I find that dumb and useless actually)
2. If you are not really good in chinese essays, then keep writing one type which you are comfortable with. Paper 1 essays are usually set in 4 categories, narrative, descriptive, argumentative and news article related (报章报道）Students are encouraged to expertise in the last one, but during my year (2013 June Paper), the topic was really difficult and out of the norm, so many people were forced to do the third one. Students are encouraged to do the fourth one because it has a standard structure, standard opening, standard ending, and the content paragraphs are usual answers to why it happened, what are the effects of the situations and how to prevent it from happening again. Then again, it is getting less standardized by the years so that students dont still memorise and regurgitate during the exams.
3. Learn words and idioms that you will use along the way and keep using it. Try classifying them into feeling words or action words. It does not have to be bombastic words (because as a student, i dont even bother looking at it twice if it complicated and i do not know how to even read it). Get these words from model essays so that there is a higher chance of you using those words.
4. If you dont mind, listen to chinese radio (ufm 100.3) on the way to school every morning. They have a story telling session about 6.30 and it really helps in your paper 2 comprehension, last question whereby they will ask you to write a story based on the moral of the passage. Luckily for me, during the olevels paper, the moral of the passage was once explained through a story by the radio station so that went easy for me.
5. Oral, it depends on how hardworking your chinese teacher is, whether he or she is willing to take time out to practice with you. My friends practice their oral with their parents, but i find it weird and uncomfortable. So what i did was to record my oral practice and send it to my teacher. After which he will give me his feedback and suggestions.
6. Listening comprehension. Just do tons of it one week before olevel LC. At least that was what my school did and most of my friends scored full marks (answers would circulate through whatsapp or twitter but it does not come from MOE)
7. Just do your homework and hand in on time, i believe that all teachers would do their best to ensure that students score well for olevels. These are just tips from me, everyone has their own teaching style and learning methods.

English 
Sadly, english has always been my weakest subject. My only advice is to read more and ask more. I started going for english consultations a bit late because i am not very fond of my teacher. She is a good teacher, it is probably her teaching style that didnt quite suit me.
I tried reading the papers every morning when i was secondary three, at that point of time my english was getting better (seen from my essays) but then the newspaper subscription stopped. By the time my parents renewed the subscription, i lost the habit of waking up half an hour earlier to read the papers. Also, as the year goes by, the stress level and homework amount increases, resulting in less rest time. This means that I would rather sleep in then wake up to read the papers. So start early, so that it becomes a habit of yours.

O level Results
My previous post was dated last year, and this post is dated after 13 January and so results are out! I was very scared and nervous, I can still recall that tension in the hall. Here are my results, if you want to see if my tips and study methods actually work. I guess it could act as some kind of reference too~
English B3
Chinese A1
Elementary Mathematics A1
Additional Mathematics A1
Physics A1
Chemistry A1
Biology A2
Combined Humanities (SS+geog) A1
L1R5: 8 - 2 (bonus) = 6
First choice: Nanyang Junior College (Science)

This might not be the best results, but i definitely met my expectations. I think i have done great, no matter what my parents may think (eg. english is a sore thumb sticking out of the results slip). I was happy with myself and i found all the hardwork worth it. I could have done better but at that point of time, i knew this was the best i could achieve. So yeaps, hopefully i get into my first choice^^