Date:  Oct 8, 2014

This week is the SA test for the primary 2 students.  They will be tested on compositions writing for both Chinese and English.

Two weeks later, they will be tested on English, Math and Chinese (grammars, vocabs and language usage).

I just learned from the other parents that SA test is important as it carries a lot of weight for the full year result.  

And the P2 results are important as they are going to split the 8 classes into 6.  And out of the 6 classes, 2 will be the “top class” where there are 30 students in each class.  There rest of the 4 classes will have 40 students.  I don’t know why such classifications, but I do know that it is important to be in the “better class” as better attention will be given.

So I also very kia-su, and I bought these when I passed by Popular bookstore.

To me, if he can score 80 and above it is very good already.  So, I have no complaint on these marks.  haha

What surprise me is the Chinese.  He did pretty OK.  A lot of careless mistakes.  But he did OK.  So, we agree to try to finish as much as possible.  To try to catch some obvious mistakes he often ha.

I think I make a correct decision to arrange a tuition teacher for him for 1.5 hours tuition (1 to 1) every week.  I did not check the work until yesterday.  Because my policy is once I pass the kid to the “professionals” I usually will let the teacher teach him.  So, yesterday, I found a Chinese Composition book that Jay was practising every week with his Tuition teacher.

Here are some of the examples… Look at the pictures, some helping words, etc.

And this is what he wrote.

1.  I like what I see.  The writings.  Very neat.  Getting better.  And sometimes I think it is better than his English.

2.  He tends to write more although the requirement is at least 30 words.

3.  He is expressing himself.

Here is another example.

Wow.  “一个晴朗的星期六早上”.

Just yesterday I was debating this in the office with some colleagues that why Primary school students need to write so “pretty” words to describes everything.  In my mind, if you know how to write to express yourself then is OK already.

So, I asked Jay Jay, who taught him how to use 晴朗 etc… He told me, the school teacher actually taught him that.  And the home tuition teacher also taught him to write it this way. So, indeed, the school teachers will want to see them write in this manner.

Another example…

Again, I love the writings.  Getting very neat.  So, I guess asking him to sometimes learn Chinese Calligraphy is a correct choice too.

And you can see that this is precisely how he will speak to me if it is not writing.  The passage reflects how he speaks too.

一个凉风习习的下午

I don’t think I will know how to write using these fancy words too.  HaHaHa…

But the most important thing that Jay impressed me is he now learned how to use a dictionary.  Which is very important.

He can find the Pin Yin, which is normal.  But he impressed me that if he don’t know what word it is, he can find the 部首 and try search for the word.  This is amazing feeling.  The whole Primary 2, he is doing all his learning from school and I did not know he has come so far and learn all these by himself.  

Good job Jay Jay!

I am indeed impress, and very proud of Jay who turns 8 years old today. 🙂