Using cognitive learning techniques to teach PSLE English

Hi guys,

Hope the hot Singapore weather of the last few weeks hasn't been getting to you as much as it is getting to me. (phew!)

I have recently been digging into cognitive training methods and have found them extremely beneficial for use in my english and science classes. Naturally, I thought  I should share them with you.

Basically, cognitive tutoring is all about tailoring the learning process to provide feedback to the student and therefore improve their comprehension and prediction skills. As a lot of you guys might remember from your own experiences in school, lecturing and rote learning are NOT the best way to learn. If I were to be so bold, I would add that it is the LEAST favourable way for teaching language (and science).

HOW DO PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS LEARN  ENGLISH?

From my extensive digging of academic journals and looking at the views of different educators and from my own tutoring, I have come to realise that the typical student learns like this:

Basically, the above is a simplified version of a cognitive process.

What I think goes wrong when students are exposed to Singlish or in-correct english is that each of the four steps are interrupted. If the student does not get the correct feed-back from their language environments, they loose the ability to acquire good language skills.

"Is it too late for my DD or DS?"

This is the typical question I get from parents of students when I explain where the problem is in their child's learning process. Here's the good news: It is never too late! No, I don't say that only because I am a hopeless optimist, I say it because language learning is a continuous process.

So what do we do?

 It is important to teach kids that we live in Singapore. Obvious? Yes, but what does it really mean. It means that while it is fine to speak in Singlish to the teh-tarik man during recess at the canteen, students have to commit to speaking and listening to good english in the learning and formal environment. Don't get me wrong, I am proud of Singlish because it is such a good reflection of Singapore society in its colourful, diverse nature. But the cognitive process of learning English cannot be influenced by it. 

Here's my game plan for you guys to try out at home:

Step 1: Listen to. BBC podcasts are fantastic ways of exposing students to speaking good English. I used some of them in my Oral crash course and found that students loved them. Just having it played in the background while DD or DS does their homework is good.

Here's the link to the BBC's podcast page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/genre/childrens

Step 2: Listen to DS or DD tell you about their opinions and thoughts about what they heard on the podcast. If they make grammatical mistakes, do not say "That's wrong!" or scold them. this demotivates them and they effectively remove themselves from the cognitive learning process. Instead ask them " Did you mean ______  ?" or say "So, you are saying that _______." Or at the very least just parrot what they say back to them in good english.

Step 3: Explore your own English by listening to BBC podcasts. They have more interesting versions for adults or even just set your car's stereo or 88.9 (BBC). When you speak better english, DS and DD will imitate you.

I also conduct Oral crash courses for small groups and at the centre I tutor at. I just finished my last round and got great feedback from the students who said that topics and techniques I taught them came out in the exams for this year. My next round of oral classes will be in December. Watch this blog for when registration starts.

As always, I love reading your emails so don't be shy to ask questions! missraja86@ovi.com

Cheers
Raja

What Vocabulary do I teach PSLE students?

Hi everyone,

Just thought I should share a query that I had from a student's mum recently. She had thought that her son's vocabulary had been up to par until he got back his CA paper this year. The child had received a 6/15 for his comprehension cloze passage but had still received full marks for the vocabulary MCQ section.She had been very puzzled about why he had gotten such  "weird" marks. I have seen this many times before and thought I should share my thoughts on this.

In my opinion, the best gauge of a child's vocabulary are the comprehension cloze and composition sections. If the student does not read enough, then comprehension cloze will be bad and the language in the composition will not go beyond simplistic phrases taught in english classes. I would recommend that you get this particular magazine that is not available in Singapore and get your child to read with the help of a dictionary and write book reports on the stories. It is in the app form as you cannot get it in print in SG.

android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.caruspub.cricketmagazine&hl=en

iphone:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cricket-magazine-for-kids/id536585790?mt=8

The first  edition is free and you can use that as a trial. (I am in no way sponsored by them)

Cheers
Raja

Thank you for donations!

Just wanted to give a big thank you to the people who have already given my humble blog some money. As you guys know I do this for free and preparing and posting materials takes time. If donations are enough, I can hire some freelancers to even take over some of the worksheet preparation which just means more free materials for you.

Cheers!

Miss Raja
missraja86@ovi.com

PSLE English Past Year Prelim Paper Comprehension Cloze and Comprehension Open Ended Exercise.

Make sure students understand the meanings and usage of the underlined words before attempting the comprehension open ended. Students in P6 should be getting at least a 15/20 for the comprehension. I will be posting the answers for the comprehension questions in the next post to stop the temptation to peek at answers XD.

Hi everybody!

Hope you guys are not too stressed out about the upcoming PSLE season. I have been studying for my own exams as of late (I am thinking of going back to graduate school, crazy me!) and haven't been too active on my blog.

Here are some exciting things that happened to our little blog while I was away:

1. We made it into the first page of the google search results (whoopee!)
2. Downloads of my free practice papers are increasing!

And here is what you can expect:

1. I am uploading some questions sets collated from past year prelim papers. These are meant as free e-books. I always believe that education should be as free as possible, so download and share these with your friends. There will be Vocabulary MCQs, Sentence Synthesis materials, Comprehension, etc

2. I am also uploading full PSLE English Practice Papers for both Paper 1 and Paper 2.

3. There are PSLE English and Science iphone and andriod apps slated for release in June. So get your tech gadgets ready.

Also folks since I have been getting requests to send some extra worksheets and all through email, please comment on the blog posts or leave a message on the new message board for any materials you need. I will try and upload as much as I can.


So here is a set of PSLE English Prelim Paper Vocabulary questions and Sentence Synthesis questions.

Teaching Language to Uninterested Learners

A parent was telling me about how she finds it almost impossible to get her son to sit down and read English or even do practices. Wasn't he scared of the approaching exams? Doesn't he want to do well? Maybe the book is not interesting enough. These were all the questions that were swimming around in the mother's mind.

So I thought I might share some tips that I think are useful to motivate picky learners of the English language.

1) Movies, radio shows and sharing. 

What kid doesn't love a good movie? I find that any kind of exposure to good language, not only just reading and writing helps build on core verbal and grammatical skills. Pick movies that provide some lesson learnt with ample dialogues (not something where all the kids hear are bangs and sound effects). I also love the podcasts that BBC has for kids. They talk about interesting people, hobbies, different parts of the world and all things that kids love to learn about. Beginners and students with problems with the language may have difficulty understanding the language through the British accent. So start them off with movies and work your way up. Some good movies are Finding Nemo, Brave and Up.

Also, sit down with your child and ask him why he liked the movie and make sure he uses good English when telling you about it. This is the most important part. I try and incorporate sharing sessions about movies kids love, radio shows I let them listen to before class and get them talking about it in class. When the language they use is not grammatically correct, I say 'Sorry, I didn't understand that. Could you maybe repeat what you said with proper grammar?' I have some of my students so well trained with this that all it takes some times is a raised eyebrow and they giggle and switch to proper grammar immediately. However, it can get tiring for both the kid and you if you pick out every single error. Stick to correcting sentences with colloquial and slang in them (i.e. Singlish)

This technique when applied consistently and together with proper grammar skills drills, can help to improve a child's English fast.

2) Speech and Drama lessons

 Find a good speech and drama teacher who is fun and teaches the children to learn to love expressing themselves. If you can, find a course where the class works towards a play, drama or poem recital at the end of the course. This would mean that the student works on developing his language and works towards a fun goal. It also a great way for kids to de-stress once a week.


3)  Sneaky tests

 Both parents and teachers will find this one useful. Over the years, I have discovered that children love to do crossword puzzles. I give them a 'cheat-sheet peek' before starting a crossword game. The 'cheat-sheet peek' is just a vocab list with new words to learn. Students are allowed to pair up or get into groups of 3 and pour over the list for 5 minutes before the lists are taken away and crossword puzzles are given to them. The first group to win then gets a small present or treat. This is much more fun than getting students to learn vocabulary over the weekend or keep word banks.Also, they are forced to learn the spelling of the new words because otherwise it doesn't fit in the crossword. I use commonly tested words that I collate from past year papers and will post some of them in the next post.

Although the above are alternatives to reading, they are never meant to replace. The processing and learning of language requires that students read amply. These are however fun ways to 'trick' your picky readers into learning.

Cheers
Miss Raja






3) Sneaky exercises.

Comprehension Cloze

Hi guys,

Here is another comprehension cloze passage. Friend this blog on facebook to get regular updates of when practice papers and blog posts. Click Here