Composition 1 Feedback

Dear all,

I have returned your composition scripts today and do have a look at the comments and ways to improve your compositions. As mentioned,

• Tenses are a huge error in your composition. Many of you are using present tenses which is wrong. When we write a story, it is recapping and talking about what happened, thus you should use the past tense. 
• Elaboration is important. I want to know about the feelings and how and why the person did what he did. 
• Example: Tom is wearing his favourite red sneakers. The sneakers mean alot to him as it is the first birthday gift he has received from his parents and it is his lucky charm. (Here, you are elaborating on his action and how and why he wears that pair of red sneakers)
• Do not just talk about the actions. Elaborate and explain more. 
• Many of you talked about yourself being separated and then reuniting but you left out about your parents who were also being separated from you. What happened to them? Explain more. 

As homework, look through your composition and rewrite in green pen the whole composition again so that while writing, you are also reading through and correcting your mistakes. Don't rewrite the same mistakes again. Look at my corrections for you. 

If you have not done well, don't be upset. Don't give up. Remember that there are a few more compositions coming up and I will be taking the best 2 or 3 compositions. Those who have done well, do not be complacent. Remember to put in more effort and find ways to improve further. 

Homework:

Composition Corrections

Grammar Worksheet 2.1 on Idioms

Sincerely,

Mr Nelson Ong

Week 5 - Back to working hard

Dear all,

We went through vocabulary mcq and cloze today with vocabulary being one of your greatest weaknesses. I taught you the elimination method in which you read the question, highlight the key words and then strike out the options that are not logical. In this case, even if you are unsure, you can narrow down your options and make a good guess for the answer.

In order to improve vocabulary, you have to read widely and pick up new words. Also, make it a point to look for the meanings of the other options that you are not sure of. You do not just concentrate on the answer but also find out why the other options are not possible. This means that you have to research and find out the meanings of the vocabulary words you are unsure of which I have set you as homework over the long holiday weekend. I want you all to see the meaning behind doing certain practices rather than have you just doing them.

We pick up new meanings today through the reading of the comprehension Open-ended passage.

• Bonnet - Front cover of the vehicle
• Hood - Back cover of the vehicle

To tackle comprehension open-ended, we first look at the questions and understand the questions. We can understand the story by looking through the questions as what I have modelled to you in class today. This is known as the Pre-Reading Thinking Activity. Before reading, we think about the questions. 

Example:

1. Who was Mrs Morgan to James?

We know that the main characters are Mrs Morgan and James. We want to find out their relationship.

2. In Paragraph 3, why would James enjoy staying with Mrs Morgan?

We know that James would be staying with Mrs Morgan. James would feel happy staying with Mrs Morgan. We want to find out the reasons that would make him feel happy staying with Mrs Morgan. To stay with Mrs Morgan would also suggest that they were rather close. 

Hence, we did the Pre-reading thinking activity first to think deeply before we then read the passage. 

Today's reading is not that fantastic. I feel that you guys need to build up confidence in reading aloud first before we talk about higher level skills like voice intonation and expression. Read loudly and practise reading in front of the mirror if you can. 

Homework:

• Comprehension Open-ended Practice 1.3

Sincerely,

Mr Nelson Ong

Happy CNY

Dear all,

First and foremost, a very Happy Chinese New Year to all pupils and parents. Have a blessed Lunar New Year. Therefore, I believe in enjoying hard and taking some time off for yourselves. The only homework for your long weekend would be:

• Finding the meaning of the words you are unsure of in the Vocabulary Practice for 1.1 and 1.2. 

Today, we focused on Comprehension Cloze. This is not an entirely easy section. Based on past experiences, this is a section in which many pupils will struggle with. However, do not think that way and practise hard on it. This being your first comprehension cloze, do not give up despite the many mistakes you might have. Believe that you will score better the next time around. Here is the recap of the key skills:

1. Read for understanding (the topic and the main idea) Every topic might have their own key words. 
2. Highlight the key words and draw the arrows.
3. Check for tenses/plural/singular
4. Check!

The reason why we do newspaper articles and read up on more information texts is because comprehension cloze passages tend to focus on these. It is no longer stories but more so on information texts or newspaper articles. Therefore, you need to read widely.

Also, I do notice that many of you have issues with the tenses. Remember to draw clues from the passage and check for tenses. If it is in the past tense, make sure you fill in your answers in the past tense. 

We also completed Synthesis and Transformation today with the focus on several key Grammar Rules like:

• Unless (Postive), (Negative)
• Unless is always followed by a positive statement and then a negative statement. The statement that comes after the word 'Unless' is always POSITIVE. 
• Example:
• Unless the students work hard (positive statement), they will not do well in their upcoming examinations. (negative statement)
• Unless we train hard, we will not do well for the tournament. 

• Neither........nor
• Either........or
• The words that come after 'Neither' and 'nor' are NOUNS
• The words that come after 'Either' and 'or' are NOUNS
• Neither (noun) nor (noun) (verb)
• Either (noun) or (noun) verb
• How do we know whether the verb should be singular or plural?
• Importantly, we look at the SECOND NOUN (the noun after the words 'nor' and 'or' to determine if the verb is singular or plural)
• Example:
• Neither Peter (Noun) nor Tim (Noun - Singular) is (Singular verb because 'Tim' is singular) going to the party.
• Either the boy or the girls (Plural) need to finish the race.
• Neither Tom nor the boys have to stay back after school today.
• Either Peter or Tim is to complete the work by today.

It has been 4 weeks and I hope that by now, you are fully adjusted to school. Some of you do need to work on your handwriting skills. Please be neat at all times. This is an important skill for life and not only for school. You guys are definitely getting more well-disciplined in doing homework and bringing homework on time. Please keep it up. My target from next week onwards is to not have anyone forgetting to do homework or not bringing. 

Keep the class spirit up and going. Remember rule #1 "We are a FAMILY!" Here's wishing you happy holidays and remember to work hard for the upcoming CA in 4 weeks' time. It will contribute to 10% of your overall marks come end of the year. Work hard together everyone! Be resilient!

Sincerely,

Mr Nelson Ong

Grammar Rules and Week 4

Dear all,

It's been a month of school. Today, we focused on the teaching of several grammar rules and vocabulary words:

When attempting your grammar cloze, editing for spelling and grammar and comprehension cloze, always remember the 3 golden steps:

1. Read through once for the main idea and understanding first
2. Highlight the key words and draw linking arrows
3. Look out for tenses/singular/plural forms

When we have the word 'to' followed by a 'verb' after that, the verb is always in the present tense and plural form. 

To (Verb in the present tense and plural form)

Example:

to go, to walk, to eat, to talk, to sing, to study.

He likes to read in his free time. He wants to become a lawyer in the future. 

• Present tense
• Past tense
• Past perfect tense (This is the important section!) 

Example:
Present tense: See

Past tense: Saw

Perfect tense: Seen

Click here to read up more about perfect tense.

In the synthesis and transformation section, we went through the structure of 'Having'........

After the word 'Having', it is followed by a VERB (Perfect tense), 

Example: 

Having done the exercise before, Mr Tan led the pupils in the exercise.

Having completed the homework, the boys proceeded to play at the park. 

Vocabulary Words:

Refugee - a person who escapes from a country to another to seek shelter and refuge

Dawn - Morning 

Dusk - Evening

Prow - the front part of a ship

There will be no dictation this week. Thus, you have 1 week to learn and next Friday we will commence dictation.

Sincerely,

Mr Nelson Ong

End of Week 3

Dear all,

It's the end of Week 3. Next week will be a short week due to Chinese New Year. You can take a break, enjoy the festive season and recharge yourself. On Friday, we went through the grammar practice and the Visual text practice. Here are the main points to recap:

• Verb - Noun - Verb rule. In this rule, the second verb is always in the base form (Present tense and plural form)
• Example: Father made me eat the apples.
• made (verb) me (noun) eat (verb --> Present tense, plural form)
• Who refers to a person
• Which refers to a non-person noun like animals and non-living things.
• When refers to a time
• Where refers to a place
• Phrasal verbs are short phrases which combines a verb + preposition
• Example: Called (verb) off (preposition) --> cancelled 
• In grammar items, we always need to identify for plural/singular and past/present/continuous tenses. 

We also looked at the word 'Biennale' which means once every two years. 

Homework:

• Grammar practice 1.3 and 1.4

Have a good weekend.

Sincerely,

Mr Nelson Ong

Unit 1 Heartbeats in the Dark

Dear all,

We started on Unit 1 today with the reading of the story, Heartbeats in the Dark. What we did today was to get you to think deeply, posing almost everyone of you a question on the story. We talk about understanding the story through the title first and getting you to predict about the title, 'Heartbeats in the Dark'. Following that, we did silent reading in which you read independently. Then, we paused at certain sections to ask key questions and make meaning of certain key words to support your answers. I am modeling to you how real life reading of books or comprehension passages should be done. You do not just read on and on. You must pause and ask yourself key questions like:

• Who are the characters?
• What is happening?
• Why are certain events happening?
• Where is the story?
• When is the story?  
• How are the events happening?

We call it '5W and 1H'. 

Today, we talked about Darren, the main character in the story, conquering his fear of being the dark. As such, the moral of today's story focuses on how we can overcome our fears. It is a terrifying process but we can overcome with resilience and with little steps of faith along the way. 

Today's grammar items which I taught you:

• Practice --> Noun 
• We are going for our football practice later on.
• Practise --> Verb
• We are going to practise our football later. 
• Everybody, Everyone, Each are all in the singular form.
• Each of us has to buy a pen by today. 
• Everybody likes to do well in life.
• Everyone here is a pupil. 
• You need to also know about the importance of singular/plural words and words in the past tense or present tense.
• There are grammar rules which I will go through and they are highly important to help you in your writing and grammar. Make it a point to remember them. I will be very naggy about it but I hope that you will remember in time to come with all my constant repetition of these grammar rules.

Homework:

• Comprehension Worksheet 1.1
• Grammar Worksheet 1.2

Sincerely,

Mr Nelson Ong

Planning for your Composition

Dear all,

As we finished the day, I went through with you focus writing whereby we focused on modeling the write out of the introduction of a composition. I focused on using the technique of flashback, focusing on how an item or object or particular scene sparked your memories of an event. This is a good technique to start off rather than just going straight to introducing the setting.

After which, we then move on to the introduction of the story itself. What happened before the main events take place? Who are the characters? Where is the story? What is the day, time and weather? Any feelings at the start?

A good composition is one in which you elaborate, describe and explain about the events and characters. You do not just write 'It was very hot.'. Go on and describe how hot it was. 'It was so hot that we were perspiring from head to toe.' Then, talk about your feelings about the weather. Why was it so hot? Who were affected? How did these people feel? Where was the place?

Tomorrow, we will be touching on the composition test. Do up your planning and look through what I have gone through with you so far. You can use the vocabulary I have taught you to apply for your writing tomorrow. I have taught you good vocabulary words in place of common simple words like happy, sad and scared.

Thank you,
Sincerely,
Mr Nelson Ong