Re: Secondary School Chinese
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 10:14 am
Perhaps your son can approach either his class Chinese laoshi or his school's Chinese HOD,
for the test detailed requirements / specifications in his coming Chinese Term 1 test, conducted in either mid-to-end February or in the first week of March, 2021.
Reason (why) ?
because
different Secondary schools test different Chinese component(s), in different Term (1 to 4)
Example
Some Secondary schools test only Paper 2 components like Chinese (vocab, Open ended li jie wen da) in Term 1.
No, they do not test any Chinese Oral nor zuowen (composition), in Term 1.
Some schools' Term 1 Chinese test constituted 10%, while other schools constituted 15%. Your son can check with his class laoshi, what is his own school's 2021 Chinese weightage (apportionment ) ?
However,
come to Term 2 in May, after the Labour day public holiday in that following week, most schools will start testing Chinese (spoken Oral and / or zuowen composition)
Come Term 3,
some Secondary schools do not conduct any Term 3 Chinese test at all, while other schools still prefer to conduct a test.
Come Term 4, final year end exam,
all components including
Paper 1,
Paper 2,
Paper 3 and
Paper 4,
all these, will be tested.
With different components being tested, in each different Term, the Chinese test format requirements, thus differ accordingly.
Concentrating on different component at a time, depending on what kind of weakness your son encounter in his Chinese learning journey, he himself can walk into any Popular book store, go to the "Secondary " Chinese Assessment book section open shelf, browse through them, buy a copy to practise at home. As he is already Sec 1, 13 years old, encourage him to take charge (ownership responsibility) of his own learning Chinese progress. Get him to buy a relevant Assessment book, to help himself improve. You do not buy for him anymore. Advantage ? If he buy himself, he will start to practise, on his own. But if parents buy for children, they may not practise at all, because the "initiative" self-motivation feeling doesn't arise from within themselves. He is a teenager, no longer a primary school kid anymore. PSLE already over. End up at times, all these Assessment books can become "white elephant" at home, un-touched, sitting on the bookshelf collect dust, if parents buy for children / teenagers.
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