Jay Jay Still Trying To Win The P6s

Date:  Sep 20, 2015

Jay Jay has fully recovered from his knee injury.  Three weeks not on the golf course.

And today is the Junior Golf Medal day again.

And again, he is up against two P6 students (caucasians kids).  You look at the heights you know they are going to hit further than you and have more mental than you.  But it is always a good challenge for Jay as he is really trying to win them all the time.  The big and tall guy (even taller and bigger than the boy on the right) did not come.

Let’s take a good look on how he did.  I can’t stay too near to them.  So, some of the video are shot from far away.

He is the first to tee off.  And he still have that aiming problem.  He turn his neck too much thinking that he is hitting straight in front.  Instead you can see that he is aiming to the left.  And it is a perfect straight shot.

But he did not over swing his club and he hit a very straight and easy shot.

Well done on the first drive.  Later he chip the second shot to the green and take 3 putts to put the ball into the hole.

A monster drive!  This 202m par 4.  He hit it to 20m-30m in front of the red stick.

(Turn up the speaker and listen to the ping sound of the drive).

That is about 120-130meter drive.  For a 8 years old boy, this is very good already.  Soon, he will out drive his mommy.  HaHaHa...

Very good tee off with his Cobra driver.

This is the 2nd shot of hole #2.  And he hit it to the middle of the two bunkers.

A very good hit too.

He used a putter to bring the ball up pass the pin.

Later he hit a very good putt and the ball just pass the pin left with about 3 meter to the pin.  Unfortunately, he miss the par.

Later they played 3 more holes.  I can see he hit another great tee off on the Par 3 hole #3.  He is 10 meter away the green.

But his score was not good enough to beat Dominique.  As Dominique has pretty good short game.

So, Jay came in 2nd.

I am glad to see his great performance on Sunday’s medal game.  He is getting there.  Don’t expects him to win those P5 & P6.  But he is getting there.

Well done Jay Jay!

P3 Chinese Compo Few More Tips

Date:  Oct 8, 2015

A big Happy Birthday to Jay Jay!  Today is the actual day for his birthday.

As usual, we did a Chinese Composition practice during the drive between Millenia Walk and Home.

My aim was to build it Jay Jay’s thought process when writing a Chinese Composition.

Tip #1.  Sometimes, the ???? (helping words) can be useful, but most of the time, it can bring some damage.  So, I told Jay, if you see some words that you are not familiar, you can choose not to use them.  You don’t have to use all the words given.  Those words are given to help you write, but most of the time, the examiner already have a story in mind which is not shown in the pictures and they thought you can write the story they want to see.  Unfortunately, P3 is the first year they really learn how to write.  So, one must know how to crawl first before walking.  Don’t stress your kid too much.  Give them guidelines, such as P3 only need to write 30 words, As long as you describe 2-3 picture correctly with some excellent words, it is fine.  Don’t imagine and describe too much.  ????.  And try to get rid of the “Direct translation from English” habit.

Tip #2.  Write as simple as possible for a start.  P3 only requires 80 words.  So, if you write 120-150 it is enough.

Tip #3.  Of course, Jay Jay uses dictation to write his composition.  You have to trained your kid to first clean up the thoughts before he or she can write out.  So, this easy method has help him come up with the skeleton of the story fast.  In fact, I timed him, give him only 10 minutes to look at the picture, look at the helping words, put the helping words beside the picture, imagine what you going to write, cross out those helping words that you not going to use, and count in mind do you have 15-20 words for every picture.  That’s it.  Once that is done, he will repeat the sentence for the picture in his mind, and uses the other 10-15 minutes to write or dictate the composition.

He wrote this down within the 30 minutes back and forth ride.  And I am truly so proud of him.  It is getting there.  So, there are one more week for the Composition paper 1.  These few days we going to go thru all the words that he had been given ?? (Spelling) so that he knows how to write those words fast.  And of course, train him 1-2 times not using dictation, instead write it down.  So, if he can construct the story in his mind within 20-25 minutes, he should be able to write it down within the next 20-25 minutes.

Tip #4.  Build the confident up.  Not to destroy it.  I don’t care at the moment, what is his teacher’s expectation.  To me, for P3, they need to produce error-fee writing for minimum 80 words which best describe the story.  So, I don’t actually allow him to read the modal answer.

Yeah.. this book come with modal answer.

Building the base is very important.  So, why show the kid a perfect composition, while you already think he did a good job in writing his own version.

Because, you do not know what your kid will think when he reads the modal answer.  So, I usually cover it up and I have never ask him to take a look at the modal answer.  

This is to send a message to him that Daddy expectation is for him to write well for 80 words, not more than that.

And the book is always on his desk.  He can read the modal answer himself.  

So, the tip is never ask the kid to read the modal answer.  The kid is learning how to write, and they have to learn it with his own pace.  Forcing him to learn from modal answer is not a good move.

Tip #5.  Listen more.  Read more.  To help Jay Jay to read more.  I recorded down my reading on all the story in his text book.  Jay Jay has been listen to these readings every day bit by bit.  Once he listen many times, I will ask him to read to me aloud.  You only need to ask him to read it once a day.  Not twice or thrice.  only once a day.  On a few chapter, and then, ask him to read aloud.  By doing so, the kid become more confident in reading, and understanding of Chinese will be better.  The online material from the school has the reading too.  But it is read by a Chinese (from China).  So, sometimes they do read too fast.  So, I decided to record my own voice, as it is very familiar to him, so that he can learn Chinese in a familiar way.  You can search my blog on this, try search “Learning Chinese” in MiniLiew.  Of course the ?? (Flash Card) is very important too.

If you don’t mind listen to my not so sexy voice, here are all the recordings for P3.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_2LIa_dWu8sNUpRY0Yzak1sbVE

Good luck in teaching your kid Chinese.  This is probably the last blog entry from me on this Chinese Composition for P3.  Have fun!

Chinese Compositions Final Preparations

Date:  Oct 14, 2015

Tomorrow is the Chinese SA2 Paper 1 exam, which is the Chinese Composition.  50 minutes to write at least 80 words.

This is how I am going to prepare Jay.

[Revisions]

1.  Print out all the compositions that he has done, and asked him to read.  

[Encouragement]

2.  While reading, I will highlight those easy words to start the sentence with a market pen.  Make him feel good.  Encourage him.  And teach him what are the words he used will get more points.

[Incentives]

3.  No more new writings.  It is enough for the past month for him to do all these Compo writings.

4.  Let me play at least 30 minutes of iPad/Games before sleep.  :)  

 

Here are some of the ??? compositions that I would like to share.  It is interesting.  These are the past 3 days compositions he has done using writing, instead of dictations on the iPad/iPhone.  And I think he learned a lot from the past few days, especial learn how to open the sentence.

[Example 1]  This is to describe what do you do on a Sunday morning.

When he first wrote it, most of the sentence structure seems correct.  But the content does not match closely to the pictures given.  So, I decided to scrutinise the Compo and teach him how to use some useful words to start the Compo.

For correction, I asked him to do it on dictation (without letting him see the correction which I went thru with him), so that he can grasp the idea quick and fast.

 

[Example 2]  How the little girl learns to prepare her bags before sleep.

Usually, I gave him 30-40 minutes to think and write.

This is important so that he gasps the idea of timing.  He cannot think too long.  What ever he thought of writing must always registered in his mind.  And he needs half of the time to write it down.

Again, the story line has to in line with the pictures.

And most of the time, he likes to use the conversation way of speaking chinese and write it into his compo.

I taught him how to use ????????????? ??? ????????, etc.

This is the corrected copy using dictation, without looking at the notes above.

 

[Example 3]  Talks about the boy helping a old man cross the road and explain to teacher why he is late for school.

This is what he came up with.  Not too bad.  

So, sometimes, it is also depending on the pictures given.  If for things that he is familiar of course he will do it well.  Those that he is not familiar, Jay tends to ????.  That is perfectly normal.

But I am glad to see him quite comfortable taking all these compositions.  He is not afraid any more, and he wanted to get high marks this time.

That is all needed from him.

 

[Example 4]  

Sometimes, you can ask your child to write something you see.  Not necessary to have the 4 pictures.

This is the corrected version.

 

[Example 5]

Sometimes, you can also asked the child to write super long story just to see how well he can write.

 

[Example 6]

I found that when the kid was given the iPhone to do the dictation, they are like super excited like that.  If you ask them to start writing on paper, they are like so sad.

Like what I say, the best way to prepare is to constantly do it.  Practise make perfect.

Practice make perfect.

But don’t expect him to be very good in writing in the first year. 

At least you know that his confident has increased by a lot that is the achievement.

Good luck!

All related blogs about Chinese Compositions.

Oct 8, 2015:  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/10/p3-chinese-compo-few-more-tips.html

Sep 30, 2015:  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/09/chinese-composition-3092015.html

Sep 20, 2015:  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/09/updates-chinese-composition-jay-209.html

Sep 19, 2015:  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/09/leaning-composition-using-dictation.html

Sep 13, 2015:  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/09/updates-chinese-composition-jay.html

Aug 23, 2015:  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/08/let-it-go-butterfly.html

Aug 13, 2015:  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/08/learning-chinese-composition.html

May 4, 2015:  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/05/learn-chinese-compositions.html