When I was a 7 year old grade school kid, I can still remember that the first few years of school are what we called, Fundamentals Of Learning. Everything was nicely paced and there was little to no stress.
However, it could also be because at that point in time, we are mostly raised in families that spoke our own mother tongue rather than English. So, most of the kids like me only aim for a passing grade in English. I remember I have to crunch my Primary English Textbook very very hard, English is so hard to learn.
Now that Miloboy’s in Primary One. I am so shocked that he has to learn SO MANY things in one year. He learnt the Nouns, to common Nouns, then proceed on to Singular and Plural of animals, to Singular and Plural Forms of Verbs, to Punctuation (include speech based punctuation) then Present Tense, Present Continuous Tense to PAST TENSE….
That’s basically his syllabus for Primary One. I am real amazed by the fact that our Ministry of Education Singapore did such a Compressed English Syllabus for 7 year olds, when they really should be focusing on strengthening their English, instead, they chose to move on with speed to the deeper levels of English.
That is not all.
All Primary One kids are supposed to be able to write a minimum of 60 words based on a 4 picture sequential story telling composition by the final term. The model answers given by the teachers are Full of Adjectives and one look at it tells me, its not something that all 7 year olds can do…. well, ironically, those kids that receive Enrichment Courses might be able to do it.
Miloboy missed a point to the passing mark on a mock storytelling composition. But I really can’t blame him. What he wrote were very simple sentences.
E.g. Model Answer Opening: It was a bright Sunday morning with beautiful white fluffy clouds. My mother exclaimed, “Why don’t we go to the beach?”.
Miloboy’s Opening: Last week, we went to the beach.
On several other occasions, Miloboy mixed up Singular and Plural forms of verbs with the Past Tense.
E.g. Do (Present Tense), Did (Past Tense), Miloboy told me the Past Tense of ‘Do’ is ‘Does’.
These made me realise that the Fundamental Teachings are gone…. They compressed so much stuff in one year, for the poor 7 year olds. I wonder by what age they need to write Reported Speech. That is one of the most difficult part of English.
Even so, you know, teachers also make mistakes. They also get confused at times. I have seen errors in their marking before, let alone the poor 7 year olds who have to digest so much stuff in one year?
PS: When will it ever end? (Quoted by the Drow Ranger in DOTA)….
