Primary English Tuition Program

Children who have just entered primary school are especially young and malleable. Let our highly trained and caring tutors provide a safe and nurturing learning environment for you child, with a focus on developing your child’s basic reading and writing skills.

Our English tuition lessons follow the syllabus set by the Ministry of Education, and are designed to enable your child to perform well in the exams while inculcating a life-long habit of reading & learning in English. Our lessons plans incorporate a range of activities, including interesting reading materials and language games, to develop your child’s speaking confidence and communication skills.

The Education Lab’s core goal is to give your child a strong foundation in English, as well as to help our students grow to become critical readers and independent thinkers. Ultimately, our English tuition programme seeks to enable your child to reap the dividends of effective spoken and written communication throughout the course of their entire lives.

PROGRAMME DESCRIPTION

Our Lower-Primary English Tuition Programme is designed specifically for students from Primary 1 to Primary 3. Each level has their own separate program, however since the syllabus is similar in many aspects, we have grouped them together as our Lower-Primary English Programme.

Reading & Writing Programme: From Primary 1 to Primary 3, our English tuition classes focus on developing a child’s reading and writing skills. As our students become more confident in mastering the basic foundations of English, the lessons move on to identifying different genres of written text. Students also learn how to start inference reading techniques, which will significantly help them in doing comprehensions during the exams. Finally, students learn how to organise their ideas into writing, practice short essays, and to do different types of formal writings (essays, letters etc) in line with the MOE syllabus.

Speaking Development: Students will go through a review of the various pronunciation combinations, including phonetic lessons. Every 2 weeks, students will go through speaking practice sessions, where an interesting story or piece of literature is explored. Our English tuition students will be given the opportunity to read aloud constantly, with our teachers continually nurturing their confidence in speaking aloud.

LESSON ACTIVITIES INCLUDE:

OUR LOWER-PRIMARY STUDENTS ARE:

The Upper-Primary English Tuition Programme is where the real formal learning begins. Primary 4, Primary 5, Primary 6 students will have separate programmes, but the ultimate goal is to prepare the student as best as possible for the PSLE examinations. After taking the Lower-Primary Programme, students now have a basic understanding reading, writing, and speaking proper English, and will now be trained to hone their English skills to perfection for the PSLE examinations.

Our Upper-Primary English tuition classes are designed to reinforce & build upon the basic linguistic skills that your child would have learnt during the lower primary levels. While the technical aspect of the syllabus focuses on teaching your child how to ace the specific parts of the PSLE paper. The syllabus does this by using a range of class materials that incorporate exciting topics for reading, as well as ample English writing practices. Primary 5 & 6 programmes also start giving our students PSLE practice papers on a monthly basis.

At the end of our English tuition programme, our students will have the quiet confidence to do well in the PSLE examinations. They would also have obtained a level of command in the English language that puts them ahead of their peers as they move on to secondary school.

PROGRAMME DESCRIPTION

Our Upper-primary English tuition programme focuses primarily on enabling students to outperform their peers in the PSLE English Language Examination. The programme gives intensive practice examinations, and specifically targets known problem areas for extra practice and revision.

Content: Our English tuition syllabus is developed to complement & revise what students already learn in school based on the official MOE curriculum. Thus our syllabus very closely mimics the MOE curriculum, but with a crucial difference — we are able to cover topics in greater depth (because every lesson only focuses on 2-4 students), and we are able to cover topics with a wider scope. This means that your child will learn more about a particular theme (e.g. environmental issues) both in greater depth (down to the specifics) as well as gaining a wider scope (the numerous varieties of sub-topics). We believe that this in-depth teaching methodology is one of the primary reasons our students outperform their peers year after year.

Reading & Writing Programme: From Primary 4 to 6, our English tuition classes focus on advanced development skills in reading and writing. Students will be taught speed reading and advanced inference reading skills — these are meant to help the student perform significantly better on the comprehension portions of the exam. Primary 5 & 6 students will also start practice writings in a timed environment, similar to the PSLE exam formats. Each writing practice will be graded and teachers will individually review inconsistent writing practices with every student.

Speaking Development: Many other English tuition centres underestimate the need to develop a child’s vocational speaking skills, usually because it’s not a significant part of the PSLE English exams. At The Education Lab, we think otherwise. We believe the ability to proficient and eloquently speak English is arguably one of the most important skills a child has to develop, because it is the first form of communication that your child would have with countless other people. The ability to speak perfect English also gives a lasting first impression, whether in the corporate world or in social settings. As such, we have placed significant resources (including sending our English tutors for phonetics training courses) to teach a child to properly articulate themselves. The immediate benefit would be a distinction grade in the PSLE oral examinations, but the lasting benefit would be a lifetime of excellent communication skills.

LESSON ACTIVITIES INCLUDE:

OUR UPPER-PRIMARY STUDENTS ARE:

The English PSLE paper comprises several sections. Our English tuition syllabus covers every section of the paper, and here we describe how each paper tested in the PSLE English paper is addressed in our syllabus:

Part 1: Situational Writing & Continuous Writing (55 marks, 27.5% total weightage)

Our English tuition syllabus includes PSLE composition practices every month, these essays are graded by our professional English tutors and individual feedback is given to the student. Writing themes are changed for each practice so that the student gains experience in writing various themes in preparation for the PSLE exams. In addition, we also teach writing strategies such as paragraphing and formulating topic sentences, so students will be able to write better and gain higher marks for content and language.

Students also have to practice producing a variety of text types, especially for the situational writing section. Our English tutors will point out common errors and editing mistakes, and teach literary writing techniques to enhance the content of the written text. One writing module also focuses on applying grammar accurately, given the contextual awareness of the text. Throughout most classes, we constantly identify and correct common Singlish errors, so that students learn the correct form of internationally used English.

Part 2: Language Use & Comprehension (95 marks, 47.5% total weightage)

The Comprehension section is one of the most important aspects of the PSLE English Exam, with a weightage close to half of the entire paper. Our English tuition cirriculum places specific emphasis on the comprehension, because it is a skill-set that will be used at the secondary, JC, and tertiary education levels. Students will practice analysing a variety of literature and narrative/non-narrative texts to simulate comprehension passages. They have to summarise the main points of each paragraph, and draw conclusions from the gist of the text, given the context of the text. Our English tutors chair group discussions that also include sharing opinions on the author’s biases and whether or not the student agrees with the author’s argumentative points.

Part 3: Listening Comprehension (20 marks, 10% total weightage)

English tuition class activities include listening to audio texts and answering a range of multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions. Students are taught how to listen for keywords, and practice short-hand note-taking skills. This is essential, since the listening comprehension exam recordings sometimes move quickly, and students will not be able to revisit the recordings once they miss an answer. Students are also taught not to listen literally, but inferentially (or listening “between the lines”) so they can more easily ascertain the authors meanings and spoken conjunctions.

Part 4: Oral Communication (30 marks, 15% total weightage)

Unlike other English tuition centres, we believe that oral communication is one of the most important and practical skills a student will learn in academia. First impressions, interviews, and basically communication is often done through spoken language. This is why we believe it is critical for young students to get their basic communication skills perfected. Common class practices include speaking on a variety of topics, and having intelligent discussions with your peers about a given topic. Students are taught to give clear opinions, and defend their stand. Our well-trained English tutors also teach the nuances of eye contact, and body language while speaking. Finally, students are exposed to a wide variety of topics, so that whatever topic comes out for the exams, you can be sure that your child has already practiced it before.

PSLE SYLLABUS: