PSLE English Oral Communication Skills Workshop for Parents

1. PSLE English Oral Communication Skills Workshop for Parents EVERGREEN PRIMARY SCHOOL ENGLISH DEPARTMENT 23 Feburary 2013

2. WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES • To provide an insight into the various components of the Oral Examination. • To give suggestions on how parents can help improve their children’s oral communication skills.

3. OVERVIEW OF THE ENGLISH PSLE EXAM

4. PSLE ENGLISH OVERVIEW

5. PAPER 4: ORAL COMPONENTS • Reading (10 marks) • Picture Discussion (10 marks) • Conversation (10 marks)

6. Marks Allocation Examiner 1 Examiner 2

7. ASSESSMENT PROCESS • The examiners listen to the pupil and allocate the pupil a mark. • The examiners will discuss the mark awarded and reach a consensus before a final mark per component is given. • The final mark is not an average of two marks given by the examiners.

8. EXAMINATION PROCESS Before • 5 minutes of silent reading time. During • In the examination room, the pupil will be tested by 2 examiners.

9. A Common Theme • E.g., on the theme of “Recreational Games & Activities”. • Reading passage - A Soccer Game • Picture - Park setting with various activities • Conversation - Do you like to play games?

10. READING COMPONENT

11. READING OBJECTIVES Pupils should be able to: • Read a passage with good pronunciation and clear articulation. • Use appropriate rhythm and stressto achieve a well-paced, fluent reading of a passage. • Read with appropriate variation of pitch and tonein order to convey the information, ideas and feelingsin a passage.

12. SKILLS & STRATEGIES • Practise reading as often as possible • Look out for challenging words, beginning sounds in words • Pronounce the end words like ‘ed’, ‘s’, ‘t’ and the ‘th’ sounds • Stop at the appropriate pauses e.g. full stop, semicolon or comma • Practise dialogues

13. PICTURE DISCUSSION COMPONENT

14. PICTURE DISCUSSION OBJECTIVES Pupils should be able to: • Interpret the situation in a given picture. • Use a range of appropriate vocabulary and grammatically-correct sentences.

15. SKILLS & STRATEGIES • Overall Description • Begin with a general / overall description of the picture • Identify the focal point • Explain how or why each event happened, • Interpret each event in the picture. • The Details • Talk about the setting or location, appearance, actions of the people, perception of people’s feelings • Predict, Suggest • Give a suggestion or an opinion

16. SKILLS & STRATEGIES • Language • Use present and present continuous tenses consistently and a range of appropriate vocabulary. • Be Systematic • Do not leap from one end of the picture to the other

17. SOME POINTERS • Pupils should do the following: • Describe what they observe • Where is this place? • Who is/are in the picture? • What are they doing? • What is happening?

18. SOME POINTERS – con’t • Interpret • What is their relationship? • What are they saying? • What are they thinking? • Where are they going? • When is this happening? • What do you think has just happened?

19. SOME POINTERS – con’t • Give an opinion • Why is the action right/wrong? • Why has the incident occurred? • What could be possible consequences? • How do the people feel? • Why are they having such emotions?

20. SOME POINTERS – con’t • Predict / Suggest • What would you do if you were there? • What could they have done? • What action might have been better? • How can the others help?

21. Tenses! feels has must be is are should be Conclude to END You can say: • In conclusion…. • I feel that such an incident could have been avoided because… • I wish people would….

22. CONVERSATION COMPONENT

23. CONVERSATION Pupils should be able to: • Give their personal responses to a given topic. • Express themselves clearly using appropriate, accurate vocabulary with proper grammatical structure. • Interact with the examiner.

24. WHAT HAPPENS DURING CONVERSATION • A question related to the theme of the reading passage and picture discussion will be asked. • Pupils should take a moment to think about it. • Pupils should answer the question pro-actively.

25. POINTERS • Will not be penalised if they give“no” as an answer. • Will be penalised if they give uninterested, monosyllabic answers throughout the entire conversation.

26. POINTS TO NOTE • Examiners will try his/her best to involve the pupil with prompts to engage the pupil. • Pupils will be penalised if they give uninterested (“I don’t know”) and monosyllabic (“No”, “Yes”) answers.

27. Pointers • Pupils are highly discouraged to use another language to communicate any word or phrase. • Exceptions: • if there is no English equivalent for the word • e.g. “Satay” or “Sambal” (if they are describing local food)

28. IN SUMMARY… • Pupils will not be penalised if they canjustify their answers by explaining clearly in grammatically correct sentences. • Additional prompts do notequate to less marks for the pupil.

29. Skills & Strategies Before • Predict what the conversation topic will be. • Practice using: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How During • Listen to the question. • Take a few moments to think before responding meaningfully.

30. How you, as parents, can help • Strike up a conversation anywhere during daily routines like shopping at the supermarket etc. • Ask for their opinions on real life matters or breaking news taking place in the world. • Encourage them to justify their answers.

31. KNOWLEDGE • Reading widely is recommended • Newspapers, edu-magazines, Discovery Channel, books, etc. • A variety of topics can be tested • Success will depend largely on the pupil’s knowledge, experiences, readings • Realism: Being REAL is important

32. One more thing…

33. Smart phones as a feedback tool.