PSLE Student English Workshop by Marshall Cavendish Education

I think by now most of you know that I am exploring ways to teach my own P6 girl since she does not have tuition. In fact, I am looking at whether there are tuition centres for parents like me. Mummy Ed knows me well for sure, and introduce me to the series of Parent Workshops by Marshall Cavendish Education (hey, I am sure you have heard of MCONLINE!). It has all levels from P1 to P6 Coaching Workshops meant for parents to attend. I am definitely most interested in PSLE Parent Workshops!

But before I attend the PSLE Parent Workshops, I realized that they have PSLE Student Workshops too! Hence, I decided to coax my girl into skipping her art classes to attend the English Workshop since the dates worked out well for us. Each of the Student and Parent Workshops consists of a 2-part series, meaning that you have to attend 2 Saturdays for each subject upon sign up, usually from 9am to 3pm or 430pm depending on which subject it is.

In the English Student Workshop over 2 Saturdays which my girl and her friend had attended, they learnt the following:

• The 5 Deadly Character Flaws – crafting a story from the inside-out!
  • At the heart of every good story lies a flawed character who wants to/learns how to change.
  • The 5 Flaws: Greed, Laziness, Anger, Envy, Pride
• Unexpected (yet logical) plot twists!
  • Identity shifts, unexpected consequences, defying the reader’s expectations
• The 1-2 Punch Method of Combining Sentences
  • Strategy for Synthesis & Transformation
• The importance of asking the right questions (at the right time) – what is “right” anyway?
  • Tenacity in asking questions – even if it means stinging your ego
  • Situation Awareness – Jump out of your inner world sometimes!
  • Classical Cases of People Asking the Right Questions who changed the world!

When I picked up the girls after the first session, I was anxious to know if skipping her usual art class for this workshop was a right decision. To my delight, both the girls gave their thumbs up! They enjoyed the workshop tremendously mainly because of one reason: the teacher (Teacher Joel) was a very humorous guy who cracks them up for the entire 6 hours. To enjoy the workshop is really the key to absorbing what has been taught. For this, the workshop is already a success with the right teacher!

The first part of this workshop is teaching them on writing a composition using the 5 character flaws, interesting plot twists, and ending with a funny Coda strategy: MFHD. Guess what it is?! It means:

M:My             – Memories
F:Friend        – Feelings
H:Has            – Hopes
D:Diarrhoea  – Decisions

The first two are for REFLECTING ON THE PAST, and the next two are for REFLECTING ON THE FUTURE. This is used for the last concluding paragraph.

During the class, Teacher Joel asked them to act out the character flaws. It really helped them to remember clearly on each point covered in class. And when the students handed up their composition homework the next Saturday, Teacher Joel made a funny remark about my girl’s starting words of “One day,…” which made her laugh hard, and you bet she will probably never use that start line again!

On the second Saturday, the girls returned to the second part of the workshop learning how to work on Synthesis and Transformation questions using the 1-2 Punch Method. Basically, it is about the order of action just like in boxing punch of rapid succession of 2 blows. Well, what a way to describe the method to imprint on the students’ minds. Even I had a deep impression reading about this 1-2 Punch Method. Seriously I was wondering if the handouts were prepared by Teacher Joel too, since the contents are kind of humorous! And there is a TOP SECRET handout that says “For your eyes only” which has a formula table for all kinds of conjunctions.

When I picked up the girls after the end of the second class, they couldn’t stop talking about the class titbits. It is certainly worth skipping two art classes to attend such an interesting workshop and learning these extra tips on English.

Today, my girl had her English Paper 1 CA test. She came back and told me she had used a plot twist and MFHD in her composition. Wow! I thought how timely this workshop is! And the bubbly girl went on to recall what the workshop teacher had taught them and shared the jokes again and again. It made me and Master 10 laugh out loud too! You must know that my girl is a natural when it comes to acting out a scene. I can practically see Teacher Joel’s funny acts through her!

And guess what? She asked to attend another workshop!!

This PSLE Student English Workshop was held over the previous 2 Saturdays and the next upcoming student workshop will be PSLE Student Chinese Workshop on coming 2 Saturdays and Math and Science in March. Here is a summary of the dates, one on Student Workshops and the other on Parent Workshops.

For more information, do check this out and sign up from the 2 links below to enjoy 20% discounted rate. This is bundle of 3 workshops in special rates!

PSLE Student Workshop sign up link: click here.

PSLE Parent Workshop sign up link: click here.

I have attended the PSLE Parent Workshop for English. Click here for my review!

Disclaimer: I was invited to the PSLE workshops for the purpose of this review. As I am writing a PSLE series this year, these PSLE workshops will be a good resource to share with all parents preparing for the big national exam! Stay tune for more!