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Primary 5 / 6 Curriculum Briefing
English Language
Objective of the Sharing
• To share the “criteria for success” and
expectations of some of the components
in the PSLE English Paper
• To share what is taught in school so that
parents can reinforce the learning points
when the child does her work at home
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PSLE English Language/ Foundation
English
2013 English Language & Foundation English
• Paper 1: Situational Writing & Continuous Writing
• Paper 2: Language Use and Comprehension
• Paper 3: Listening Comprehension
• Paper 4: Oral Communication
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English Language
Paper Component Marks/
Weighting
Duration
1 Situational Writing
Continuous Writing
55 marks/
27.5%
1 h 10 min
2 Language Use and
Comprehension 95 marks/
47.5%
1 h 50 min
3 Listening
Comprehension
20 marks/
10%
approx. 35 min
4 Oral Communication 30 marks/
15%
approx 11 min
Total: 200 marks/
100%
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Sample Question: Situational Writing
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Situational Writing • Expectations: Pupils are assessed on how clearly the
ideas are presented in the writing.
– Litmus test: Will the recipient of the letter understand perfectly
what happened in the situation and why you are writing to him /
her?
• Be mindful of the Purpose, Audience and Context of the
writing
– Purpose: Is the writer writing to complain, express her gratitude,
inform, or appeal for help?
– Audience: Is the writer writing to someone of authority or she is
not familiar with? --> to decide whether to use a formal tone
– Context: Has the writer given a clear idea of what happened in
the situation?
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Sample Question: Continuous writing
Continuous Writing
• What makes a story interesting – common
misconceptions:
– Descriptive language XXX
– “Bombastic” vocabulary XXX
– Long and complex sentences XXX
– Original plot XXX
– Complicated plot XXX
• The above may serve as contributing
factors, but not defining factors
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Continuous Writing
• What makes a story interesting:
– A credible plot: how the problem / conflict
started led to the climax how it was
resolved
– Characterisation
• Actions / behaviour
• Adding depth to the character through showing his
emotions
• “sympathetic” villains and “flawed” heroes
• Contrasting characters
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Continuous Writing
• What makes a story interesting:
– Literary techniques: introducing points of
tension such as
• moral dilemma experienced by the character,
• suspense building,
• unexpected turn of events
– Rich and appropriate vocabulary that brings
out the story
– Accurate structure
• Should not trip the reader as she reads the story 10
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Continuous writing
• K.I.S.S.E.R. rule : Keep it simple, straightforward,
engaging and realistic
– Simple & straightforward storyline the story should clearly
explain how the problem / conflicted started, how it led to the
climax and how it was resolved.
– Engaging An engaging story makes the reader feel as if he
was watching the events in the story unfold before his eyes.
– Realistic the subject matter of the story should be something a
twelve-year-old can relate to, i.e. avoid storylines dealing with
terrorist attacks, kidnapping, fantasy, mystery and death.
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• Examples & Non-examples of K.I.S.S.E.R. storyline:
– Writing about the car skidding over the puddle and leading to an
accident does not make the story straightforward. The story
loses its focus as the focus would now be the injury of the driver.
– If too much is written on how the pupils were punished by their
teacher afterwards, the story would not be credible as teachers
are usually not unreasonable.
– An engaging story will focus on the discomfort of the pupils when
they were wet, how awkward they looked and felt, and how they
felt about their misfortune.
Continuous writing
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Language Use and Comprehension
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Comprehension Open Ended
• Understanding the text:
– Take time to read the text and really
understand (2 readings needed before
attempting the questions)
– What it means by “reading and
understanding”: • The ability to ask questions as she reads along
• The ability to make connection of what she reads
to herself
• The ability to connect ideas from different
paragraphs together to form an interpretation
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Comprehension Open Ended
• Crafting the answers to the questions:
– Understand the demands of the
question, extract the clues from the text
and interpret them and craft the answer
to the question in a clear manner
– Read backward and forward to extract
the clues to the answer. Some clues are
very explicit while others are not; pupils
to connect the clues together to form an
interpretation
Comprehension Open Ended
• Litmus test for determining whether the
child’s response is a good answer:
– Relevance: if the response answers the
question
– Accuracy of interpretation: if the response is
consistent with what the text implies
– Clarity: Does a younger child understand the
response without having to re-read the text?
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Synthesis & Transformation
• Pupils are to transform one or two
sentences given.
• The new sentence must be
– structurally sound
– of the right tense
– of the same meaning as the one given
• E.g Bob was regularly absent. His
classmates noticed it.
• Bob’s regular ______________________.
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Comprehension Cloze • Pupils are to fill in the blanks in a non-fiction
text with a suitable word.
– Suitable word the word must fit into the flow of
ideas in the paragraph.
– Suitable word the word must fit into the
sentence structure
• Strategies
– Understand the flow of ideas in the paragraph
first
– Be mindful of contextual clues
– Be mindful of syntax clues – T.A.P.S. (Tenses,
agreement, punctuation and spelling)
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Oral Communication
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Oral Communication
• 30 marks - Format: Reading Aloud, Picture
Discussion, Conversation
• Preparation time: 5 minutes (Pupils will read the
passage silently and examine the picture for points
of discussion.)
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Reading aloud – the expectations
• Pronunciation: clarity of the pronunciation
• Fluency: pausing at the right moment and
with no hesitation
• Expression: varying the pitch and tone
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Picture Discussion
• To give a commentary of what is happening
in the picture
• Interpretation & explanation of the stimulus – What is happening
– The possible causes
– What would happen next
– Opinion on what has happened
• Language: to use standard English and
appropriate vocabulary
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Conversation
• Pupils to respond to a given prompt
– E.g. Tell me about a visit you made to the zoo
or any other park
• Expectations:
– How forthcoming the responses are
– Sentence structure
• To use standard English
– How engaging the conversation is
• Eye contact, body language, and if the pupil is
enjoying the conversation
Contact
• Bryan Ong – Head of Department
• Esther Tan (Mrs) – Level Head
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