This is a short article containing tips on Oral Exam, based on my decade-plus of school teaching experience and interactions with my students. Oral Exam has always been a stressful bugbear that every student needs to go through regardless of which stream he/she is in. However, with the help of parents, a student will be able to develop confidence and engage in fruitful conversation with the examiners.
These are the things that parents can do to help their children do well in the Spoken Interaction section of the Oral Exam:
Speak more proper English
At home, parents should model the process of speaking proper English with their children, and avoid using Singlish even if it sounds more contrived. For example, if a parent wants a child to go and take a bath, please say: “Can you please go and take a bath now?” instead of “You go pomp pomp now, can?”
Like it or not, research has already proven children pick up language models from their parents so parents should be self-conscious of their own spoken English to help their children speak proper English too.
It has now become an established fact, that it is important to have great role models for children to learn from. Children learn by imitating adults and other children. The more positive models there are, the more quality learning takes place.
Cut down on Mother Tongue
If you are going to keep using Mother Tongue (nothing wrong actually) to talk with your child, how is he/she going to have the opportunity to speak proper English outside of classroom context? To help your child practise speaking proper English, parents need to take on the initiative to engage their children in proper English.
The old adage that “Practice Makes Perfect” holds true for the Oral Exam scenario. Go one step further and make it “Practice Makes Permanent” so that speaking proper English becomes second nature to your child.
Watch the English news on TV
Parents should sit down with their children to watch the daily Channel 5 News or Channel News Asia. This serves three purposes :
- Instil a daily routine for the child to listen to how the newscaster speaks (Oral – Tone, Pauses & Stress) while reading the subtitles (for Grammar).
- Develop awareness of current affairs topics – build up the child’s arsenal of Content and Vocabulary which will come in handy during the actual oral examination.
- Engage in parent-child discussion of current affairs reported on the news to develop Opinions/Viewpoints, Reasons and Explanations, also as part of Oral Exam preparation.
Of course, another tangible benefit is the parent-child rapport building of engaging in the same activity, news watching and discussion, as part of family activities.
That’s all! If parents can do the above with their children on a daily basis, their children will be adequately and confidently prepared to handle any Oral Exam!
This article was written by Teacher Daniel from Learner Net.
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