Tips for Oral Test

1. Think and create a context before you speak, think about the time, place, and people involved in the event/s.
2. Speak more to help both you and your audience understand what you're saying; and be relaxed when you speak.
3. Speak slowly and clearly, so you have time to learn what you're saying and to emphasize the keywords that can help your audience to follow the idea in your speech.
4. Speak and think at the same time, your audience will not enjoy the mindless speech.
5. Stick to the main point. It is not good to jump too frequently from one idea to another.
6. Start from one main point and try to link all the other things to the main point when you speak.
7. Describe from the overall thing to the small things. Get into the small details as far you can.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We like Christmas.
We like celebrating Christmas.
Christmas brings us love.
Christmas brings us joy.
Christmas brings us peace.

It’s fantastic!
Christmas is a date to remember Jesus’ Birth.

Jesus can help us reconcile with God.
Jesus can help us overcome sin.
Jesus can help us live a joyful life.
It’s really great!

We live in His guidance.

We are kind and good kids.
We are also joyful, helpful, and intelligent children of God.
Most importantly, we're the special princes/ princesses of the King of the universe.

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May God bless you with abundant success in your studies this coming year!
May God also bless you to live an abundant live He prepares for you!

Speaking & Poem Recitation

Speaking is an important skill for an English learner. If you are afraid of speaking English, you can recite English poems instead.

You can speak or recite English poems as frequently as you can. Learning the English sound system is as important as learning the musical notes of music. Although you can sing without really knowing the musical notes, it is impossible for one to compose good music without knowing how the musical notes work in composing music. Smilary, you can recite poems without really knowing how they are written.

Why not help yourself to speak by reading or reciting good poems?

Enhance Your Comprehension in reading

Understanding the language context is important. Always start by reading the title of the article. You also need to get some ideas about the writer and think about the title and the writer before you read intensively.

• Is the writer a local or oversea author?
• When was the article written?
• What background did the writer position himself when providing information or expressing his points of view?
• How many key points have been mentioned in the article?

This will help you to focus and chain up the information when you read. You will also better prepare to remember the message. Of course, the very important reason that you can get the message is not the techniques but the interest to get the information and to learn things from reading.

Loop of Learning

Learning is a loop of meaningful repetition. It involves activities that help learners to:

learn,

repeat,

recap,

reflect, and

relearn

The Learning loop can be short or long, but it somehow changes your mind or thinking.

"Learn" means to understand something. You make effort to know, explore, memorise and use the material.

"Repeat" means to go through the learning material over and over again. Don't worry, you will only do it within a limited period of time. When you repeat, you help your mind to explore the right location to keep the material, so you will link up the new material with the existing ones. This brings you a sense of unity, balance, and even a view of wholeness to the knowledge you gain in the past.

"Recap" means to refresh the fading-out part of your memory to make sure that the memorised material is freshly available. It also means you are willing to take more time to learn. You may take a break in the process of learning but it doesn't mean you stop learning. You do the recap or recall whenever time is available.

"Reflect" means to bounce back so you may change the direction and adjust your mental muscles. It is a very important part of your learning loop. Without reflection, you are learning without really growing intellectually. Sometimes, after the reflection, you will find the material is somehow different from your existing knowledge or experience. So, you must adjust or even change your way of thinking in the process of learning.

"Relearn" means going through the process of learning again until you are confident using the language you learn in your daily life.

Learn Vocabulary with "EAR"

Learn English vocabulary with four "EARs".

The "EARs" stands for hear, search, learn, and earn. So make sure you:

• hear the prounciation of the word until it sounds clear to you and you can remember itl
• search for the meaning of the word in the context,
• learn which part of speech the word belongs to: noun, verb, adjective, or adverb, and
• earn the learnt word by using the word in your writing or speaking

Aways make sure that you can pronounce the new word. Say the vocabulary as you listen to it as many times as you can. Read the word in a string of sentences aloud for several times until you can really understand and learn the word. Once you 've learnt the word, then you've earned the word. You can then save it into your word bank.

Vocabulary Power - A Help to Your Intellectual Growth

You must learn vocabulary everyday. The increasing of your vocabulary means you are growing intellectually. You are getting smarter everyday.

Why?

Vocabulary can be a thinking tool. It facilitates the thinking action of your brain.

Vobabulary helps you think. Having a pool of vocabulary words increases your ability to understand the world. The more vocabulary words you have, the faster you can think, and the better solution you will get. The vocabulary skill helps decode your thinking.

Rich vocabulary also shows that you are well educated. So, you can ask good questions. Questioning skill is important for learning and discovering new knowledge. Creating new knowledge means assigning new meaning to the dicovered items using new vocabulary.

Speak or Write in Full Sentence

It's important to speak and write in full sentence.

Why?

Speaking or writing in full sentence helps to express clearly. Speaking clearly means you can also think clearly. You really know and understand what you are thinking and speaking. You will also enjoy writing or speaking because you can test your understanding when you share your thinking with others.

As students, you are not only - learning to listen to and read information and ideas of other people; but also - learning to speak and write to others to express your opinion. Speaking and writing in full sentence helps better organise your thoughts.

How can your notetaking or scribbling help you learn when you read?

When you read, your mind is scanning the information. Sometimes, it moves so fast that you may not take in the useful information the way the writer is given. You may even get the wrong message if you miss some keywords.

It's like you are just listening to something without really responding to the speaker. So you may not fully understand the message.

You need to help yourself to read speaker's mind with questions. You also need to find a way to enhance your interest in reading the message.

Notetaking can help to solve the problem. It will also make you work on the details of the message. So you'll be able to better understand the message and develop the habit of observing, questioning, and reflecting in the process of reading. As a result, you will fully understand the message and even create your own thoughts for the subject matter.

DOVE Approach of Stduy

the DOVE approach...

1. Define the terms of the topic you are studying. Make sure you understand the definition of the terms. Go to Google search to learn the definition of the terms by typing in "define:festival"


2. Opt for an alternative, study the topic and explore it further from an opposite perspective ...


3. Visualize the association between ideas or information, in other words use visual images to facilitate memorization.


4. Evaluate your mastery of the subject matters every 5 mins, 30 mins, 3 hours, 6 hours or before you sleep, and right before the test or exam.

English Vocabulary

In the previous article, I talk about marking or writing on the article while you read. This can help you better understand the message. This can also help you learn new words. Start from something you're interested in reading.

Finding a way to learn new words is what I'd like to talk about today.

The first thing to do when learning new words is to get the meaning and pronounce the words correctly. Correct pronunciation is important. Wrong pronunciation can cause a lot of trouble. It is like wearing wrong clothes. You would feel strange and get confused.

You can first pronounce it yourself and see if you can read the sound correctly. If you can't sound out the word, consult your teacher or someone who knows the words for the correct pronunciation. You can always refer to dictionary. If a dictionary is not avaible for the time being, record the words that you don't know on a small piece of paper.

Here come some simple steps:

1. Give yourself plenty of time to study words in the article by scribbling
2. Read the vocabulary aloud to yourself until you can remember the pronunciation of the word.
3. Recall in your mind a picture to match the meaning of the vocabulary.
4. Make a short sentence using the idea you see in the picture.
5. Think about the newly learnt words after 5 mins, 3 hours, 6 hours, and before you sleep.

Wow! It is a long list, isn't it?

Do you write or mark on your book?

If you are reading a book, learn to talk with the writer. You can mark or write questions on the white space of the book. You can write down what you think about the story. You can also say if you agree or disagree with the writer. You can even argue with the writer and write your opinion.

Why?

The scribbling helps you read and focus. It also prevents you from the side-off. You can really get the right message. Most importantly, it assists you with your intellectual growth. You will become smarter.