Tag: education

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EduKate Singapore PSLE English Composition Writing Materials-Types of Characters

Singapore PSLE English Language Syllabus Composition Writing Section-prepared by eduKate Tuition Centre

The following is a summarised class material for PSLE EL Syllabus under topic “types of character” that shall be used by eduKate for teaching PSLE candidates in their attempt of the PSLE EL Composition writing section.

Major Characters

Major characters are characters that appear sufficiently in the story to drive the story forwards. They are also characters that will let readers identify with and bond throughout the story.

Minor Characters

Minor characters are characters that appear in localised smaller parts of the story, and could add to driving the story, or not driving the story at all. Minor characters can be used to add to the richness of the story and provide a distraction or comic relief to the reader.

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
Albert Einstein
eduKateSG Tuition Centre Primary Students at Prive Punggol Singapore
eduKateSG Tuition Centre Primary Students at Prive Punggol Singapore

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character and driver of the story. It creates movement of the plot and engages the reader’s imagination and empathy. The protagonist usually has character traits that readers identify with and is usually the hero or heroine of the story. This is not always true, with protagonists that can be evil, or even neutral to make things interesting for ther reader.  The protagonist usually solves the conundrum in the story, or provides for a solution to the moral dilemma presented within the theme taken by the writer.

Antagonist

An antagonist is the counter character to the protagonist, creating friction and problems for the protagonist to negate. The antagonist is the other driver of the plot and, together with the antagonist, moves the plot to its conclusion. The antagonist presents a counter balance to the protagonist and could give a valuable insight for the reader into the protagonists character/actions/decisions. Again, the antagonist might be evil in nature, or could even be a hero in the story, which gives a twist to the general perception and again, makes things interesting for the reader.

Character Development

Dynamic Character

A dynamic character undergoes personality changes in the story plot, developing into another character or attaining a different outlook/experience. It usually takes a pivotal event in the plot where the character experiences monumental tasks and readjusts to cater for the change.

Static Character

A static character does not undergo any changes in the story. Usually static characters does not undergo any changes because throughout the story, a static character is hardly affected by climactic problems and soldiers on solving it.

eduKateSG Primary Students at Tampines
eduKateSG Primary Students at Tampines

Instrumental Characters

Round Characters

A round character is fully developed to be complex and realistic. Depth of character and attention to details makes round characters malleable to changes in the plot and readers sympathise with round characters easily through empathy. Round characters also mimic reality and gives readers an insight into the character and keeps the story interesting.

Flat Characters

The reverse of round characters, flat characters are not fully delineated and usually only has one or two traits to carry through the story. Usually not the main character in the story, flat characters are important tools used to provide comic relief, or even instrumental to a change in the plot.

Foil

A foil is a character that contrasts another main character to make readers appreciate the difference. The intention of the foil is to make readers understand the other character its “foiling” better.

Symbolic 

A symbolic character is a character that symbolises certain ideas or morals of society. The intention of symbolic characters are for readers to identify the hidden trademarks within the story and see its relevance to the theme of the story. It denotes clever writing and makes the reader appreciate its intelligence and its intrinsic fabrication by the writer.

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New Year, New Resolutions, New Aspirations

Welcome to 2015 and we wish you an awesome year ahead. So the new year is upon us and its that time where most of us reflect on what is important that needs some work on and making sure we do whatever we can to make our dreams come true, or to some of us, not to do something that we have done in our previous years and break that habit of ours.

What kinds of resolutions?

Basically, there are two types of resolutions that we categorise all this into: what we want to achieve in 2015, and: what we don’t want to repeat ever again. So a good way is to catalog your resolutions into these two sections.

An example of what we want to achieve: Get into School of Medicine.

An example of what we don’t want to repeat again: Stop procrastinating.

Start putting these points down and then move to the next stage.

How do we do this?

  1. The first step is to get a piece of paper and write down what you would like to do in 2015.
  2. Next, what you don’t want to do in 2015.
  3. Prioritise all the points and simplify it all.
  4. Plan how we can do achieve all these and be practical about it.
  5. Email this list to yourself and label it “Resolution 2015” for you to check it now and then
  6. Execute.

Next stage:

The first thing about new year resolutions is that we tend to forget we made them and slowly, our spots never change and we continue being the same person that we were last year. That’s when we need to make sure that we do remember to make this resolution into a checklist. So make sure that it is in a prominent place that you can remind yourself often enough of that resolution and check it off once you have achieved it.

Be reasonable with your schedules and make a plan that you can follow. I was a musician when I was much younger and we had to practice these musical passages that had an impossible amount of notes played at an impossible fast beat. There was no way we could have played it right off the first time round sight reading it. So what did we do?

We played it slow, like really slow, and started playing those phrases, note for note, beat for beat, but really really slow. Do it a hundred times. And then we took the speed up, like 5 beats per minute faster. It is an almost imperceptible change to the previous speed, and do that 100 times again. Because its hardly any faster, we don’t feel strained by it. Then another 5 beats per minute faster. Commit to it. It will slowly reach a speed where it is fast, a bit too fast for us to handle, and that was it for that day. And we came back again to it the next day, but we start at the next faster speed. Again, bringing it up to the next 5 beats per minute faster. After a few days of this slow imperceptible increases, guess what, we are now at that impossible fast speed that we needed to be to get the music right. Note for note, beat for beat. It was impossible at first, but it is not impossible anymore for us right at this moment. It is how we trick our brains and body into learning something that we thought we could never do that makes us one of the best learning machines in the world.

Why am I saying all this? Because something is impossible only if we let it be impossible. No one was born to this world running, or flying, but we have achieved all of this, and more. It just takes time, that very first step and keep on moving up the ante till we get where we want to be. So that bring us back to our resolutions.

Want to be a pilot in 2015? Yeah sure, why not? Take that first step, no matter how baby that step is. Make sure those steps gets stronger, faster, braver and slowly, with tenacity, you will reach there.

Aspire to be someone great, someone that is truly what you want to be. Write it down. Now! And let’s all make our 2015 the best year ever.

Happy New Year! And good luck on your new resolutions.

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Singapore falls to 15th place in ranking of world’s best cities for university students -ST

More news on university ranking in Singapore for today as Singapore falls to 15th place according to this article from straitstimes.com with an extract of it below:

by Amelia Teng

“SINGAPORE – Singapore has fallen 12 spots to 15th place in a ranking of the world’s best cities for university students.

Last year the London-based educational consultancy Quacuarelli Symonds (QS) ranked the Republic third in the world and the best in Asia.

However when it released this year’s table this morning it had plummeted, which QS said was due to adjustments made to some factors.

Cities were given scores across five categories for 18 measures, including four new ones that looked at their level of pollution, safety, transparency and tolerance.

Existing indicators included affordability and employability

– See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/education/story/singapore-falls-15th-place-ranking-worlds-best-cities-university-stud#sthash.ofKMztBO.dpuf“

Wong Kin Leong

eduKate

Tuition Tampines

Tuition Punggol

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Better scores now needed for NUS arts faculty

this is from an article published by Straits Times…

“Remember the days when one B and two Cs would get a student into the arts and social sciences faculty of the National University of Singapore?

Not any more.

This year, A-level holders needed at least an A and two Bs, despite the faculty taking in the largest number of students at the university – 1,700 in all.

Two years ago, the minimum grade needed was three Bs.”

– See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/education/story/better-scores-now-needed-nus-arts-faculty-20141125#sthash.zw8nv1jr.dpuf

Time are a changing

As expected, the shifts in education in a competitive Singapore are turning its wheels and grinding its gears. There’s no stone left untouched and in time to come, grades needed to enter NUS will only climb higher and its 22nd TOP UNIVERSITY TOP RANKINGS don’t help the matter much. We are an open education system and we have international students vying seats together with our students, and most people will think this is a bad thing but its more of fear that their children does not get a seat. However, this is not true as an open education system allows healthy interaction with the top students around the world, something Singapore needs to achieve a successful international trade programme.

So what does that mean to Singaporean Students?

As we climb higher up the world rankings, our education system becomes more attractive to foreigners and in our open education system, it attracts the best students and we in turn, will interact with the best in the world. That is a good thing. Competition creates excellence. And to vie for a seat in NUS will mean the cream of the crop of Singapore will be competing with the cream of the crop of the world. And that is our bread and butter. We survive because we have to be the best. To be the best, we need to compete with the best. Having a 22nd world ranking university, Singapore’s education system is at a better place right now than the last century and our students will enjoy all this excellent education infrastructure.

Top Education at our doorstep.

Just 20-30 years ago, we had to fly overseas to go to a properly good university with a properly good world ranking. We don’t need to anymore with NUS ranked at 22 at our backyard. I forgot to mention, NTU is at a not so far 39th for 2014.

That is an achievement that we should be proud of. I can only imagine the brains, the work and the funds needed to build two World Top50 University in Singapore. So this brings us to what is next? For a country where our natural resource is human resource, education and training lies high up the ladder for our future survival. But I foresee ourselves in safe hands with world class universities as part of our portfolio, but only if we have the system to create and nurture world class students to be able to qualify for these universities that we will reap the rewards, or else all those seats will be snapped up by the best of the rest of the world. Hardwork, proper training, and determination to be the best shall be dogma.

Sonnet 123 No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past,
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.
This I do vow and this shall ever be;
I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.

-Shakespeare

by Wong Kin Leong, eduKate

Tuition Tampines

Tuition Punggol

 

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Singapore Studies and Education Statistics 2014

Here’s some perspective of our education in Singapore. All data obtained from http://www.singstat.gov.sg

Singapore literacy rate (for 15 years and above) is at 96.5% with males at 98.5% and females at 94.6%. However, there is no change for males literacy from previous years but females upped 0.2% from 94.4% previously.

Singaporeans with Secondary education or higher (for 25 years and above) has increased from 67.7% to 68.8% with males 71.8% and females 66%.

Our mean years of studying are 10.5 years with males at 11.0 years and females at 10.0 years.

Also interesting, our social indicators have improved with 20 doctors for every 10,000 population as compared to 19 doctors from the previous data.

by Wong Kin Leong eduKateSG

Pinevale Tampines