Perspectives: Chinese Oral 2026
Did my daughter find Day 1 PSLE Chinese Oral difficult?
Yes
Did she feel she will do well?
No
Was she worried she’d come home to interrogation?
No
Was she disappointed in herself?
Yes
Did she disappoint me?
No (Gosh how can I? She told me she was fiddling with the wire that connects the tablet and was holding onto the under side of her table just to calm her nerves. Socially awkward her was already trying so hard not break down in front of 2 strangers on top of articulating her thoughts in Chinese. More than proud!)
Did any of her school mates in the holding room cry?
No
Did they all find it hard?
Yes, everyone came out saying they were cooked
Did they take it at their stride?
Yes
Did I verbalise how difficult and unexpected this Day 1 was?
Yes
Did I say it was unfair that Day 1 was harder than Day 2 which was on Honesty?
Yes
But on hindsight, I’ll get there, the questions asked on Day 1 weren’t unreasonably hard. I felt maybe Day 2’s questions were a bit harder to articulate!
Let me first address affected students and parents…
For Day 1 Chinese Oral students, I’m sorry if you felt disappointed. I believe the stress of not getting tested any of what you’ve studied is very disappointing but look, don’t focus on this fact! You may not have done as badly as you think you did.
Conversing on something else that you hadn’t memorised or practiced for allows the examiner to speak to the real you. The you who is suddenly nervous and found strength to even answer, the you who they saw became witty with your responses because you had to think on the spot, the you who is not the memorised version of You.
You did good.
The examiners aren’t here to penalise you and cause you to fail, they are always here to help you get past this hurdle with grace.
………
Parents, your children did good. It is not unfair that Day 1 is “more difficult” than Day 2 because it’s not that it’s more difficult, it’s just that you didn’t spot it.
Please, move on so your children won’t see life in a different light. Life is going to throw them more curveballs than this.
I’m sure you know that.
………
To my followers who are on the same wavelength as me and patted your children’s backs, brought them for Bing Su, joked with them and did not complain openly to your kids so they don’t feel even worse than they did, we are raising kids who see the cup half full than empty! Believe that they are the ones who will take hardship in their stride and won’t succumb to extreme negativities.
Day 1 PSLE Chinese Oral
It’s not a topic everyone prepared for because everyone’s spotting questions and preparing for the main themes.
But it also isn’t one that we don’t talk about at home isn’t it?
We had always been conversing about home safety, stranger danger and teaching them how to look for help when needed. I’ve told my children how when I was younger, if a man walked into the same lift as I did, I would choose to step out to protect myself. I’ve told them if our house is on fire, what are the things we should do.
These conversations aren’t for oral prep. They were me parenting my kids.
Even if we hadn’t discuss what we should do if our house is robbed, with all the discussions in our lives on protecting ourselves from danger, our children would have natural instincts to:
- Call police
- Call neighbour
- Call parents
- Call an adult
It’s ok to just articulate these in very simple Chinese instead of flowery language. The question would have been answered and accepted!
The way I see it, children who cried and parents who were angry reacted a lot more strongly than the rest of us because after spending so much time preparing for oral, none of what they practiced came out.
It isn’t about not knowing what crowbar is in Chinese. Nobody would know and the examination board isn’t penalising everyone who didn’t use the word 撬棍.
Let’s objectively look at the questions in Day 1.
Question: If you were in a lift with a suspicious person, how will you feel?
We do not need prior oral prep to say “I would be scared and would walk out.”
Question: If you see someone suspicious outside your neighbour’s house, what will you do?
It’ll be natural to respond with “I’ll call police, neighbour, parents or an adult.”
Question: What kind of relationship should we have with our neighbour
While not every kid was asked this question, not mine unfortunately, it is something every one who had prepared for Chinese oral would have an answer for.
Question: Singapore is safe, do you agree?
Faye got this question and it is a bit more thought-provoking than the others. But, is it answerable in Chinese? Yes because there are a lot of examples to provide and it is not a question that has a right or wrong answer. It’s an opinion.
Day 2 PSLE Chinese Oral
The topic was on Honesty.
EASY! Was the first reaction by all of us!
Easier for sure!
Why?
Because it is a topic we are prepared for!
But the questions were made more thought-provoking and not as straight-forward as Day 1 PSLE Chinese Oral where they asked questions like:
Question: Have your school organised any events around the theme “Honesty”?
Question: Do you think people should be honest?
So, had it really been unfair where one day was harder than the other?
I think they were on par.
Chinese Oral Preparation
I notice memorising work is needed to tackle the question
“What would school do to promote this value”
It seems like the board knows every child is memorising this part and would regurgitate it like second nature. It’s so silly when I was practicing with Faye and she’d regurgitate it as well because it was well-memorised.
Memorising a personal story for each topic is also suggested so that it can come out at the tip of your tongue when you are put in a very nervous situation.
This defeats the purpose of Oral examinations isn’t it?
I’m glad they no longer ask this question in PSLE Oral Exams.
The essence of Oral is to test conversational skills and if we had everything spotted and memorised, then… what is this for?
Grades?
Preparation for Chinese or English Oral is the work done in our every day conversations. While we do not speak Chinese as much as English, maybe we should put in a conscious effort to do so.
That’s the only preperation you need to tackle Oral examinations. Not notes after notes of model answers...
** Oral pictures and list of Chinese words extracted from @sowingseedz and @rmms
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