But Meet The Small Squirrel...

Ok, in a break from doing things chronologically, I have just returned from marking 72 Senior grade 2 compositions. They're all from Class 122, one of my favourites. The kids are really enthusiastic in this class and we have such a laugh. However, their writing skills leave much to be desired. Well, this may not strictly be true. Problem is, I don't know!! About 75% of them either copied reading material from their textbooks or rehashed several reading texts using odd sentences and paragraphs from here and there to make a new composition.

Another lot of them have been reading some interesting English books or have found some good websites - as they have blatantly ripped off someone else's articles or literature and just copied it into their books. I had to laugh at some of it. It is so bizarre. One such piece read as follows:

'Supposing I am a mouse, I would let the names of mice withdraw from the blacklist of mankind for ever.

Supposing I am a mouse, I would teach everyone not to steal and eat human's grain while I could teach them how to grow grain like man all by themselves and make friends with mankind.

Supposing I am a mouse, I could make family planning of mice better in order to keep ecological balance.

Supposing I am a mouse, I must do more good things to thank mankind for having offered us a lot of grain.

I believe the beautiful future of mice will come soon.'

Yeah. And this is from only the third best class in the year. I regularly mark the top class' compositions and even the best student cannot write without some basic mistakes. I mean, how many kids in British schools could write such a piece?! It is just absurd. One was a complete set of instructions on how to grow tomatoes. I know that last week Anthony had one which was basically the medical advice from the back of a packet of paracetamol!!

Top marks for balls, but these things take hours to mark. Be serious or don't bother. That's basically the message I'll give the kids when I see them on Friday. I'll read out the above piece and see how many of them even understand it.

On the other hand I had a couple from students who wrote about how they liked their foreign English teacher and how their lessons were more fun than any of the other English teachers'. That was kinda nice. Especially seeing as they had no idea I would mark them. I only did cos their regular teacher is ill.

There were some other class compositions. One was a little troubling. It was from a student who is clearly in a bad place. It read like some letter to an agony aunt, asking what they should do as they feel so lonely and helpless. He/she hoped 'to have a bosom friend' and complained about being 'so impetuous'. Besides the content, which is a little worrying, there was not one correct or complete sentence in the whole thing. Forget flowery words and phrases like 'impetuous' or having a 'bosom friend' and try thinking about subject-verb-object!!! These students use the most ridiculous language in the most inappropriate of ways. Their priorities are properly upside down. This will be tough to rectify.

But I'll leave you with my favourite from tonight's batch. The last unit was all about poetry and the students were obviously asked to write their own poems. Again ten out of ten for effort. I love it...

'One, two, three, four, five,

Go to hill to go hunting the tiger,

Don't go hunting the tiger,

But meet the small squirrel.'