Finally, tuition...

I tried.

I tried not to give him tuition.

I tried to coach him myself.

But in the end, I had to start Kai on Chinese tuition :(

During the circuit breaker, I realised that Kai couldn't understand his Chinese HBL even though his teacher recorded all the instructions as it would be difficult for the kids to read instructions. How did I find out when I couldn't supervise his HBL which started in the morning when I was working? 

First, the teacher called. She called everyone to check in la. She told me Kai's online work was ok except for this instance where he submitted a 9-sec recording when his classmates submitted 1 or 2 min worth of recording. He didn't follow the instructions and anyhow did it!

Then, there was a checklist. Towards the end of HBL, I realised that he didn't do a lot of his offline work! We spent the last week catching up like mad.

We discussed. Kai and I. We agreed that he would try to brush up on his Chinese with my support. We would read more Chinese, go through all of his XinPengYou magazines, and speak more Mandarin at home. The deadline was end July.

There was a slight improvement. He asked for an extension so we tried for a bit more.

Then he had HBL on 2 Oct... The next day, I signed up for a trial for online tuition.

At the trial on 5 Oct

He wasn't terribly pleased with having tuition. But he did it anyway. While he was restless, he sat through the hour of revision and told me he liked it at the end. But doing the homework with him was a nightmare again, grrr!

This week, he asked the teacher whether there was homework again. She said there would be homework every week. His jaw dropped, haha! And the homework this week was double that last week! He was mighty displeased about it. So far, we're maybe 30% done.

He decided he didn't like tuition after all. But hello, I've paid for 12 lessons. So he wanted to stop after 12. I haven't told him I got two free lessons too - one with the 12 and one due to referral from JY :p I told him it would all depend on whether and how he would improve.

It's somewhat upsetting for me too, to have him go for Chinese tuition. My Chinese was very good *.* But I'm getting anxious. He will be in P3 soon - exams! Hope he can gain something out of this. I remember learning something in my English tuition in P4-P6 coz my school didn't seem to teach those stuff. My grades weren't bad but somehow I was sent for EMS tuition... I think I topped English in P6 - have a book prize for it :p

I know Kai never learnt much Chinese until K2 coz he was the only Chinese-speaking kid in his class in his previous school But I still can't help wondering if he could have fared better if I had the time and presence of mind to help him in Chinese when he was in P1. Was still working full-time then. Yang can already speak more Mandarin than Kai now. But when Yang goes to P1 next year, I'll be sure to help him more in Chinese!!

What can I say but sorry, first child!! :(