Andre's very short stint at Morris Allen

In my very first post, I wrote about how we sent Andre for English tuition at Morris Allen in the hope that he can improve his writing and comprehension skills.

Let's just say that we're glad Morris Allen offers a one-month trial period because that's all Andre went for. I know one month seems like too short a time to determine the effectiveness of any tuition centre, but even after just four lessons, it felt like we were throwing money down the drain.

It all looked promising enough. Andre was given this folder, which had an introductory letter to parents on what the centre was trying to achieve, a detailed curriculum and how each item taught relates to the MOE syllabus. Each week, any written work he did would be put into the folder so we can view his progress. Among other things, here's what the letter contained:

"Please understand that we base our teaching on positive reinforcement. We commend the achievements and do not usually highlight every mistake."

"As a parent, please do not expect perfection from your child's first attempt. Writing is an ongoing process and can always be improved, expanded and developed."

"Please remember that a lot of oral and interactive group work goes on in each lesson, and the written items you are seeing only represent a small part of our communicative approach."

It all sounds very nice, doesn't it? I think this sort of motivational style is very much in line with the western educational system, something Morris Allen follows since it's run and taught exclusively by expats.

So we were quite hopeful - maybe this is the answer to Andre's English woes. He went for a 1½ hour lesson on Sundays, and after each lesson, he got to bring home 3 books from the class library. He's supposed to read them and choose one to tell the teacher about the following week.

To my surprise, this was one of the books he brought home:






This is the inside of the book:

I mean, really? This is for the p2 class? This is the type of book Andre was reading when he was in kindergarten! I thought maybe they had a range of books in case some kids were reading at slower paces. But even though Andre brought home some more difficult books, many of them were pegged at a very elementary level. Often, he would complete all three books within half an hour.

I thought ok, maybe that's just the reading portion. Maybe the teaching process is their selling point. In the folder, I found this piece of written work. It's a character web of the story of Prince Cinders:

In a character web, the child is supposed to write a word that described a quality of the chosen character and what example in the story demonstrates that quality. It helps the child develop story lines and supporting sentences for composition.

I thought Andre's looked quite good and was quite pleased that he could come up with something so logical and coherent. Until he told me that the teacher wrote most of it on the board and all the kids just copied it down!! Each week, it was something like that. One week, probably out of some loyalty to his teacher, Andre said, "no lah, she doesn't always write down on the board. Sometimes she just tells us the answer."

You have so gotta be kidding me. If I thought Andre's English could improve with reading simple books and being given answers to exercises, I can do that myself. I don't need to pay someone $40 a session for that. (I can use the money to take Andre to a nice pasta place, and we can both sit down to a yummy dinner while he reads a book).

Morris Allen claims that all their students have 100% passes in PSLE English. Well, I'm sure that's true but I'm also positive that a pass is not the lofty target that parents set for their kids. While I agree that grades are not everything and learning to love the language is more important, I don't believe that should be the excuse for pitching the teaching at such a low level.

I want to stress that Andre only went for 4 lessons in one class led by one particular teacher, so I wouldn't presume to write off Morris Allen based on our limited experience. For all I know, the centre has helped other kids improve their English standards. But I know for us, we won't be forking out more money to find out.