Dear children,
I noticed that this particular composition practice that we did in school was badly done. These are some of the common mistakes that you have made and I hope you would be able to avoid them in your exam on Tuesday.
1. Lack of explanation
Many of you were not able to explain why a dog was chasing the boy (let's name him John). John could have done something that provoked the dog. It could be because he woke the sleeping dog up or he ran over the dog's tail etc. Actually, I will also accept if you say the dog started chasing him with no reason, perhaps the dog wanted to play. I would not penalise for this...
However, there is a need to explain where the dog disappeared to in the second picture. Did John manage to escape from it? Did the dog get distracted? I would think that John managed to be fast enough to lose the dog.
The man who helped John -- Who was he? Why did he have medicine with him?
I think he could be the park ranger. A person who works in a park. Then he would have a first aid kit with him. Some of you wrote that he's a doctor who passed by. That's okay too. Some simply wrote 'a man', and that's okay, but it will be better if you are able to explain further.
John's parents -- How did they know where to find John? Most of you simply wrote his parents came to pick him up. I think it could be the park ranger who called them up.
2. Tenses and Grammar
Some of you tried to use speech in your story but many of you kept getting the punctuation wrong. If you are not sure, then avoid it in your exam. We can have more practices but during the exam, I rather that you focus on the basics and cut down on the errors. Have a simple and error-free writing is better that having an exciting story with lots of mistakes here and there.
For verb groups, only the first word tells the tense:
e.g. did not see, did not look
'did not saw' and 'did not looked' are wrong.
Remember to use the base form of the verb when you see 'to' and modals:
e.g. He helped to apply the medicine.
e.g. He could not control his bicycle.
3. Paragraphs
Some of you kept forgetting to leave space for your paragraphs. One of you told me that your fingers are too small. If that's the case, leave a bigger space, it's not necessary that you must use only 2 fingers. It's just a guide!
Hope this helps! And here I write my version of the story.
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"Ahh! Somebody help me!" John screamed as he cycled as quickly as he could. He was riding his bicycle in the park when suddenly a dog started chasing him. He was not sure why the dog was following him but he might have woken the sleeping dog with his noisy bicycle bell.
John heaved a sigh of relief when he had finally lost sight of the dog. As he looked back to check his surroundings again, he did not notice a stone on the ground and his bicycle went over it. As he was going too fast, he lost his balance and fell to the ground with a loud thud. "Ouch!" John shouted in pain. His knee was hurt and blood started flowing out of his wound. He started screaming for help. He was frightened.
Fortunately, a park ranger, Mr Tan, was working nearby. He heard John's cries and rushed over with a first aid kit. Mr Tan stopped the bleeding on John's knee and applied some medicine on his wound. John felt better instantly and stopped crying. Mr Tan asked for John's parents' number and alerted them about the accident.
Soon, John's parents arrived at the scene. They were grateful and thanked Mr Tan profusely for his help. John left happily with his parents. Mr Tan smiled. He was pleased that he had done a good deed.
*Underlined words and phrases can be easily used in other contexts, so it will be useful to learn them.
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Today, we learnt more about silent sounds in words. We listened to Teacher Betty's stories and did some exercises on it too. There was one more word we talked about as well when we were discussing about fish - salmon. Can you remember which letter is silent?
