English

Head of Department:

Mdm Anissa Ferdaus Md Salleh

Level Head:

Mdm Sophia Lo Sing Hui

Department Vision

Effective & Affective Communicators
Confident Users of the English language

Department Mission

To provide an engaging learning environment that promotes creative inquiry and critical thinking and develops students into discerning, respectful and competent users of the English language.

Department Approach

At TKP, we aim to equip students with a strong foundation in reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing & representing skills for effective communication and provide an enjoyable language learning experience through explicit instruction and communicative approach to language development. Guided by the English Language Syllabus 2010 & 2020 (MOE, Singapore), we also incorporate experiential and interactive and inquiry-based learning into both STELLAR/STELLAR 2.0, the national English Language (EL) curriculum, and our school-based curriculum (SBC) that incorporate character and citizenship education and 21st century competencies through various visible thinking routines and inquiry-based strategies.

Key Programmes / Activities / Events

Learn For Life

We infuse character and citizenship education in our EL curriculum to instil values and develop a global outlook among our students and incorporate digital learning in our the curriculum to cultivate digital literacy in our students through:

Newspaper-based EL lessons

The P5 and P6 students subscribe to the What’s Up, a newspaper for children, which is used in the teaching of language components such as reading comprehension, reinforcement of grammar and vocabulary building.

Students are also taught to discuss and respond to the current affairs in the various articles Reading Journal and Writer’s Notebook for greater appreciation of contemporary issues.

Project-based ICT-EL lessons

To equip our students with the relevant 21st century competencies, we integrate information and communication technology (ICT) into our EL curriculum through the various level-specific project-based lessons such as touch-typing, MS Office, digital storytelling, podcast and video-editing.

Other digital resources such as web-based texts (e.g. online articles, blogs, wikis) and online learning sites are also used to facilitate teaching and provide close-to-real experiences in making learning more meaningful and authentic.

Using ICT to drive e-Pedagogy in our English lessons also enables students to be curious, apply understanding and assess their learning in creative ways.

Explicit Teaching of Comprehension Skills using Children’s Literature

Our students are also explicitly taught on how to make inferences and summarise the gist of the texts they read using authentic children’s literature. Teachers model and scaffold the thinking process in inferring and summarising using inquiry-based strategies such as surface and deep annotation strategies as well as visible thinking routines and various talk moves in the English classroom.

This encourages students to be active, engaged, discerning and strategic readers who will be able to make better sense of their reading.

Assessment

Guided by the principles of Assessment OF Learning (AoL) and Assessment FOR Learning (AfL), we monitor students’ learning through a wide range of assessment modes, which are used to provide feedback to facilitate future learning (formative) and to ascertain students’ level of language competency at that point in time (summative). The various modes of assessment include:

a. Performance-based assessment such as show-and-tell, speech & drama, reading aloud and stimulus-based conversation.
b. Bite-size formative assessment
c. Pen-and-paper assessment which includes bite-size weighted assessment, the mid-year & year-end summative assessments.

Embrace all Learners

We recognise and develop students’ talents in the English language by providing them the platform to showcase their abilities. We also provide differentiated support necessary both to level up and stretch our students to the best of their potential.

P1 & P2 Speech & Drama Programme

Our speech and drama programme for P1 and P2 students is designed to develop our students into proficient and confident speakers of English through fun and engaging activities and provide a platform for our young learners to showcase their oral communication skills at the end of their learning through a class performance to an audience. Conducted during the English classes for a term, this programme enables the students to acquire speech and drama skills such as voice projection, articulation and spatial awareness through play, games and mini group performances. Our students are provided with formative feedback to help them develop their self-confidence, communication and presentation skills.  We also hope our students will develop the love of learning EL from this programme.

Learning Support Programme (LSP), Reading Remediation Programme (RRP) & School-based Dyslexia Remediation (SDR)

The LSP (P1 & P2), RRP (P3 & P4) and SDR (P3 & P4) are literacy support programmes that cater to the needs of struggling readers who are given additional support in reading to keep up with the standard EL curriculum better. The lessons are conducted by trained Learning Support Coordinators (LSC), RRP and SDR teacher-instructors who provide the necessary remediation in reading through a comprehensive teaching package and guidelines developed by the Reading Unit of EL Curriculum Planning and Development Division.

High-Ability (HA) Programme

To provide an opportunity for our high-ability students to optimise their potential in the learning of the English language beyond the classroom, the following series of enrichment modules are conducted for the high-ability students in the various levels:

i. Young Journalism module (Primary 4)
ii. Writing Enrichment Programme (Primary 5 & 6)

Experiential Learning

P1 & P2 Learning Journey

STELLAR lessons

EL Carnival

The EL Carnival is a biennial event to promote the learning and use of English Language through authentic and engaging activities and experiences. Students immerse themselves in a range of exciting activities from creating poems, playing grammar games, writing letters to their favourite authors to dressing as book characters.

Drama In Education

Experiential Learning P1 & P2 Learning Journey Enchanted by the Elephant Show STELLAR lessons Group Writing during MLEA (2) Drama In Education In TKP, we believe that drama is a fun, learner-centred and non-threatening approach which encourages students to be active, imaginative, collaborative and interactive. It supports the four blocks of literacy development in listening, speaking, reading and writing. It also offers a wide spectrum of possibilities and is accessible to all levels of language proficiency as there are varieties of non-verbal and verbal roles that students can choose to participate in. Dramatisation builds fluency and enhances oral language development through repeated rereading and boost confidence in learners.

Considering our students’ strength in oral communication, we strive to provide platforms to uncover the joy in learning through different drama strategies to enhance idea generation for writing and reading comprehension in the lower and middle primary EL classroom. As a pre-writing tool, students explore different perspectives and viewpoints and learn either through acting out of a scene or through observing their classmates’ dramatisation of it. In reading comprehension, students get to explore, interact and engage with the texts that they read. These will increase their interest and comprehension of the text read.