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English workshop for parents

Hi parents,

We are having an English workshop for parents.
This is more for non-TAS parents.

We will cover a few aspects of English: 1) creative writing
2) comprehension techniques 3) vocabulary acquisition

We will also be selling storybooks, our creative writing book there
as well as launching our spelling booklets
(these booklets come with about 150 of the most
commonly misspelt words per level, we also show how
you can break up the letters of the words
to make it easier for children to remember the spelling).

These booklets are also going to be sold at a nearly cost
price to TAS parents to help their children with spelling.
For non-TAS parents, we will sell at slightly above the TAS pricing.
We will let you update you about the pricing of these booklets at a
later date.

Below are the administrative details of the workshop:

1) Day and Date: Saturday/16 July 2011

2) Timing: 8pm- 10pm

3) Venue: Singapore Post Centre (Paya Lebar), #14-01.
(Go to the North Lobby, it's above Delifrance and take
the lift to the 14th floor, it is the first blue door on the right)

4) Cost: $20 per person
(we do not have any activities or space for children
at the workshop so we would advise you not to bring your children)

5) Registration method: You can email us
at thealternativestory@gmail.com to register.

Do give us these details when you register:

1) Full name of parent coming for workshop
2) Handphone number

Once we email you to tell you that we have reserved a slot
for you, you can proceed to mail us the cheque.

6) Payment method: Please send your cheque to
this address: Block 703, Ang Mo Kio, Ave 8,
#01-2535, Singapore (560703)

You can make the cheque payable to Copasetic Pte Ltd.

Please write down your full name, phone number
and email address(the one you used to register)
behind the cheque.

Once we get the cheque, we will email you to tell you
that you have a confirmed place for the workshop.

Thank you

TAS

June Holiday Programmes

Hi parents,

We are having some holiday programmes this June and would like to
update you about them.

1) Love to Write 3
(this writing course covers different topics from what was covered
before in our previous holiday classes)

Themes covered (P1/2):
- Vandalism
- Fight:
a) Fight in classroom
b) Fight at void deck over crying kitten

Themes covered (P3/4)
- Fight (more detailed than the P1/2):
a) Fight in classroom
b) Fight at the void deck over vandalism
- Stuck in the lift

Themes covered (P5/6)
- Fight (more detailed and varied than the P3/4):
a) Fight at the
shopping centre
b) Fight in school
- Mundane topics:
a) accusation of shoplifting
b) accusation of theft in school
(We noticed a trend in the PSLE where the topics are becoming a bit more
mundane, not as dramatic as 'bomb', 'fire'. The examiners probably want to
test the children's skill in writing as they know a lot of children just
'vomit' out beautiful phrases for the more dramatic compositions like
'fire' etc. By setting topics that are more mundane, it is harder for the
child to elaborate and to just 'vomit' out the phrases.
Hence, we feel it is important to also train the children to
write well for the more mundane topics. Having said this, it is also
important not to neglect the more exciting topics (fire etc).
However, the children just need to know how to fit in these topics
into the situational topic given (Question 3 in the PSLE)

Details of Love to Write 3:

Ang Mo Kio:
Date: 13-14 June 2011(Monday and Tuesday)*

Time: 9.30 am - 1.30 pm on both days

Venue: Ang Mo Kio Blk 703, Ave 8, #01-2535 (2nd storey)

Levels available: P1/2, P3/4, P5/6

Cost: $185 (it would be $170 if your sign up in a group of 4)

Early Bird Discount (Sign up before 16 May 2011): $175
(it would be $160 if you sign up in a group of 4)

*Once these classes are full, we would start 2
more classes on 15-16 June at Ang Mo Kio.


Bukit Timah:
Date: 15-16 June 2011(Wednesday and Thursday)

Time: 9.30 am - 1.30 pm on both days

Venue: Bukit Timah Shopping Centre, #02-72
(next to By His Grace maid agency)

Levels available: P1/2, P3/4

Cost: $185 (it would be $170 if your sign up in a group of 4)

Early Bird Discount (Sign up before 16 May 2011): $175
(it would be $160 if you sign up in a group of 4)

2) Paper 2 crash course

What is covered: We will cover comprehension and also teach
the students the techniques of decoding the passage and also how to
answer the questions. We will also cover grammar, comprehension cloze,
spelling of easily misspelt words, vocabulary and synthesis.

It is important for students to know the techniques of doing well
in the different components of Paper 2 in order to do well for English.
Hence, we are also doing a crash course on Paper 2 this June.

Details of the programme:

Ang Mo Kio:
Date: 15-16 June 2011(Wednesday and Thursday)

Time: 9.30 am - 1.30 pm on both days

Venue: Ang Mo Kio Blk 703, Ave 8, #01-2535 (2nd storey)

Levels available: P5/6*

Cost: $185 (it would be $170 if your sign up in a group of 4)

Early Bird Discount (Sign up before 16 May 2011): $175
(it would be $160 if you sign up in a group of 4)

*If there are at least 6 students signing up for this programme (Paper 2
crash course) that are from other levels: P1/2, P3/4, then we would
open up classes for these levels at the East (Singapore Post Centre
at the same timing and date: 15-16 June). The early bird discount
for this group would apply to the first 4 who sign up for the class.

How to register for the programmes:

You can email us the following details:

1) Full name of child (including chinese name if there is one)
2) Level of child (eg: P1)
3) Level of the class that the child is attending (eg: P1/2)
4) Date of programme (eg: 13-14 June)
5) Name of programme (eg: Paper 2 crash course, Love to Write 3)
6) Centre that you are signing up for: (Ang Mo Kio, Bukit Timah or East)
7) Contact number of parent
8 ) Name of parent

We would not accept registration via phone calls
as that would tie up the lines and parents calling for
normal classes or other inquiries would have
difficulty getting through. We thank you for your understanding.

Our email address is: thealternativestory@gmail.com

Here are the payment details:

Once you have gotten a reply from us via email stating that
we have reserved a place for you, you can mail us a cheque:

- The cheque should be made payable to 'Copasetic Pte Ltd' and
you can send the cheque to Blk 703, Ang Mo Kio, Ave 8, #01-2535
Singapore (560703)

- Please write your full name and email address (the one that you
used to register for the programme) at the back of the cheque.

- We will email you to state that we have received your cheque and
confirmed a place for your child when we get your cheque.

TAS

Hi parents,

We will be having holiday programmes in June and
November/December, book fairs and other events.
If you are interested to know about these events, you can
email us and state that you want to be on our mailing list.
Once you are on our mailing list, we will email you
whenever we have any new events or programmes. We will also
post up the information on the forum and on our blog. However,
for some parents who want either a more immediate notification
or who do not visit our blog often or the forum often, you can notify
us that you want to be on our mailing list. Our email address is
thealternativestory@gmail.com. Just state in the title that
you want to be on our mailing list.

TAS

Hi parents,

There are some of the timings that parents have been asking
for the EIC classes (Ang Mo Kio):

1) Monday 7- 9 pm + Thursday 7- 9 pm (added together
to form 1 class)

2) Tuesday 3-7 pm (our existing timing)

3) Thursday 3.30 pm - 7.30 pm

* we cannot do any weekend classes for this so weekend timings
are out.

EIC (Bukit Timah)

1) Monday 2.45 pm - 6.45 pm

These timings that we have put out are possible timings that we can do
as well. Once we have 4 students of the same level for these timings,
then we will start an EIC class and we will inform you.

TAS

Hi parents,

English Language as with most languages is best learnt through
immersion. By immersing a child in a language (through reading
and also listening to the language being spoken), a child
picks up the language naturally and much more easily.

However, not every child is able to do so. Many children need
help with their grammar, with their understanding of
a text, with their oral expression and so on.

Hence, we feel that it is necessary for some kids to be
immersed in the English Language as much as possible for
them to really begin to pick up the finer details of the language.

While we have our regular classes to help children, we find that
some children still need extra help with their work because
a 2 hour lesson, while it is good for drilling and
teaching concepts and strategies, cannot really immerse
a child in the language. The 2 hour lesson focuses on getting
the children to know how to be able to tackle the questions in
the examination. This lesson is more to immerse the child in
the language so he picks it up naturally.

Therefore, we have come up with this class where we will
cover a range of components (grammar, comprehension, synthesis,
spelling, speech & drama and vocabulary). However the way
we teach these components will be in 2 ways:

1) By immersion
2) By picking up the rules, explaining them and practising
similar questions

What do we mean?

We will be using storybooks as our guide. As the children
read the books with us, we will pick up certain grammatical
structures from the passage and teach them the rules and then
we will have practices on the rule. When we come
across a synonym of a word in the book eg "jubilant", we
will teach the children other synonyms of the word and teach
them the mnemonics so they can easily remember the words.

When we come across a certain synthesis structure in the passage,
we will also pull that out and teach them the rules and give them
practices to work on.

We will also set comprehension passages based on the book
and teach them how to be able to find the answers as they
read. In this way, they can also learn English in a more
natural way.

For the speech and drama part, we will cover the following
components:

1) Intonation (How to read with expression)

2) Pronunciation (How to pronounce the words correctly,
especially the ability to pronounce 'th' and the ability to
differentiate between their 't's and 'd's for eg.)

3) Linking of ideas (How to link ideas together, we will
teach them how to have a topic sentence and how to develop the
topic by giving a macro view point and then provide the
micro details and also teach them how to wrap up their topic)

4) Creative thinking (We will teach them how to act out a
scene using for eg. a chair in different ways. The chair could be a
time machine, it could be a seat in the classroom, it could be
the back of a horse, and they are supposed to act out
different scenarios and to think of how they can use the same
object to portray different scenarios)

5) Newscaster (We will also get them to listen to the
news broadcast on the internet and then they would have to do
their own broadcast)

However in order to allow the child to be immerse in such an
environment, the programme would need to be longer.

This class is an added support to what we teach in our normal
classes. However, for students who are not in our normal
classes, this class would be good for immersing them
in the English Language.

Details of the class:

Name of Class: English Immersion Class (EIC)

Time and day of class: 3- 7 pm, Tuesday (it is 4 hours
long but there will be a 15 min break in between and the children
will not feel restless as the speech and drama part is very
lively and the learning through reading is not intensive
drilling)

Venue: Ang Mo Kio centre

Price:
*Although this is a 4 hour programme, we are actually
charging the same price as our 2 hour programme for TAS
students (This is done so that this programme can really
be a support for your child and help your child pick up the Language
fast)

So for TAS students, it is $388 per term.

For non-TAS parents, there is also a 40% discount,
instead of it being $776 (our normal price for a 4 hour lesson),
it will be $465 per term.

This price will remain until the end of the year (2011) as part of
our promotion.


How to register:

- You can email us at thealternativestory@gmail.com and give
us the following particulars:

1) Full name of child
2) Level of child (P1 for eg.)
3) Full name of parent
4) Handphone number of parent

Once we have 4 students of the same level, we will start a class
and inform you.

TAS

Hi parents,

This is the information that we have about our upcoming
March Holidays programme.

1) Love to Write 2

Programme Details:

We will cover themes that have not been covered before. These
are the themes:

P1/2:
- Incidents happening in school - Animals appearing in the class
- Being late for school

P3/4:
- Incidents happening in school - Animals appearing in the class
(more advanced level)
- Being lost in a crowded place

P5/6:
- Kidnap
- Bomb

* For P1-4, we are focusing on more mundane themes as there are
many children who find it difficult to bring out the tension well
in a storyline that seems very simple and mundane so here we will
teach them how to do so even for mundane themes.

For content:
We will teach children how to build tension in a story
and how to stretch the tension and not rush to the ending and solution
that they sometimes make the mistake of doing so.

For vocabulary:
We will teach creative writing strategies like
personification, and the use of metaphorical language and the
use of hooks in the vocabulary to reel in the reader.

We will also use mnemonic strategies to help the children
remember key parts of the composition

For grammar:
We will teach children how to use a variety
of sentence structures so that their writing will not sound
too stilted.

Administrative Details:

Dates: 14 & 15 March 2011 (Monday and Tuesday)

Time: 9.30 am - 1.30 pm each day

Address for programme: Block 703, Ang Mo Kio,
Ave 8, #01-2535 (2nd storey) -above Blue Max DVD,
pls enter by back entrance

(we are only able to have this programme at one location
as our other teachers will be busy with other programmes
in schools or other pte events)

Price: $185 (sign up in a group of 4 and pay $170 each)

Early Bird Discount: Sign up by 17 February 2011 and get
$10 off whichever price you are paying.

If you are paying $185, you will pay $175
If you are paying $170, you will pay $160

How to sign up: Only by email (no phone calls pls)

- Please give the following details when you email us:

1) Your child's full name (including chinese name)
2) Level in school
3) Class that you want him or her to sign up for (P1/2,
P3/4, P5/6).
4) Parent's name
5) Parent's handphone number

(Pls note that your child can only skip a level
and go for a higher level class if he or she is getting
80 marks and above for their English.)


Process:

1) Email us the details
2) Receive a reply that there is vacancy
3) Send us a cheque for payment
4) Receive a confirmation email that we have received your cheque
and confirmed a place for your child

Details to put in for the cheque:
- to be made payable to: Copasetic Pte Ltd

Details to be included at the back of the cheque:
- Child's full name
- Parent's name (given in email)
- Email address that was used to register for the class

Address to send cheque to:

- Block 703, Ang Mo Kio, Ave 8, #01-2535 (2nd storey),
Singapore 560703

You can email us your registration at thealternativestory@gmail.com

Note: the special referral programme does not apply to holiday
programmes

TAS

Hi parents,

We are having a special referral promotion from now (Jan 27
2011 to February 25 2011- we have extended the
date to 25 Feb as some parents say their friends have
children still finishing their terms at other centres so they
can only join at the end of Feb).

Anyone who refers a friend to us for class (English, Science
and NSA-Newspaper and Storybook Analysis class) can will get
$10 per person referred.

The friend who is referred will also get $20 off their term fees.

How does this work:
Eg: If you refer 3 people, you will get $30 off and each person you
refer will get $20 off their term fees. If the person you refer
has 3 children joining us, you will get $30 off and the person
will get $20 off the term fee of each child.

- The friend whom you recommend needs to give us your
child's full name (name + surname), level (eg. P1) and
branch your child is in (AMK, Bukit Timah or East)

- When the friend signs up with us, he or she will
get the discount off their term fee and you will
get the discount off for your next term's fee.

- During this promotion period, you can refer any number
of people.

- At the end of the year, we will also take note of the
people who refer the most number of friends to us
(during the promotion and non promotion period
and the person who refers the most-must be at
least 30 and above- will get an IPAD). This
person must also of course still be with us at
TAS.

We actually have this year end gift every year- but this
year's gift has been changed to an IPAD.

TAS

Hi parents,

We have not started Science classes yet this year as the moment
we started a new slot, it will be filled with students wanting English
first.

The majority of our students who took Science with us were in
P6 last year and that was why we could stop our Science
classes this year. However, we did tell parents who had
existing Science classes with us last year and want to continue
with us this year once we do have slots, they will get a 30%
discount off the first term as they have been waiting a while for
us to start.

For new parents who want to join our science classes, you will
also get a promotion discount-20% off the first term. We usually
have promotion discounts whenever we start a new type of
class-for example for our English classes, when we
started in 2009, we gave 50% off for the first month.

These are the details:
(However, do take note that we will only
start once there are 4 students)

Cost per term (10 lessons): $338

Promotion
(20% off for
first term only and for first 5 parents to sign up for a particular
science class): $270

Promotion
(30% off first term only for
parents who already signed up with us last year and were in our
existing science classes): $236

Possible timeslots:

- Monday 3.15 pm - 4.45 pm
- Monday 7.15 pm - 8.45 pm
- Saturday 11.50 am - 1.20 pm

Location:
TAS centre at AMK, Block 703, Ang Mo Kio
Ave 8, #01-2535 Singapore 560703.
(It is the shophouse next
to Macdonalds, our centre is above Blue Max, please enter
by the back entrance)

You can contact us at 67588744 or email us at thealternativestory@gmail.com for more information

TAS

Hi parents,

This is the information regarding a new class that
we are having:

- Newspaper + Storybook Analysis
(NSA for short)

This is more of an enrichment class as compared to our
usual classes which cover creative writing and paper
2 components (compre, vocab etc).

We are starting this class because we realize that while it
is important for children to do well in their examinations and
the work we have for our usual classes help the children
prepare for their examinations, we also feel it is
important for children to also be allowed to explore different
text-types (factual: newspaper reports and narrative: storybooks)
and to develop higher level of thinking and analytical skills
from examining these text-types.

We want the children to be thinkers and to come up with
out of the box creative solutions and we feel there is a need to
have enrichment programmes like these to get children to start
thinking and reflecting at a young age so that they do not just end
up knowing facts but they will know how to apply them and to
problem solve in a real world.

Children still need to have the rigor of knowing grammar rules,
of learning how to develop writing techniques etc and these will be
covered in our normal classes. However to develop the students
on their creativity and thinking skills, we have come up with
this enrichment programme.

This enrichment programme may not result in immediate good
grades but it will help the children in the long term to develop
them in their creativity and thinking ability.

What skills will be developed? (newspaper analysis)

Example of an article: Need to change the way Mother
Tongue is taught

- Extracting skills
In order to reflect effectively on a article, we will give them
background information and research and from there, they will
need to come up with reasons why there is a need for change in
MTL teaching. They will need to extract the relevant information
and by doing so, they will develop the skill of differentiating 'points'
and 'examples'. From a chunk of information, they will need to
extract the points.

Example of a short article:
We need to start now, because their recommendations will
take many years to implement. We have to take into account the
changing language environment and the wider spread of
language backgrounds and abilities among future cohorts of students.
- Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence

From this short chunk of information, the student will be taught to
extract out the point, i.e there is a wider range of abilities among
the future students hence the way MT is taught needs to be changed.

- Categorizing skill

They will then categorize the information under different headings,
for example: social, economic etc. This will help them to develop the
skill of seeing patterns and links in the information given.

- Analyzing skill (i.e digging deeper)

The students must dig deep into the reasons- they need to peel
the 'onion' of reasons to see if there is other underlying reasons.
They will look at each category of reasons and dig deeper.

For example:

Why is there a wider range of abilities in students who take MT?
Is this really the reason or is it a symptom?
Why were the students of the past more uniformed in their ability?

From here, we will get them to point out various deeper underlying
reasons: children now use the internet much more and the
information on the internet is in English, most children do not read
the information on the internet in Chinese (for eg). Over time,
the children get less and less exposure to Chinese. Thus the ability
to do Chinese well drops. Hence you have a widening range of abilities
in the children.

There is no 'right' or 'wrong' here. We want the children to think and
by doing so, perhaps uncover more underlying possible reasons and
when they do so, they can then go on to the following skill:

- Application skill

Now armed with these underlying reasons, they will look for
ways to apply solutions to them: If more and more children
are using the internet in English, could a possible solution be
for the Chinese teacher to get the children to go on
facebook for a chinese lesson but the whole lesson is in Chinese
so the facebook characters or information is all in Chinese?

We will get them to come up with various solutions to this
real-life problem. They will do this in a mind-map
book.

For storybooks, we will teach the following skills:

- Inferential skills

Extract taken from Reckless by Cornelia Funke

Outside the stars were paled by the glaring lights of the city
and the large apartment was stale with his mother's sorrow. She
did not wake even when Jacob stole into her room, even when he
opened the drawer of her nightstand.

We will teach them how to infer that the reason why the mother
never woke was because of her depression. They can then think
of possible reasons why she is depressed. A death in the family,
perhaps?

- Summary skills

What kind of person do you think Jacob was? After reading
a short extract, we will teach the children how to pick up clues
to sum up a character's family situation or character.

Throughout all this, we will also teach the children how to
find out the meaning of new words they read by looking
at the contextual clues. When we come across good phrases
they can use in their compositions, we will tell them which
scenario they can use the phrase for but we will not teach
creative writing skills or go through compositions in this class.

Details of this programme:
(For now, we will only have 1 class at our AMK branch)

Timing: Monday 3.20 pm - 4.50 pm.

Commencement date: Once we have 4 students of the
same level

Which level is this class suitable for: Very high ability
P3/High ability P4 and P5/P6- we will do an assessment to assess
if your child is able to join the class. Your child should already be
strong in his or her basics especially if he or she is in P3 - P4.
We allow P3 students to go in as we have had very high ability P3
students who are almost the same level as a P5.

Fees: $330 per term (10 weeks)

Promotion:
For this first class we are starting, the students
will get 2 lessons free for the first term so the fees will be
$246 if they sign up before the end of February 2011. For
the first term, the first storybook we use will also be given
free to all the students who sign up before February 2011.

Materials: The newspaper articles will be provided free but
they will need to purchase the storybook(s) that we are using for
that term.

Lesson format: 45 mins of the lesson will be for
Newspaper Summary and 45 mins will be for the storybook
analysis.

You can call us at 67588744 or 90615592 or email us at
thealternativestory@gmail.com to book an assessment or for
further inquiries.

TAS

Hi parents,

TAS will be moving to our new AMK location:
Blk 703 Ang Mo Kio Ave 8 #01-2535

We will not be having our Yishun centre anymore. Lessons will be held at our AMK branch from this friday, 14th Jan 2011, onwards.

FYI: Please enter from the back entrance into TAS. We are above Blue Max Dvd shop.