**新聞透視**

Furbabies

I watched it with hubby and we were disappointed that our college students do not know any of the words.  These words are honestly very common in the western world.  These words might be long but at least half of them are things that kids are familiar with on a daily basis.  

In our days we were learning 'a' for aeroplane and 'u' for umbrella.  They are long words too.  In this generation is astronaut a heated topic after we have our first astronaut up in the space?

Furbabies

HuiTung,

Yeah.  Astronaut should be heated.  Caterpillar is a common bug.  Ostrich is even in supermarket now.  Quilt, we cover everday.  Igloo might be difficult and uncommon.  

Furbabies

I was sweating when I posted my message.  I thought no one would agree with me.  

Furbabies

I think it's fine that kindergarten students don't know these 5 specific words.  As long as they are learning some words that they encounter causually on a daily basis, that's fine.  They are just starting their academic life.  

But I am very worried that our college students, our Legco Councillors and 39 out of 40 people in the business district don't know any of these words.

Furbabies

O really.  I thought the interview clips I saw none of them could answer!?  Maybe I have missed some parts of the show.

Furbabies

And again the media is making a big fuss on some immaterial issue and miss the main focus of things!  :evil:

Furbabies

That's why we need to practice in our daily life to make what we learn a permant thing in our mind set.  Language is not learnt by memorizing.  We as parents need to pitch in our bit.  There is a fine line between pressure and fun.  

Furbabies

There is no absolute right or wrong in this whole issue of kindergarten curriculum.  It's all personal choice.  And the kindergartens are more or less following our wishes and that's why we can choose from difficult traditional to creative easy living schools.  Parents' wishes are actually the driving force of this gap.  It's a basic demand and supply scenario.

Every child has unique talents.  Some are gifted with linguistic skills and others are more creative.  We as parents are trying to create an environment so that they can experience and learn.  And we have to base our choices of schools on our personal background, belief and other dispositions.

Furbabies

No system is perfect.  We need to learn from other's long comings.

Furbabies

Of course teaching seemingly difficult but causal vocabularies alone is insufficient.  It should just be part of the puzzle not all.

Furbabies

Exactly!  I don't think that the drawing line is whether the school is traditional or not.  The stress on language teaching and play time amongst other things might be different but they should all provide comprehensive education.