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8. Mr. Ko PO-SHAM the pupil teacher in VII A. gave without preparation a new reading lesson in our presence in a manner worthy of high praise.. But all the pupil teachers seem to be doing good work.
9. Class VI. Divisions A and D are taught by Mr. GARRETT in English subjects. Division A did very well in Colloquial. We questioned the Division on a previously unseen wall-picture, and discovered a large vocabulary and intelligent observation. The wall-pictures, we may say, are quite unsuited to big classes. One -that of a railway station-was full of small detail, all of which was quite un- distinguishable from the back benches. Division A had just begun letter-writing, a subject in which it might be well to test them next year. Some of the attempts shewed good promise.
10. Division D was naturally much weaker than Division A, and there was a considerable number of boys at the bottom who paid rather scant attention, but the rest did very well. Special pains should be taken with the lower Classes and Divi- sions to improve the grammar used in speaking, especially in the matter of tenses and moods of verbs. We do not mean by the learning of lists of irregular verbs: the best way is to drill the boys in their use colloquially. What is locally called "action grammar" has proved useful with junior Classes.
11. Divisions B and C are entirely under Chinese masters. Division B gave us the impression of being somewhat sleepy. The master's English pronunciation is poor. A large proportion of the boys do not answer at all. The rest know their Reader well, and wrote dictation from it correctly. Division C was conducted apparently with much more spirit than Division B: but the master's pronunciation of English is by no means correct. The boys understood a simple story told them by the examiners.
12. Class V has four Divisions. Division A is under Mr. DE MARTIN. It was a very hard matter to get the boys to reply except in monosyllables Apparent- ly the master is too apt to cast his questions in a form which can be answered in one or two words. Thus we heard him put the question:-"How am I always telling you to reply to questions ?" And the boys answered with one accord, "Complete sentence." Division A was required to reproduce the substance of a short story told them by the examiner. The sense was reproduced with fair correct- ness; but judged as a composition it was somewhat disappointing.
13. Division B was weak. There seemed to be a lack of energy among the senior boys. In Division C the boys except a few at the top were quite unable to make themselves heard. The master always asks for explanations of a new reading lesson in Chinese, which is a departure from the approved method of teach- ing.
14. Division D was also not very efficient.
15. Class IV Division A. Here re-appeared traces of the old difficulty in getting boys to talk. In Division B the boys selected for conversation did much better, and talked glibly enough about the proposed boycott of American goods. Division C did also very well in Colloquial: but on our happening to ask the boys examined how long they had been studying at the College, they proved to be all newcomers. And when in Division D we endeavoured to select a fair re- presentation of the Class from boys who had been two years at the College, we found it hard to do so. It was surprising how many of Class IV had not been through Classes V, VI and VII but had had a preliminary English education in what the boys call "outside" Schools. Division D did badly in Colloquial. One boy, who said that he last year had been 31st out of 36 in V C, might perhaps have done better for the College and himself had he remained there another year.
16. We heard a very good reading lesson in IV B.
17. The compositions of all four Divisions taken together may be considered to be good, IV A being the best and IV C the weakest Division in this subject. This is the first year that an essay has been set to this Class. It may be that the boys had not enough time to re-copy their compositions; but whatever the reason, much of the work shewn up fails in neatness, nor does the handwriting compare well with the beautiful round hand taught in Class VII.
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