泼一点冷水：高分作文并不一定是好作文，英文成绩好也不等于写作能力强。
学英文学华文都一样，培养兴趣，广泛阅读和勤写勤练才是制胜的不二法宝！千万别迷信”技巧“，更别只盯着试题试卷，而忘记了学习的最根本的目的。老话说的好：磨刀不误砍柴工。语言学习，没有捷径可走！
一篇去年的老文章：
Good writing means more than just getting 'A's
Chew Hui Min | my paper | Thu Jun 9 2011
I RECENTLY read a parent’s letter, which had gone viral, on why the “basic tenets” of our education system need to be reviewed.
She also recounted how her son had to memorise stock phrases like the “fiery sun in the sapphire sky” for use in composition writing.
This is because their works of juvenile literature are graded “based on how many ‘good phrases’ are used”, said Ms Lim, adding that a commercial book of “good phrases” is part of the syllabus in her son’s school.
That part of her letter struck a chord because, as a student years ago, I actually looked forward to writing compositions as a break from the monotony of all those classes where we just sat and listened.
To see if what Ms Lim said was true, I popped into a Popular bookstore one day and located a few shelves of those phrase books, and some of their contents caused my eyes to turn into “overflowing lakes” (one point for me!), largely from mirth.
It was hard not to stop my “cherubic angelic smiles”, as I read how the sky can be described as “chic black” at night or “cerulean blue” in the day. It had also not occurred to me that the sun was, in fact, a casanova, “flirting cheekily with clouds that were waltzing in the sky” as it rose each day.
Of course, I am highlighting some of the more pertinent examples of purple prose, but I have to agree with Ms Lim that no child should be taught to write this way. I also wonder if I would have found writing compositions as fun if it had meant just more memorising.
In primary school, I remember fondly how my form teacher from Primary 4 to 6 tried to cultivate our love of language and writing.
The class magazine she had us start had poems filled with twee phrases and stories based on the most impossible scenarios, but I kept a copy of it for a long time. And we were proud of our original work.
I also read a lot of books, mostly fiction, through no fault of the school, I must say. But the comparatively light academic load then meant that I spent a lot of time in the library. I learnt good phrases from the books I devoured.
For much of my secondary-school life, much more mugging took place.
I spent less time reading library books, more time poring over textbooks for constant tests; less time day dreaming, more time memorising; less time creating and more hours absorbing the syllabus.
We had tests every week (sometimes on Saturday mornings) and homework every day. Before school broke for vacation, we would be loaded with enough homework to occupy the month (or, in reality, to keep me awake and panicking for 48 sleepless hours just before school resumed).
I have to say, though, that I didn’t hate school then. All that studying just seemed a necessary part of life. And we had wonderful, dedicated teachers to whom I am grateful to this day. If they pressed us too hard at times, it was because they meant well, and also because the system pressed them.
But some of my classmates left secondary school rather traumatised.
A former classmate told me recently that she is worried that her young daughter’s budding reading habit will be snuffed out by school. She remembers how her secondary school killed her own interest in learning, although her near- immaculate examination results paved the way to her high-paying job.
Another classmate, whose brother is now a teacher, told me that she realised from her brother’s stories that many schools are now like our former secondary school – and she did not mean it in a good way.
I’m not sure how things might have changed in the years since I left school but, going by Ms Lim’s account, the fervant chase for ‘A’s is still the reality for many students today.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow once said that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In this case, rote learning of stock answers and phrases is not always bad, but it seems to be the most convenient tool to turn to when test scores are the final arbiter of a student or teacher’s value.
The danger comes when our students mistakenly think their high-scoring compositions are samples of good writing, just as we mistakenly take ‘A’ students to be the only worthy students.
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