Ng’s Profile
School Grade: Secondary 4 (Grade 10)
Center: Kumon Kwai Shing Education Center
Subject:
EFL — completed in November, 2014
Math — level L (one year advance beyond school grade)
Be Knowledgeable and Humble
Like many students, at the beginning of studying Kumon, it took time for Ng to adapt to the way of Kumon learning, as repetitive pattern and progress-in-small-steps worksheets. She felt bored that some contents seemed to repeat over and over again. However, she gradually developed the habit of studying Kumon every day. As she has made progress, she started to learn new contents. With the hints from the example questions, she solved the problems by herself and received 100 marks from her worksheets. This sense of achievement arouses her interest in learning.
This is the power of accumulation of knowledge. The on-going practice enhances Ng’s learning ability and learning motivation; it also increased her knowledge. Ng told us that as she made it to higher levels and more difficult levels of Kumon EFL, she had such an experience – “at the highest three levels, I had more corrections to work on. Sometimes I needed to make corrections for the entire set of worksheets and I had to stay in the center until 6pm or 7 pm. Miss Chan would accompany me and explain the questions to me. We even looked up words in the dictionary together.” When talking about this past experience, Ng said, “It is a special experience to me.” She is so passionate about gaining knowledge.
Keep Moving Forward
Ng recalled the time she started learning Kumon, she was not good at time management. At that time she was going to take the pre-secondary school examination, and that made her even busier. However, once she developed the study habit, she felt like missing something if she did not study Kumon. She also thought about not going to center on Saturday but her mother did not allow her to do so. “You have to go and study Kumon except for special occasions.” Sometimes people are lazy, especially children at puberty, they need lots of encouragement from their parents, to overcome laziness so as to develop a good study habit and keep moving forward.
Ng is emotional sometimes, and her mother will encourage her, “You have to be persevering and not move backwards.” Miss Chan, her instructor in the Kumon education center always communicated with Ng’s mother timely. Ng’s mother shared, “I think she became more obedient. In center, Miss Chan always talks with her, and helps improve her personality. But teachers at school seldom talk with her. Now, Ng will do household chores after finishing homework. I do not need to worry about her anymore. Ng has completed the Kumon EFL program.
Take it Easy
Actually, Ng’s academic performance was not good before studying Kumon. Ng went to several other education centers but they were not suitable for her. One day Ng’s mother passed by a newly opened Kumon education center that nearby her home, so Ng’s mother decided to give it a try.
“Does it really work?” It was how Ng thought about Kumon at the beginning. After she understood that the focus of studying Kumon is to cultivate her learning ability and with her mother’s encouragement, she paid less attention on those so-called “results” and took Kumon easier. Once she studied advanced beyond school grade, she found school study became easier. For example, on one math question, she could think of three to four ways to solve the problem, like playing games. That is why she thought it was fun to study math in Kumon.
