Oral is nerve-racking. Why? Because you have to open your mouth and be judged on the spot. You can no longer hide behind a paper and it is rather an intimate setting. You are supposed to bare your inner thoughts to two adults and as a student, it would be very daunting to have to present yourself, knowing that your marks hang in the balance.
Presenting yourself starts from the very beginning. Right after you are given 5 minutes to prepare for the examination, you will be called to meet the invigilators. From the way you walk to the way you greet the teachers, first impression matters! So, remember to walk with poise and do not hunch your back. Greet the teachers with a clear voice to show the invigilators what to expect from you.
If you whisper, the invigilators would expect a soft and mediocre performance out of you and if you mumble, the invigilators would have the impression that you are not up for the examination and would give a lacklustre performance. Hence, show how ready you are for the examination and conquer the verbal assessment.

Reading is the first component. During the 5 minutes preparation time, you should have read the passage from top to bottom several times. During these 5 minutes, make sure you plant your pauses and take note of the punctuation within the passage. You should also look out for difficult words and try to pronounce them to the best of your ability. You are not going to learn how to pronounce the word at that very moment so just take your best shot and do not let one word ruin the entire passage.
You should also look out for words that you should stress such as adverbs that will make your reading more entertaining. Of course, remember you are not supposed to act out the passage and reading it smoothly would do but it will not hurt to put in a variety of intonation and make the passage sound interesting to the invigilator. Besides, they must have heard it countless times and if you put a new spin on it, you might stand out from the rest and earn those extra points.

Answering questions is not easy, even for adults. Most of us do not want to sound stupid by giving the wrong answer. Well, good news, there are no right or wrong answers in oral. That’s right, as long as you form your own opinion and do not go out of topic, you are on the right track. That being said, your answers do need to be logical and you do need to use better vocabulary to gain more marks. Not only that, you mustn’t stammer or trail off or make up grammatically wrong sentences.
Sounds tough? Well, since it is still a PSLE examination, it will not be a piece of cake. However, if you can answer it candidly, loudly, passionately and most important of all, with good grammar and vocabulary, you are good to go! Do not let your fears get the best of you and answer calmly. Take time to develop your points in your head and use words like, “Furthermore”, “Consequently”, “Probably”, “Extremely”, “Therefore”, “Hence”, “Coincidentally”, “Moreover”, “Fortunately” and “Eventually” when putting across your point. Our Learning Lodge wishes everyone taking the PSLE Oral in 2022, best of luck and break a leg!
Our Learning Lodge is a PSLE tuition centre that caters to students from different schools, backgrounds and standards. We are situated at Block 813 Jurong West Street 81 #B1-184 Singapore 640813 and you can contact us via WhatsApp (+65 9727 2203), Facebook or Instagram if you are looking for a tuition centre for your Secondary 1 and Primary school child.