Composition writing is one of the hardest sections to score, and students struggle due to weak vocab, lack of exposure to writing techniques, or insufficient practice.

In this blog post, our senior teacher Liu lao shi covers a frequently tested picture composition (助人为乐), and useful idioms that your child can use to help ace compo writing. While this particular question is for P3-P4, the idioms that are taught are equally useful for other primary school levels. 

Topic Explanation (助人为乐)

助人为乐 or “finding pleasure through helping others” is an important topic to practise for several reasons.

Firstly, it’s a common exam topic, and appeared in the last few PSLE exams (2021 Higher Chinese, 2020 Normal Chinese). Secondly, “helping others” is a concept that students find it easy to relate to since it’s a moralistic message often covered at home and in school. This makes it easier for students to visualise the ending and thus score well.

Pro-tip: Chinese questions have a tendency to involve moralistic topics – be it oral, composition or comprehension. Getting familiar with these themes is a good way to do better!

The importance of idioms

Parents probably already know that a strong library of idioms helps tremendously with compo writing. But why exactly?

Let’s first look at how compo is marked.

Compo marks are evenly divided between content (内容) and language expression(表达和结构). Content is based on how well a student has described each picture and whether the story flow and conclusion makes sense; language expression refers to both the essay structure as well as how descriptive the language used.

Proper usage of idioms makes the essay more vivid and descriptive, and helps students score better in both sections (一石二鸟). In particular, idioms also help counter a common “strategy” that weaker students tend to employ – trying to pad the essay to hit the recommended word count. Unfortunately, this is obvious to the grader and tends to result in low scores.

Another benefit of idioms is that it helps express a disproportionately high amount of information in just four characters since there’s typically a context or backstory. For instance, if we use 画蛇添足 to warn against excessive usage of idioms, it’s easily understood that stuffing your essay with too many idioms will backfire (in this case, it makes your writing sound stilted).

So how do we know how to use idioms effectively?

How to use idioms?

Liu lao shi has prepared four compo videos on this week’s topic of 助人为乐, covering idioms, metaphors and writing techniques (worksheet download). In the first part, Liu lao shi explains six idioms on describing people.

If you are interested in watching the other three videos of this week’s lesson, sign up for a 7-day free trial of VocabKing, an online Chinese platform that combines games, video lessons, and AI to help your child learn Chinese 4x faster! 80% of students who practise regularly improve within 2 weeks! Or whatsapp us for more information.

* Compo video lessons are for P3-P6 students.