Tutor Zhi Xian - Secondary & JC Physics Specialist

Just over a week ago, several of my students received their O level results. All of them had showed significant improvement since they started lessons with me.

I am proud of the effort they have put in, and am happy that they managed to achieve their desired grades! I also am glad and happy that I have been able to guide them along through their educational journey.

I wish them all the best in their future endeavours, and may they find joy and fulfilment in the their next phase of life 🥳

Received some great news last month from one of my students (Austin) who recently completed his N levels. He had improved by leaps and bounds, going from failing his subjects to an A2 at the N levels! 🥳

Austin also achieved his goal of making it into the Polytechnic Foundation Programme (PFP), and will be enrolling in polytechnic starting this April.

Am genuinely happy to have been part of his education journey, and am extremely proud of him for all the work he has put in and the results that he managed to achieve.

I wish Austin all the best in his future endeavours!

Very grateful for all the Xmas gifts I received from parents and students this year! Such thoughtful gestures always makes me feel appreciated, and reminds me of why I chose to be a tutor.

However 2022 may have gone, it will be behind us in a few hours, so let's look forward to 2023 being a better year for all! 😊

Exactly a week ago, the recipients of the 2022 Physics Nobel Prize were announced. They are: Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger. The implications of their work on our understanding of reality are profound. An article documenting their work may be found here:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/

According to the results of their work, we are left with little choice but to accept that the properties of matter, such as the position of a particle, are not real and predetermined. Instead, they only appear to be in a certain state when we choose measure them. At other times, when we are not looking, their state is completely unknown, and the best we can do is to describe the probability that they will turn out to be in a certain state when measured.

It certainly is extremely mind-boggling, which led even one of the greatest minds in physics, Albert Einstein, to attempt to disprove such an idea. He refused to accept that reality behaved like that, and famously said: "Do you really believe the moon is not there when you are not looking at it?"

While I was an undergraduate student, I was fortunate to have worked in this particular area of quantum physics, and actually ended up writing my final year project thesis on it. For anyone who may be interested, here is the link to my thesis:https://www.physics.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/08/hyp-201718-12.pdf

Looking back, I am thankful for the exposure that I had as a physics major, and am privileged to have studied and explored the fundamental nature of reality.

The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It Elegant experiments with entangled light have laid bare a profound mystery at the heart of reality

Now that Japan is gradually opening up to tourists, I am hopeful that I'll be able to visit again in the near future. For me, the Japanese language and culture holds a special place in my heart, as I have many fond memories of my experiences in Japan.

About 4 years ago, I had just won first place in the Singapore Japanese Speech Competition held by the Japanese Association of Singapore.

The video of my speech can be found here: https://fb.watch/fv1SpLbE_B/

I had then just graduated, and my Japanese professor, Dr. Izumi Walker, suggested that I give the speech competition a shot.
I applied for the competition, initially just thinking that it would be good exposure for me. Never did I expect that I would even make it to the final round, much less actually win first prize in the competition.

My journey with Japanese began when I was midway through my university studies. The Center for Language Studies at NUS offered Japanese modules that I could take to partially fulfil my graduation requirements. And since I always had an interest for the language and culture, I thought: why not? And so, I went for it.

Although it was a completely new language to me, and it took a lot of effort to study, it eventually paid off. Back then, I had taken Japanese with the intention to just learn a new language. Little did I know it would result in so many opportunities and experiences that I treasure dearly even now.

The first prize included a fully paid trip to Japan where I had the privilege of experiencing not one, but two home stays in two different parts of Japan.

My Japanese homestay families were extremely warm and welcoming, and made my stay a very pleasant one. I also got to visit the mayors of both cities had my visit documented by the media, and even ended up appearing on the news on television (Check the comments section for the video).

I had the opportunity to experience Japan as a local living there, visiting farms and even doing some farming work myself, an experience that is rare to come by.

The following year after the speech contest, I also challenged myself by taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) at N2 level, which is the standard needed in order to apply for work in Japan. It was certainly not an easy exam, and I took months to prepare fully for it, but my efforts eventually paid off and I managed to pass the exam.

Looking back, I am truly thankful for all the experiences and opportunities I have had as a result of studying Japanese. I'm extremely grateful to Dr. Izumi Walker, who helped me out a great deal during the preparation for the competition. Of course, I would never have made it if not for the amazing Japanese teachers at the Center of Language Studies in NUS. I am thankful for their patience and guidance throughout my journey in learning Japanese.

For anyone who is reading this: Take opportunities as they come, because you never know where it will lead, and what experiences it may bring. Life is short, so live it to the fullest!

It is never too late to learn something new. As long as you have the interest, you'll naturally find motivation to put in the effort to learn it. With enough time, one day opportunities will come knocking and you’ll be glad that you decided to take that step in the first place.

“Why did you decide to be a tutor?”. Many people have expressed curiosity at my unconventional job choice. In this post, I will be sharing my story on how and why I decided to be a tutor.

I remember myself as being a very curious child. I was curious about things/phenomena I observed, and always wanted to know how stuff worked and why things were the way they are. Naturally, I developed an interest in mathematics and science, and did fairly well for those subjects in primary school.

Secondary school was a different ball game. There were more subjects, the syllabus was more demanding, and the overall intensity of studying had picked up. It also meant that I had a set of new teachers, one for each subject. Most of them were fine. They weren’t great, but they did an okay job of teaching the content.

However, there were a few particularly bad ones. I remember sitting through full lessons that stretched up to an hour, without understanding a thing they were talking about. I even tried approaching them after class to ask for help, but it quickly became clear that it was futile.

It is no surprise that my grades suffered. I had failed math for the first time in my life, and only managed to barely pass my science (refer to the first photo in this post). Needless to say, that shook my confidence, and I knew that I needed to do something.

I decided to take my learning into my own hands. I remember spending a lot of time trying to figure things out on my own. I read my notes, the textbook, went online to search for explanations, and did a lot of thinking to make sense of everything. I also discussed my doubts with friends in hopes that we could help each other understand the concepts better. This, however, took a lot of effort and was extremely time consuming. There was also no guarantee that this would actually translate to an improvement in my grades.

There were times I wanted to give up trying to understand everything, thinking I could just memorise the method to get things done and score my marks. But that didn’t feel right. I refused to let my curiosity die just for the sake of scoring better, and so I continued working to make sense of what I was supposed to be learning in class.

Through this process, I found that by verbalising my doubts, discussing with peers, and teaching others, I actually reinforced my own conceptual foundations. I also discovered that developing a solid understanding is much more effective than simply just memorizing stuff. Once you understand the content well, your grades will naturally improve, and that was the case for me.

I gradually began to show marked improvement in my grades, and so I knew I had to be doing something right. My friends had also then begun coming to me for help with schoolwork. I would gladly teach them, as I always felt a sense of satisfaction whenever I could help them finally understand something they had been confused about for a long time. Not to mention that that would also benefit myself by reinforcing my own understanding of the subject.

As I progressed to upper secondary, my teachers changed again. But this time, I had the luck of running into some of the best and most dedicated teachers I’ve ever met. Their guidance, coupled with my personal system of learning helped me achieve an almost perfect score for my O levels.

Using the same system of learning I had developed for myself, I continued to do well at JC and even university, when many of my peers were struggling. On hindsight, my grades were really only a by-product of the way I approached my studies. Once you develop a system that works for you and truly understand whatever you are studying, good grades will naturally follow.

Throughout my time as a student, I always found myself tutoring friends around me and I discovered that I actually really liked teaching. I guess I could really empathize with their struggles, and now I was in a position to give them the help they needed, which was something I myself unfortunately didn’t get from some of the sub-par teachers I mentioned. I shared with them my own study methods and would always feel happy whenever I could help them.

My JC form teacher had picked up on this, and very kindly mentioned it in a testimonial (refer to the second and third photos in this post). Just as a side note, she was also my GP teacher, and a great one at that. She helped me pull my grades up from an S (Sub-pass) at the end of J1 to an eventual A at A levels, and I will always be thankful for her guidance and help. Again, this just goes to show the kind of impact a good teacher makes!

One day, someone offered to pay me for tutoring their child who was in secondary school. I was still in JC myself, but I decided to take up the challenge and from then I began my journey as a tutor. My students would recommend friends who also needed help with their studies, and it just kept going from there, which led me to where I am today.

Now, as a full-fledged tutor, I thoroughly enjoy my work. I enjoy helping my students and seeing them grow in the process. I get a deep sense of fulfilment through my work, as I can directly see the positive impact I have made on my students. Knowing that I am now officially taking on the role of the teacher that I myself would have desperately wanted to have as a student brings me a deep sense of fulfilment. The support that I get from my students’ parents constantly reminds me that I am valued and appreciated.

As such, teaching is more than just a job to me. It gives my life meaning and purpose, as well as a sense of fulfilment thinking about the impact I’ve made on my students’ lives. This is why I’ve been teaching for 10 years now, and I certainly intend to continue to do so.

Grateful for all the well wishes & thoughtful gifts from students and parents!

It is small things like these that help keep me going. Means a lot to me to know that my work is valued and creating a positive impact 😊

This week, I welcomed the arrival of my new Boston grand piano. It has always been one of my life goals to own a grand piano, and I am thrilled to have accomplished it.

I’ve always had a passion for music ever since I was young. When I was in my teens, I developed a love for the piano and through plenty of practice and experimentation, I taught myself basic piano technique. Playing the piano, and music in general has always been a form of emotional therapy for me, getting me through some of the hardest periods in my life.

About 10 years ago, I started officially taking piano lessons with the goal of passing the Grade 8 piano performance exam in mind. I took every opportunity to play and listen to different pianos and managed to play on several grand pianos at school and at piano shops. The many piano concerts I attended also inspired me, as I remember always being in awe of and captured by the beautiful sound of a grand piano. From then, I had made it my goal to own one someday.

With the help of my piano teacher and plenty of hard work and determination, I managed to score a high distinction for my Grade 8 exam. I went on to university next and had the privilege of playing on a few Steinway pianos there. They produced a beautiful sound, and I enjoyed every moment I had with those pianos. That reinforced my love for the piano and made me really want to buy a grand. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the means to do so back then.

Today, 10 years from when I first started taking piano lessons, I finally managed to get myself a grand piano! As a bonus, it is a Boston piano, which is designed by Steinway. It also comes with a Steinway guarantee, which allows me to trade it in for a Steinway in the future.

Moving forward, I hope to continue my journey with music, and pursue my diploma in piano performance. I will also strive to eventually exercise the option to trade in my Boston to upgrade to a full-fledged Steinway. Until then, I will thoroughly enjoy making music with my Boston grand, and enjoy the process, every step along the way.

To those of you who made it to the end of this post, never give up on your dreams and work hard to achieve them! My drive and determination comes entirely from my passion in music. So, find something that inspires and motivates you, and you WILL make it work!