Stage III is probably the loudest stage during the lessons. Not because of the children being the most undisciplined ones, at least not in the first place, but because of the method with which the children are taught here. To learn vocabulary in English for example, they have words on the blackboard or on some charts and the whole class then begins to loudly repeat the words in a kind of sing-sang where they first spell the word and then pronounce it as a whole. It then rather sounds as if a choir is practicing in the classroom. Every year when the school year ends in mid of December all the stage III children will leave this Kindergarten to attend class one of a normal day school after their two months winter holidays. I have to remind me that this is still stage III of a kindergarten and not school yet as I see the children sitting on the benches copying from the blackboard. I am told that the idea is to teach the children fast reading and writing for them to be able to follow the lessons in class one once they get there. In order to achieve this the blackboard gets to see a lot of chalk in this stage, more than in any other classroom of the kindergarten. You will still find teaching aids in the classrooms and the ABC written on the wall. But in contrast to stage II the children are taught on a different level e.g. they now learn to pronounce the alphabet the English way, learn to write the small letters or simply learn words with more letters – ‘five-letter-words', ‘six-letter-words', …- than they do in stage II. About half the timetable is still filled with subjects called songs, environment social behavior, games period, and so on.
