Here’s what one of my sec 1 kids wrote. My own comments in brackets.
One day, I was at school, I saw a boy wearing the uniform walking towards me. The boy looked like was going to pick a fight with me. The boy looks as fat as a pig and as tall as a giraffe.
[At this point I was thinking Okay that was a cute way of describing a person.]
Suddenly, he ran towards me, this time he gave me a very strong box.
[Oh it must be a box of presents. But nevertheless, I wrote “a strong box?”]
I returned him a box too. [Kinda like a xmas spirit]
The teacher saw fighting and quarreling so the teacher ran up and stop us.
[I wrote at the column: So you were fighting?]
We did not saw the teacher when we were fighting and I accidentaly hit the teacher.
Argh. Then I realised the ‘box’ means ‘punch’ lah. Argh. And all this while I was expecting him to give me a twist or something like that, like how he looked like he was picking a fight but it was something else.
Disclaimer: I’m not laughing at the kid. I’m laughing at myself for not understanding.