Programmes — Seniorlearnersgroup

We publish a short list on purpose. A centre that offers fourteen subjects in its first year is usually offering a timetable, not a teaching practice. Seniorlearnersgroup opened in January 2026 with the six courses the teaching team can run properly: two digital, one safety, two languages, one writing. Photography sits with the digital work because it is a phone skill, not an art-school brief.

Every programme uses the same bones. You meet the same tutor each week. Homework is optional in the sense that nobody is marked, and not optional in the sense that a skill which lives only in the classroom will not survive the weekend. We would rather you practise three steps at home than collect a stack of handouts you never open.

If a class is full, we keep a waiting list and telephone when a seat opens. We do not add a ninth chair. If your first language is not the language of the class, we will still take you if the tutor can support you; we will not take you if that would turn the group into a translation exercise. That decision is made in the twenty-minute conversation, not on a form.

The list

What each course actually covers

Smartphone and Singpass basics

Beginner · 8 lessons · S$140

We start where people actually get stuck: unlocking the phone, turning the text larger, silencing the alarms that someone else enabled, and putting the few apps you need on the first screen. WhatsApp is taught as a way to send a message and a photograph, not as a universe of statuses and groups. Singpass is taught as a key for the errands that now require it — a clinic appointment, a form, a login that used to be a counter visit — with the biometric step practised until it is ordinary. We make the errands you named in the first conversation repeatable.

Bring the phone you use at home, even if it is old. A class device teaches a class device. Family members sometimes arrive having “simplified” a phone the night before. Please do not. We need to see the screen as you see it on a Tuesday morning.
Online safety

All levels · 4 lessons · S$90

This is a short course because the useful material is a small set of habits, not a catalogue of every scam in circulation. We look at messages that pretend to be delivery firms, banks, or government offices; at links that ask you to log in somewhere that is not the usual place; at phone calls that create panic on purpose. We practise a pause: who to ring back, which number to use, and when to put the handset down.

The course is not a lecture on fear. It is rehearsal. People leave with a printed card of the few numbers and steps we agree matter, in large type, to keep near the phone.
Conversational English

Continuing · 8 lessons · S$140

This class is for people who already manage some English and want more ease in the places that still tighten the throat: a clinic, a counter that has become an app-and-queue hybrid, a neighbour who only speaks English. We work from speech, not from grammar tables. You will hear the same structures often. Listening is slowed down; we do not use news-reader speed as a badge of seriousness.

Materials are printed. If you read English more comfortably than you speak it, say so — that is a common pattern here, and we can start from reading and move towards speech rather than the other way round. Mandarin explanations can be offered if the whole group benefits; otherwise they happen quietly at the side, not as a second lesson shouted over the first.
Conversational Mandarin

Beginner and continuing · 8 lessons · S$140

Many people in this room understood Mandarin at home and then spent decades in English at work, or the reverse. The class is built for that split. We recover spoken Mandarin for markets, family tables, and the kind of small talk that makes a visit less tiring. Characters are not the homework of the first term. If you want to read, we can point to that later; we will not pretend that writing 200 characters is the same skill as asking a question in a shop.

Hokkien speakers often ask whether they will be “corrected” towards a broadcast accent. No. We teach Mandarin that can be understood, and we are not in the business of sanding a person down. If you need a Hokkien gloss for a new word, ask. The tutor will not be surprised.
Phone photography

Mixed · 4 lessons · S$90

Four lessons is enough if the goal is a usable photograph, not a portfolio. We cover holding the phone still, light from a window, when not to use the flash, and how to find the picture afterwards in the album rather than losing it in a chat. Sending to one person, and to a family group, is practised until it is dull. We also spend time on what not to post, because a photograph of a grandchild is not always a photograph that should travel.

You do not need a new phone. You do need the phone you will actually carry. If your camera app has been buried under three screens of icons, that is part of the first lesson, not a failure on your part.
Memoir writing

Mixed · 8 lessons · S$140

We write short pieces: a kitchen, a first job, a street that has been rebuilt, a person who should not be forgotten in a hurry. The teaching team reads what you put on the page and talks about clarity, not about literary fashion. You may read aloud. You may also keep the work private and still take part in the discussion of craft. Printed prompts go home. Laptops are welcome; so is handwriting. If writing is tiring, we can work in shorter bursts. The aim is a set of pages a family could keep, not a performance of having had an interesting life.

This course is in English. If you would rather write in Mandarin, tell us in the first conversation; we run that only when there are enough people for a proper group.

How a term sits in a week

Lessons are two hours with a short break, once a week. We do not run evening classes as a default, because many of the people we teach prefer daylight for screens and for the walk from Braddell. Saturday mornings are used when a weekday group cannot form. Sunday the centre is closed.

If you miss a week, we do not offer a private replacement as a matter of course — the work is the group. We will send the printed notes and, where it helps, a short written recap of the steps the room practised. If you know you will miss two or more weeks, say so before you enrol; it may be better to wait for the next term.

Short courses of four lessons exist for safety and photography because those subjects do not improve by being stretched. Languages, Singpass, and memoir need the longer arc. Mixing a short course with a term is possible if the timetable allows and if it will not exhaust you. We would rather you did one thing steadily.

A tutor speaking with an older learner at a work table — Most of the teaching happens at the table, not from a lectern.

When you are ready, the next step is still the conversation, not a shopping cart. Write or telephone, name the programme if you already have one in mind, and tell us whether English or Mandarin will be easier on the day you visit.

Arrange a conversation Choosing a course