A sense of perspective

This week is the first mid-term test of the year. (One more time: the school year starts in April here.) And I got to see the exam contents for the first year students. They'll be tested on their mastery of the following:

• The Alphabet (upper and lower case)
  
• Writing their own names in English
  
• Basic classroom commands (stand up, sit down, raise your hand)
  
• "Hello, my name is [your name here]. Nice to meet you."
  

My first thought was that given the kids have had about one month, that's not much at all. But then it occurred to me that they have to memorize 52 distinct symbols¹ and 10 sentences in a foreign language. Is that too much for a 12 year old kid? Particularly one who's been spoon-fed most of the answers for the previous six years of school?

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1. I am aware that O, S, V, W, X and Z have the same shape in upper and lower case, but the kids are required to learn the relative sizes to differentiate upper and lower case.