Perfection is our target~

Hye there. In this post, I will be discussing about a grammatical property of verb. Verbs are words that use to describe an action. Depending on whether the action was done in past, present or future, the form of the verbs will also change.

Example; I do feel hungry right now. (present tense)

I did feel hungry, but then just went to a restaurant. (past tense)

There is another form for verbs; the perfect tense. A perfect participle, can be used in past and future tense in order to describe an action that is completed when we describe it. 

Example; When I arrived there, he had already done his homeworks.

DO -> DID -> DONE

Most of the time, the perfect particle for a verb is the same as its' past form. However, there are also a lot of verbs that are irregular. For the list of irregular verbs, you can always refer to this wonderful site.

It is the same?

One the confusing aspects in English language is the homonyms and homophones. Homonym refers to words that have same spelling but have different meaning and most of the time different pronunciation. Homophone on the other hand refers to different words that have different meaning but the same pronunciation. An example of homonym is "BARK". The first meaning is the sound made by dogs and the second meaning is the hard skin of a tree. As for homophones, a great example would "YOUR/YOU'RE". "YOUR" is a possesive pronoun that shows a belonging. Example; This is your cat. "YOU'RE" on the other hand is an abbreviation of two words, "you" and "are". Example of usage; You're now a cat.

Of course, there are a lot more homophones and homonyms exist in English language. Some people intentionally use this element for making jokes. Jokes that rely on word play such as homonym and homophone are called "pun".

Two fishes are in a tank. One of it said to the other;
"Do you know how to drive this?"

 

Make it short

During my practicum days, one of the most prevailing problems among my students is summary writing. Most of them have difficulties in choosing and constructing words in summarizing an article. Therefore, in post, I will teach my fellow students simple methods that can be applied in summarizing an article. Shall we begin?

The first part is always the hardest, but do not be discourage by it. Your first step is to read the whole article once and understand what the article is all about. While you are reading the article, try to ask these questions;

1. Is there an easier way to say this?

2. Is this part important to the whole article?

3. Can the details in this part be shorten or cut out?

Are you done with the first part? Good. Now, for the second part, you need to divide the article into several sections. Four or five sections should be enough. The first section should be the opening paragraph and the last one the ending paragraph. Read the provided 10 words in the question. Try to locate them in the paragraph. When you begin to write your summary, always remember to write back the provided words. Let's begin the writing. After you have written the first ten words, locate the exact words in the paragraph and shorten the text that follow the words (I will give examples later). To be better, add another ten words from the opening paragraph that describe the general idea of the article.

Example;
There are three conditions that need to be present in order for a wildfire to burn, which firefighters refer to as the fire triangle: fuel, oxygen, and a heat source. Fuel is any flammable material surrounding a fire, including trees, grasses, brush, even homes. The greater an area's fuel load, the more intense the fire. Air supplies the oxygen a fire needs to burn. Heat sources help spark the wildfire and bring fuel to temperatures hot enough to ignite. Lightning, burning campfires or cigarettes, hot winds, and even the sun can all provide sufficient heat to spark a wildfire.

Write the intro summary as follow;

Fire can only happen when fuel, oxygen, and a heat source is present.

Notice that the whole paragraph has been summarized with only 13 words. Always try your best to use your own word. Paraphrase the sentences. If I am not mistaken, there are extra marks for using your own words.

Now that you know the basic of it, try to do the rest of the article. View the article here. Always keep in mind that in examination, a summary must not be over 120 words INCLUDING the provided 10 words. If you have any question, feel free to ask in the comment box.

Reading your way to language (part 3)

The third novel that I am going to review here is "Step By Wicked Step" by Anne Fine.

This novel is designated for form five students who are studying in Selangor,Kuala Lumpur,Putrajaya, Negeri Sembilan and Malacca. This novel is quiet unique because it follows the stories of different persona. At the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to five different characters that do not seem to have connection with each other. Claudia, Pixie, Robbo, Ralph and Colin are five students from Mordanger School. When they are staying in a "haunted" house, they found a secret passage that leads them to an old diary written by a person named Richard Clayton Harwick. They read the diary and suddenly realized how close their situation is with Richard's. Each of the school children began to tell their life story and how similar their experience is. This is where the novel developed into five different chapters with different stories for each of the children. What is the fate that had befallen to Richard? In what way are the children similar to Richard? All of these and more are available in the novel.

This novel is quite unique because it has nesting stories. The stories are told inside a story. Readers of this novel could at least relate to at least some part of the story. Apart from that, some of the stories by the children do not have any real resolution. This allows the reader to develop their own hypothesis on what would happen in the end. It also allows the readers to realize that a life story may not always have a good ending, but that does not mean we cannot cherish it. All in all, this is an interesting novel that contains several short stories weaven through simple plot. For those who are interested in the ideas behind this novel, you can view the note here.

Well, that's all. See you again in another post.

Reading your way to language (part 2)

Welcome back. Now, for the second part of this review, I am going to talk about the second novel in form five literature syllabus which is "Catch Us if You Can" by Catherine MacPhail.

This novel is dedicated to form five students who are studying in Perlis,Kelantan,Kedah, Penang and Perak. In this novel, the author tells the story of two relatives, a grandfather (granda) and his grandson (Rory). After the event where Rory's father left both them, all they have in this world is just each other. Rory always looks after his grandfather even if he has to sacrifice things that he like such as evening football with his friends.This harmonious way of living changed one day when the absent-minded granda accidentally set their flat on fire. A concern social-worker tells Rory that he is too young to look after his grandfather. He arranged so that Rory go to a children's home and granda go to an old folk shelter. Rory and granda diagree with the decision but when their pleas are ignored, they decided to run away from that place. On their trail, they encountered a lot of unexpected friendship, and a share of betrayal. With their faces displayed on the national television, their journey becomes more difficult by the minute. Will they be able to escape to being separated? Will they finally found their place of redemption? Will they find a happy ending? All this and more in the novel.

In this short novel, a lot human qualities are being portrayed. Hope, loyalty, belongingness, betrayal, and trust is among the qualities that are put forth in this beautifully written novel. Despite the fact that the background of this story is different from the target readers (Malaysian form five students), the themes that are present in this novel is fairly universal and I believe that the students can easily relate themselves with the themes. For those who have finished reading the novel or those who wants to know the gist of the story, you can view the notes for the novel here.

Reading your way to language

This is a review on the new novels for form five students in the literature component of Malaysian school system. I will begin with the novel "The Curse" by Lee Su Ann.

This novel is designated for form five students who are studying at Pahang, Johor, Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan. This novel tells a story about a girl, named Azreen, who took a leave from her study in United Kingdom in order to visit her family back in the isle of Langkawi. However, unexplainable things started to happen when she arrived there. It all started with the shocking news about the death of her sister, Madhuri. As Azreen tries to solve the mystery of her sister's death, she faced a lot of challenges and also hindrance from the villagers. Will she be able to solve the mystery? Is there really a curse? Find out more by reading the book.

In my opinion, this novel is fairly easy and simple to understand. The language that the author use is not difficult. The setting of the story which is in Malaysia is also another 'plus' factor for this novel. The students can easily picture the scenery because they already have background knowledge on how a typical village looks like even if they never actually been to Langkawi before. Despite the fact that this novel is about mysteries and crime solving, there are a lot of moral values that can be gained from it. For those who have read the novel, or just want to know the gist of the story, you can read the notes about the story here.

That's all for now, until we meet again in another post.

Killing two birds with one stone

In this post, I am going to let you explore another wonderful and fun part of english language. This will be done through self-learning and application. We are going to learn about animal idioms. So, are you ready to be as busy as bee?

Now that you have a basic understanding, try to list out other animal idioms that you know.