Mama, mimi ni mtoto wako wa ngapi?- English translation

Linda, this question has been around for sometime. Well the danger lies in an attempt at direct translation. The grammars of the two languages (Kiswahili and English) are very different. Therefore, to translate that thought into English would require that you first understand the message. The message presumes that there are many children in this family to the extent that this child is baffled, a very unlikely scenario. Be that as it may, the child is therefore dealing with births (the time in which they were born) and the order in which they happened. The other important thing to note is that this statement is in direct speech: the child is addressing its mother. With this information in mind it is now possible to do a translation: “Mother, what is my order of birth among your children?”

HIGH SCHOOL GRAMMAR- CLAUSES (Relative Clauses)

Objectives By the end of this lesson the learners will: i. Define a main clause ii. Define a subordinate clause iii. Define a relative clause iv. Identify relative clauses in sentences A. What is a main clause? A main clause is a subject/ verb grouping that conveys meaning. NB: A subject is what a sentence talks about. The subject is usually a noun phrase. A verb on the other hand is an action or state word. Therefore, the simplest main clause can be made up of only two words: i. Jesus wept. ii. We won. iii. She sang. iv. They played. v. He danced. Take note that the definition of a clause is the same as the basic definition of a sentence. Please take time off and define a main clause and give your own examples before you continue with the lesson. B. What is a subordinate clause? A subordinate clause is a subject/verb grouping that depends on the main clause to complete its meaning. Therefore subordinate clauses are used alongside main clauses. i. ...whom you spoke to. ii. ...that is torn. iii. ...which is broken. iv. ...who lives in Kisumu. v. ...who is ill. Please take time off and define a subordinate clause and give your own examples before you continue with the lesson. C. What is a relative clause? A relative clause is a part of a sentence that gives more meaning to the subject/object (an object is the noun phrase that comes after an action verb). In this way the relative clause plays the function of adjectives- that is, it is similar to the adjective. To give you a better understanding of this definition, we shall now give main clauses to the subordinate clauses we listed above: i. He is the man whom you spoke to. (Answers the question ‘which man?’) ii. She borrowed the book that is torn. (Answers the question ‘which book?’) iii. She kept the plate which is broken. (Answers the question ‘which plate?’) iv. I rang my uncle who lives in Kisumu. (Answers the question ‘which uncle?’) v. I visited my sister who is ill. (Answers the question ‘which sister?’) Notice that in the first sentence “man” is the noun that is modified by the relative clause ‘whom you spoke to’. Now identify the noun and the relative clauses that modify them in the remaining sentences (hint: the information in the brackets will help you identify these words). You will have noticed that the relative clause is an example of a subordinate clause. Please take time off and define a relative clause and give your own examples before you continue with the lesson. Now let us make a connection between grammar and literature. For my examples I will use the short story ‘The Guilt’ by Rayda Jacobs from the anthology When the Sun Goes Down. i. She remembered the African woman who had knocked at her door one night at nine. ii. Like the woman who saw her sit on the ‘stoep’ the other day and begged Lilian to buy four geranium plants for two rand. iii. Then there was the man who had rung persistently at her gate and when Lilian came out he asked for money for the bus as he did not know how he was going to get home. Now identify the noun/ noun phrase and the relative clauses that modify them in the sentences above. So the question on our minds is, “Why did Jacobs use relative clauses in these sentences?” The three people mentioned above have one thing in common: they all tormented Lilian. The relative clauses have therefore been used to positively identify, in a flashback, Lilian’s tormentors. It is important because the whole story is about people who torment her because of her vulnerability. A good student should therefore be able to identify all her tormentors. Hope you had a good time. Now take time to find more usages of the relative clauses in the other prescribed set texts. In the next lesson we shall look at adverbial clauses. NB: The main clause is also referred to as the independent clause.

2012 KCSE TIP 2 (REPORT WRITING)

1. You are the secretary of four-member committee investigating the cause of dismal performance by your school at KCSE Exam results just released. You committee is mandated to also find how to improve the performance in future. Write a report highlighting the causes, findings and recommendations to your Principal. Question is courtesy of Buramu District Mock 2012. The Introduction answers the questions who the report is being written for, who make up the committee making the investigations. Further, it lists all the members of the committee and specifies their designations as well as when the report is due. It is also in the introduction that you will specify the objectives of the committee. The introduction will be followed by the body which will have a subtitle as closely related to the task as possible. The findings will be listed in this section as sub – titles. You will need to mention at least two findings. Below each sub – title of the findings you will write a paragraph clearly spelling out what you found out. This section will then be followed by the conclusion which will summarise your findings (tell them what you have told them). The conclusion will then be followed by the recommendations. These will derive directly from the findings. If you had two findings, we will expect two recommendations. To complete your report, you will have the name of the institution on the right hand side and below it the date of submission. On the left hand side you will have your designation, in this case secretary, and your name. Make sure that the name you have here corresponds to the secretary’s name you listed in the introduction. That’s it. Below find a sample answer to the above question. Take note that I have taken the liberty to put all the titles and sub-titles in upper case. This is because the blog does not allow for formatting. Read each of those sub-headings as a separate paragraph. If you are able to download it, then reformat them into paragraphs and remove the capitalization of the sub-headings. It is only the title that appears fully in upper case and should be underlined. The rest can be in bold but do not underline them.  REPORT ON THE CAUSES OF DISMAL PERFORMANCE AT ALWALA MIXED SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THE 2011 KCSE INTRODUCTION The Principal of Alwala Mixed Secondary School asked the academic committee to investigate the cause of the school’s dismal performance in the 2011 KCSE. Further, the committee was to give recommendations on how to improve the school’s performance in future national exams. The four member committee was made up of: 1) Mr. Jack Oulo, Deputy Principal – Chairman 2) Mr. David Acholla, Director of Studies – Member 3) Ms. Tabitha Odhiambo, HOD Career Guidance – Member 4) Ms. Joyce Rachuonyo, Examinations Officer - Secretary The committee was constituted on 1st March 2011 and the report was due on 14th March 2012 CAUSES OF DISMAL PERFORMANCE IN KCSE 2011 AT ALWALA MIXED SECONDARY SCHOOL a) Syllabus not covered in some subjects The students were ill prepared for the exams. The syllabus was not completed in three subjects, namely English, Maths and Kiswahili. Students therefore sat the exam without sufficient content. b) Little exposure to quality examinations The students sat only one exam that tested all the papers examined at KCSE. This was the Kisumu West District Mock. Many students therefore did not know what topics are examined in which paper. Further, the students sis not understand the rubrics of the papers they sat resulting in time wastage while answering more questions than the papers demanded. CONCLUSION In view of the foregoing, it was impossible to expect a better result from the students. The students did the best they could under the circumstances they found themselves in because the core subjects were taught poorly yet they counted in the students grading. RECOMMENDATIONS The committee recommended that: a) Teachers should complete the syllabus before the district mock. b) The form fours should sit an examination similar to KCSE in first term. Besides the District Mock the students should sit a pre- mock in second term. Finally they should sit for a post – mock exam in third term. Alwala Mixed Secondary School 14/3/2012 Ms. Joyce Rachuonyo Secretary

Adverbs of Manner

Adverbs of Manner Objective: Write sentences using adverbs of manner Adverbs of manner tell us how something is done. Think about your teacher in class. Sometimes your teachers speak loudly and sometimes they speak softly. Loudly and softly are adverbs of manner. They tell us how the teacher is speaking. Most adverbs of manner have opposites. In this lesson we shall look at a few adverbs of manner and construct sentences with them. Use the following adverbs to complete the sentences below: slowly, sadly, softly and carelessly. 1) The girl walked__________ . 2) The teacher spoke ______________ . 3) The boy wrote ___________ . 4) The lost girl spoke _____________ . The following adverbs are the opposites of the adverbs you have used above: quickly, happily, loudly and carefully. Use them to complete the following sentences. 1) When the lunch bell rung, the children put their books away ____________ . 2) The children who won the game sang ________________. 3) The boy who won the writing competition wrote _______________. 4) The actors in the big hall spoke ___________________. You will have noticed that these adverbs all end in –ly. But it is not true that all adverbs end in –ly. There are three adverbs that we should look at that do not have the same ending: fast hard and well. These adverbs do not just end differently, but they are also difficult to use. The word fast can be used instead of quickly. 1) The girl walked fast. 2) The river is moving fast. 3) Slow down, you are walking too fast. The other word we shall look at is hard. 1) The top student in my class studies hard. 2) The rough boy hit his friend hard. 3) Learn to kick the ball hard. Remember that the word hardly exists but it does not mean the same thing as hard. It is therefore wrong to say that, “The top student in my class studies hardly” or “The rough boy hit his friend hardly”. Finally let us look at the word well. Use well when you mean that you are happy with what you are talking about. 1) Our football team plays well. 2) My students read well. 3) The school choir sang well. 4) I like this machine, it works well. The opposite of fast is slowly and that of hard is gently. The opposite of well is badly or poorly. Now use these opposites to make sentences of your own. A final word to remember, adverbs of manner have opposites, if you want to know your adverbs then you must learn each adverb and its opposite. I hope that you have enjoyed this lesson. Now practise writing your own sentences using all the adverbs that you have learned today.

Adverbs of Place

Objectives: i. Define adverbs ii. Identify adverbs iii. Make sentences using adverbs of place. Adverbs are words that add meaning to verbs. They tell us more about verbs. Today we shall look at adverbs of place. These are words that answer the question: “where?” Read the poem below and identify all the words that answer the question: “where?” Called away I meant to do my work today…/ But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,/ And a butterfly flitted across the field,/ And all the leaves were calling me./ And the wind went sighing over the land,/ Tossing the grasses to and fro,/ And a rainbow held out its shining hand…/ So what could I do but laugh and go?/ By Richard Le Gallienne Most adverbs of place are made of a group of words. In the poem “Called away” the adverbs of place are in the apple tree, across the field, over the land and to and fro. Now that we have the answers, we shall ask the questions and supply the answers in complete sentences. a) Where did the bird sing? It sang in the apple tree. b) Where did the butterfly flit? The butterfly flitted across the field. c) Where did the wind go? The wind went over the land. d) Where did the wind toss the grass? It tossed the grass to and fro. Now list all the places you visited during your vacation. Get a friend to ask you the question, “Where did you visit?”. Supply the answers from your list. Notice, when names of places answer the question “where”, they are no longer nouns. They have become adverbs of place. You can extend this lesson by asking your friends to list the places they visited and then ask them the same question they had asked you. Let them supply the answers based on the list. Make sure they make complete sentences. Well, we have come to the end of this lesson. I hope that you are now able to use adverbs of place confidently.

Abstract Nouns (Passage)

Objective: Identify and list all the abstract nouns in the passage. Do you think school is important? We go to school to learn. When we learn three things happen. We get knowledge, skills and values. These things will in future help us to serve our nation. So what is knowledge? In our grammar series we began by studying verbs. We learned that verbs are action or state words. We are even able to give examples of action and state words. This is what we know about verbs. When you know something then you have knowledge about it. You also have knowledge about nouns. You know that nouns are naming words. You know that nouns name people, places and things. Further, you know that we have different types of nouns. We have proper nouns, common nouns, concrete nouns and abstract nouns. And what do you know about skills? Can you throw a ball? That is a skill. Can you catch a ball thrown at you? That too is a skill. If I gave you a phone and asked you to call your parents, would you do it? Well, that too is a skill. Think about anything that requires you to use your limbs, that is, your hands or legs, and you have a skill. But some skills do not require our limbs. Are you able to read this passage on your own? That is a skill. Are you good with numbers? Can you add, subtract, divide and multiply? You guessed it right, that too is a skill. Let’s now turn our attention to values. We do things that our elders like. For example, we always say thank you when somebody gives us something. What do you do when you meet somebody for the first time every day? You greet them of course. If you do not greet them, they will be very cross with you. So “thank you” and “how are you” are not just phrases we like using. They are values of our people. Are you one of those people who jump queues? Our people frown upon anyone who cannot keep order. Without order there is no harmony. Harmony is a very important value. We lose it when we jump queues, use bad language or even fight. We are a nation of forty- four tribes and the only reason there is peace is because we are taught to live in harmony with everybody around us. So once we have a lot of knowledge, skills and values we are ready to serve the nation. Wait a bit, for you to get enough of these three things to serve your nation; you have to be in school for at least sixteen years. By this time you will be an adult. Remember, adulthood is that stage in life when you become independent. You buy your own clothes, food and shelter. You are now responsible enough to be of service. But what responsibility will you be given? This will depend on the knowledge, skills and values that you have. So you are not too young to start thinking of how you want to serve your nation when you grow up. How many abstract nouns can you find in this passage? By Walter Akach

Abstract Nouns

Objective: Make sentences using abstract nouns. We have looked at proper and common nouns. Common nouns also give us concrete and abstract nouns. All the nouns we have looked at so far are concrete nouns. We can use our five senses to determine that they exist. You can see, touch, hear, smell and taste them. Another group of nouns exists that those senses can not help you determine their existence. These are called abstract nouns. Read the following poem: Who has seen the wind?/ Neither I nor you./ But when the leaves hang trembling,/ The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind?/ Neither you nor I:/ But when the trees bow down their heads/ The wind is passing by. (“Who Has Seen the Wind?” Christina Rossetti)NB:Each backslash marks the end of a line so you can rewrite it to get a feel of its structure. List all the nouns in this poem. You should have listed wind, leaves, trees and heads. One of these is an abstract noun, which one? If you picked wind your answer is right. Your teachers always ask you to be honest. The noun formed from honest is honesty. This is a quality that people admire in you. Other qualities that people admire in you include bravery, loyalty and courage. These are abstract nouns. Other abstract nouns refer to a state in our lives: childhood, youth, adolescence and adulthood. Other abstract nouns refer to the ideas we have: dream, truth, thought, faith and truth. Making sentences using abstract nouns is not very easy. Complete these sentences using one of the nouns on this list: faith, childhood, dreams, truth, honesty, bravery/courage and dreams. Make sure you look up the meanings of all these words in a dictionary before you start this exercise. a) The boy who returned the lost phone was praised for his_____________. b) She showed a lot of _____________ when she got five stitches on her cut without making a noise. c) In the bible, Job was healed because of his________________. d) During our______________ we depend on our parents for food, clothing and shelter. e) Are _____________real? f) Do you know of any child who always speaks the _____________?

Common Nouns

Objective: Use common nouns in sentences. In the last lesson we said that nouns are naming words. Nouns can be broken into two groups: proper nouns and common nouns. We saw that proper nouns name specific people and places. We saw that the things we named were not specific. Nouns that name things in a general way are called common nouns. Is it possible to name people in a general way? Look at the words boy, girl, man, woman, etc. These nouns name people in a general way. Nouns that name people in a general way are common nouns. The things we find around us are normally named in a general way. If you make a list of all the things you use in school, it will look like this: pen, pencil, book, ruler, eraser, bag etc. All these items are general names. They do not name a specific thing. They are common nouns. Common nouns are further divided into count and mass nouns. All the nouns we have listed so far are count nouns. Count nouns can form plurals: boy – boys, girl – girls, man –men, pen –pens etc. Count nouns in the singular take “a” or “the “before them: a boy, a girl, a pen, the boy, the girl, the pen etc. In the plural they take “some” or “the” before them: some boys, some girls, some pens, the boys, the girls, the pens etc. We shall now write sentences in the singular and plural. We shall use the Noun+ verb with –s pattern. a) A boy watches movies. b) A boy washes clothes. c) A boy dries dishes. d) A boy makes toys. Great! You can now make more sentences using the nouns and verbs we had identified. Take note that movies, clothes, dishes and toys are common nouns. Look for more appropriate nouns to use after the verbs. We shall now use Noun + verb without –s pattern. a) Some boys watch movies. b) The boys wash clothes. c) Some boys dry dishes. d) The boys make toys. Make your own sentences following this pattern. Now let us look at mass nouns. These do not have plural forms. We do not use “a” before them. Examples of mass nouns include ink, sugar, salt, sand. They can take “the” or “some” before them: the ink, some ink, the salt, some salt, the sand, some sand. A man bought some ink. A man bought some salt. A man bought some sand. Now make as many sentences using this pattern. In the next post we shall look at other proper nouns.

KCSE FUNCTIONAL WRITING TIPS

FORMAL LETTER Objective: Write a letter through your Principal. Question: You are a candidate at Happy Secondary School in Bubari district. Since there will be no tuition in your school during the August holidays, you decide with the permission of your parents to do your studies at the Teachers Resource Centre (TRC) in your district headquarters. Write a letter through your Principal requesting the District Education Officer (DEO) to allow you to do so. (20 marks) (Courtesy Busia District Mock, 2011) Let’s get one thing very clear: this is not a prediction but an attempt to help you understand how to conduct your revision for question 1,101/1) The first thing you need to understand is the mark distribution in this paper. Make no mistake about this; you are writing the exam to score the highest mark that you possibly can. This question is allocated 20 marks. These 20 marks are divided into 3 sections: format, content and language. Depending on the nature of the question, format attracts between 6 and 8 marks. For this question I have allocated 8 marks. Make sure that for every item you revise you master the format. This way you guarantee yourself 40% of the 20 marks. The format for this question requires that you have 3 addresses. (I advise you use the block format. Therefore all your work will start on the left margin. Any deviation from this will be considered an indented format.)The first address is the sender’s. The question has already given you a school; don’t give the name of a different school. Remember not to include your name in the address. Skip a line and write the date. Skip another line and give the recipient’s address, in this case the DEO. Skip another line and write the word “Through”. Skip another line and write your Principal’s address. Skip a line and write your salutation: Dear Sir/Madam Skip a line and write the regards section. Remember it is “RE” and not “REF” follow this with the subject matter. A good interpretation of the question will be STUDIES at the TRC and underline neatly. The remaining format marks are in the complementary close and signing off. The close for this letter will be “Yours faithfully”. Below it put your legible signature and below that your full name. That’s it. You have the full marks for format. Next you need to earn the content marks. Strictly speaking the content marks are in the question if it has been constructed well. For this question I have allocated 6 marks for content. So what did this examiner want you to include in your letter? A rereading of the question will tell you that you are expected to i. Mention the name of your school ii. Give the reasons why you want to use the TRC iii. Inform the DEO that you have your parents’ permission to use the facility iv. Formally make a request to use the facility NB: two marks for tone usually form part of the content mark. In this case the tone expected should be that of making a request. Do not be worried about this. If you have listed the four items above you will most like be using the right tone. The examiner will be looking for expressions like “I wish to”, “I would like to”. Expressions like “I want”, “give me” will give your letter the wrong tone. You now have 60% of the marks for this question. Finally, let us earn the language marks. In this case I allocated 6 marks. Well we all know that a formal letter should be brief. The examiner’s dilemma is how to give you six marks for writing two lines. My advice: develop three paragraphs. In the introductory paragraph say how you learnt about the facility and state your request. That is all you need to do with the first paragraph. You must now skip a line and start your second paragraph. It is in the second paragraph that you will want to answer the remaining questions. Tell them who you are, why you want to use the facility, in this case you will not have April holiday tuition at your school. Tell them that you have your parents’ blessings and reiterate your request. You must now start your third paragraph. Use your imagination. Remember you want to earn the 6 language marks. Tell them that you are grateful that they developed such a facility. Promise them that you will use their facility conscientiously. Then ask them to give you a response before school’s close. That’s it. If you have used your best English no examiner will hesitate to award you the full mark. Congratulations! If you have written this letter as per the lesson you now have all the 20 marks. It is effort that makes successful students. Thank you.

Nouns

Objective: Use nouns as naming words in sentences. Always make sure that you can define the topic you are studying. So what is a noun? In order to define a noun we will look at what nouns do. Nouns name people, places and things. Therefore nouns are naming words. a) Nouns as names of people Every body in your class has a name. If they did not, it would not be possible to state clearly who you are talking to. Names that talk about a specific person are called proper nouns; therefore, all the names of your friends are proper nouns. All proper nouns start with a capital letter. Now make a list of all your friends. Make sure that each name starts with a capital letter. Names are not very easy to spell, when in doubt ask your friends how to spell their names. I hope you have at least ten names. Now let us take a journey back to one of our lessons on main verbs. Do you remember the verbs that we gave you rules on how to spell them? Well, here is the list: wash, polish, slash, watch, fetch, piss, fix, cry, dry and fly. You will now make sentences in the pattern: Noun + verb ending in –s. Use the names of your friends in the noun position and each one of the verbs above in the verb position. Complete this exercise before you read on. Do your sentences look like these? i. Eugene washes. ii. Joan watches. iii. Jane fetches. iv. Jim pisses. v. Don fixes. vi. Peter cries. vii. Joel dries. viii. Jean flies. b) Nouns as names of places How well do you know Africa? Well the names of towns and countries are proper nouns too. They name specific places. Words that name specific places are proper nouns. An atlas is a reference book most of us avoid. Well, in today’s lesson you will need one. I will name ten capital cities in Africa and you will name the countries they are in. Let’s see how our partnership works, shall we? Nairobi, Cairo, Kampala, Kigali, Lagos, Algiers, Johannesburg, Harare, Kismayu and Khartum. Well, I hope you had fun with your atlas. Find as many capital cities and countries in the world. Just remember that these nouns start in capital letters. c) Nouns as names of things Look around you. Everything you can touch is a noun. Make a list of as many things as possible. These nouns start in small letters. Now look for nouns that you can use to extend these sentences. i. Eugene washes. ii. Joan watches. iii. Jane fetches. iv. Don fixes. v. Joel dries. vi. Jean flies. Your sentences should look like these. i. Eugene washes clothes. ii. Joan watches movies. iii. Jane fetches firewood. iv. Don fixes cars. v. Joel dries dishes. vi. Jean flies kites. Well, we have come to the end of this lesson on nouns. Remember that a noun is a word that names people, places and things. Remember too that nouns that name specific people and places are called proper nouns. For proper nouns the first letter must be a capital letter. In the next post we shall look at common nouns.

Main Verbs (Simple Past Tense)

Objective: Write sentences in the simple past tense. When we began our lessons on main verbs I mentioned the difficulty resulting from subject and verb agreement. We have now put that behind us. Our new problem is in the nature of verbs in the past tense. Fortunately, as I have mentioned, the question of subject and verb agreement does not arise. But we have two kinds of verbs: regular and irregular verbs. The regular verbs add –ed to form their past tense and past participles. Once again we shall benefit from the list we had created. Regular verbs form their past tense and past participle by adding –ed to the main verb. From our list such verbs are 1) Play 2) Skip 3) Jump 4) Sip 5) Wash 6) Air 7) Watch 8) Kick 9) Cook 10) Fetch 11) Chew 12) Suck 13) Boil 14) Work 15) Milk 16) Brush 17) Paint 18) Laugh 19) Mill 20) Dance 21) Colour 22) Polish 23) Weld 24) Cry 25) Slash 26) Winnow 27) Slap 28) Smile 29) Call 30) Phone 31) Weed 32) Plant 33) Knock 34) Hammer 35) Cheer 36) Praise 37) Shell 38) Beg 39) Herd 40) Push 41) Close 42) Visit 43) Fish We can use any subject, singular or plural to form our sentences. a) John smiled. b) John and Joan smiled. c) He smiled. d) She smiled. e) They smiled. f) We smiled. g) It smiled. On the other hand, irregular verbs do not form their past tense and past participle in this way. In fact it is difficult to predict what these forms will be. The best advice is to learn them by heart. Examples from our list include: 1) Stand, stood, stood. 2) Sleep, slept, slept. 3) Sit, sat, sat. 4) Read, read, read. 5) Bath, bath, bath. 6) Run, ran, run. 7) Drink, drank, drunk. 8) Take, took, taken. 9) Think, thought, thought. 10) Hang, hung, hung. (hanged means to kill by hanging) 11) See, saw, seen. 12) Write, wrote, written. 13) Ride, rode, ridden. 14) Swing, swung, swung. 15) Draw, drew, drawn. You can see that our list has three items. For this lesson we need only the second item. The third item will be used in a future lesson but you need to know it. Again we do not have a subject and verb agreement problem. The problem here is to pick the right verb. In some cases the second and third item are similar. No problem. When they are not, be sure to use the second item. Thus: a) John ran. b) John and Joan wrote. c) He read. d) She saw. e) They rode. f) It drew. g) We thought. These verbs as I have mentioned present a special problem. You have to know them by heart. My list is very small. Any good dictionary has a huge list of these verbs. Make a habit of using this section of your dictionary every day to master the English sentence pattern of the day.

Main Verbs (II)

Objective: Write sentences following the pattern Plural nouns/We/They/You/I + verb without -s The first pattern we looked at is rather difficult. What we shall look at now is very simple. Again, we shall borrow from the list of verbs that we used in the previous lesson. If you were able to print it, that will be very helpful. i. Joan and John stand. ii. We sleep. iii. They sit. iv. You sit. v. I write. That is it. You now have a huge task of writing as many sentences as possible. That is the beauty of sentence patterns. I have given you a huge list of verbs; all you need to do is use the items of our pattern to write as many sentences as possible. Feel free to write your comments on your experience with this English sentence pattern. The comment box is open to everybody.

Main Verbs (spelling rules)

Objective: Spell correctly verbs that require –es (from the previous lesson). Now look back at the previous lesson. Most of the verbs simply required that you add –s. For example stand- stands, sleep – sleeps, write – writes. Well, that is okay. However, did you get the correct spelling for the following words: wash, watch, piss, fetch, brush, polish, cry, slash and fix. If you did, congratulations are in order. If you didn’t, this lesson is for you. a) For words ending in –sh, add –es e.g. wash – washes, polish – polishes, slash – slashes. i. Eugene washes. ii. Jane polishes. iii. John slashes. b) For words ending in – ch, add – es e.g. watch – watches, fetch – fetches. i. Jane watches. ii. Eugene fetches. c) For verbs ending in – s, add –es e.g. piss – pisses. The cow pisses. d) For verbs ending in –x, add –es e.g. fix – fixes. The mechanic fixes. e) For verbs ending in – y that comes after a consonant, drop the –y and add -ies. Note, the English alphabet has twenty-six letters. Five (5) of these are vowels: a, e, i, o and u. The remaining twenty –one(21) are consonants. Cry-cries, try- tries, dry-dries. i. Juliet cries. ii. She tries. iii. Joan tries. iv. She tries. v. The cloth dries. vi. It dries. Now one problem with rules is that no one likes them. You however do not have a choice if you want to spell correctly. You will need to write these sentences every day until you can spell them correctly without thing about the rules. Your journey to really enjoying this English sentence pattern has begun. Have fun writing your sentences.

Main Verbs

Objective: Make sentences using Noun/He/she/It + verb with -s I have taken an unusual approach to teaching grammar by starting with the helping verbs. I hope that you have understood many sentence patterns based on this approach. Another reason I chose this route is that the agreement required with main verbs is a little more demanding. Another problem learners of English as a foreign or second language run into is the lack of words to use. When we were dealing with the helping verbs we did not need a huge store of words. We used a few verbs but maintained our patterns. With the main verbs the idea then is to improve your vocabulary. I have two friends who are in class four and I rely on their experiences a lot to determine the level of difficulty for a beginner. One reason why ones mother tongue is called a first language is that you not only use it but it is also used in your environment. For this reason you not only acquire its structures effortlessly but you also acquire a huge vocabulary. So I got my two friends to give me a list of all the verbs that they know in their first language. I then gave them the English equivalent of those words. In just two days we had over sixty words to use that my learners understood. It is very frustrating both to the teacher and learner if the words being used are not in the learners’ vocabulary. Below are the words that we got: 1) stand 2) sleep 3) sit 4) read 5) play 6) eat 7) bath 8) run 9) drink 10) skip 11) jump 12) sip 13) take 14) think 15) wash 16) hang 17) air 18) see 19) write 20) watch 21) piss 22) kick 23) cook 24) fetch 25) chew 26) suck 27) boil 28) ride 29) work 30) milk 31) swing 32) brush 33) paint 34) laugh 35) mill 36) dance 37) colour 38) draw 39) polish 40) sell 41) weld 42) cry 43) slash 44) winnow 45) slap 46) smile 47) call 48) phone 49) weed 50) plant 51) shave 52) build 53) knock 54) hammer 55) cheer 56) praise 57) shell 58) beg 59) herd 60) push 61) open 62) close 63) visit 64) fish Let us now use the words we have to write sentences using the pattern of the day 1) Eugene stands. 2) He stands. 3) Grace stands. 4) She stands. 5) The cow stands. 6) It stands. Now repeat this pattern with all the verbs on the list I have given you. You can extend the list of verbs and if you do not mind share the new verbs with me. Have a good time using this English sentence pattern.

The Verbs “are”, “was” and “were”

Objective: Use “are”, “was” and “were” to construct sentences. This is going to be our last instalment on the “Be” verbs. The English sentence patterns that we shall look at here are very common. Further, they provide a problem to speakers of English because they require the subject and verb to agree in number. The “are” verb agrees with you, we, they and the names of more than two people or the names of two or more things e.g. Tom and Jerry. The resulting sentences will be 1) You are playing. 2) We are writing. 3) They are sick. 4) Tom and Jerry are rivals. 5) The houses are beautiful. Well, try and write as many sentences as you can but make sure that your subjects are similar to mine, especially for sentences 1), 2) and 3). “Was” is the past tense of is. All the sentences in which we had used “is” can be written using “was”. What will be different is the time the activities take place. You can go back to the lesson on “is” and borrow the sentences you had used there then replace is with was. Your sentences will look like these: 1) John was ill. 2) She was a teacher. 3) He was late. 4) Jane was an athlete. 5) He was cruel. You can extend this pattern to use verbs ending in –ing. 1) Jane was teaching. 2) He was running. 3) She was eating. 4) He was bathing. 5) She was painting. Now make as many sentences as you can following this pattern. Finally “were” is the past tense of “are". We can therefore replace are in the sentences above with were. 1) You were playing. 2) We were writing. 3) They were sick. 4) Tom and Jerry were rivals. 5) The houses were beautiful. I hope that you have enjoyed working with these sentence patterns. Remember that success comes out of effort. You have to write many sentences every day. In the next post we shall look at main verbs.

Question Tag “isn’t it?”

In this English grammar lesson we look at the last instalment of the verb “is”. Objective: make question tags using ‘Isn’t it?” Now look at these sentences: 1) You moved to your new house, isn’t it? 2) They won the race, isn’t it? 3) You placed a bet, isn’t it? 4) You have read the passage, isn’t it? 5) She beat you, isn’t it? Did you spot the error? (Please refer to the lessons on the “do” and “have” verbs). These are sentences that I picked from conversations. It is hard to understand why people make this mistake. Like I mentioned in the previous lesson, the verb “is” is very commonly used. Most likely the very first question tag people learn is “isn’t it?” and the lesson sticks. May be it is what is common place in their environment. I recently talked to a foreign learner of English from Slovenia who was visiting Kenya. I wanted to know whether being in Kenya had improved her English. She lamented that she was in fact picking some of the mistakes Kenyans made and was powerless to do anything about it. My point is that the environment one is in matters a lot when learning a second or foreign language. So the learning points for question tag” isn’t it?” are very simple: 1) The sentence should have the word is. 2) The sentence must be positive. 3) The tag is therefore negative. Our sentences will look like these: 1) This is your book, isn’t it? 2) This is your new house, isn’t it? 3) That is your assignment, isn’t it? Take note that the pronoun/noun used determines what pronoun to use in the tag. 1) John is your friend, isn’t he? 2) Jane is tipped to win the race, isn’t she? 3) He is the one you talked about, isn’t he? 4) She is the one you love, isn’t she? If this lesson has improved your English grammar please send me a line:wallbiz.akach35@gmail.com

Question Tags with the verb "is"

Welcome to another English grammar class, as promised we shall look at question tags with the verb “is”. Objective: Make question tags with the verb “is”. Isn’t it? Without a doubt the most abused phrase in Kenya. I have sat and listened to Kenyans of great learning punctuate every sentence with the phrase “isn’t it?” There are strict rules of English grammar that if one follows, then one will avoid this mistake. To begin with, it is the auxiliary (helping) verb in a sentence that is used to make the question tag. This means that a sentence must contain the verb “is” for one to use the question tag “isn’t it?”. This brings us to the second rule: if the verb “is” is not used in a sentence then do not use the tag “isn’t it?”. The third and most important rule is about the positive tag for a negative sentence, and a negative tag for a positive sentence. We shall begin our journey with negative sentences. Supply question tags for the following statements. 1) This is not a big challenge. 2) This is not your pen. 3) This is not your first question tag class. 4) This is not your last question tag class. 5) This is not your cup of tea. Now let us find out how you fared. 1) This is not a big challenge, is it? 2) This is not your pen, is it? 3) This is not your first question tag class, is it? 4) This is not your last question tag class, is it? 5) This is not your cup of tea, is it? A very interesting problem does present itself, though. Not all our sentences have just one verb. Supply a question tag for the following sentences. 1) It is not easy to win a marathon race. 2) It is not your birthday we are celebrating. 3) It is not your horse that won the race. 4) It is not your glass I broke. 5) It is not your house I visited last. Well, find out whether you are on the right track. 1) It is not easy to win a marathon race, is it? 2) It is not your birthday we are celebrating, is it? 3) It is not your horse that won the race, is it? 4) It is not your glass I broke, is it? 5) It is not your house I visited last, is it? Each of these sentences has two verbs, so why did we choose on is to construct the question tag? The answer is simple. Do you remember the rule that we use the auxiliary verb in the sentence to construct the question tag? Well, that is the rule that applies in such sentences. I hope that you are now confident with this aspect of English grammar. In the next post we shall look at positive sentences with the verb “is”.

The Be Verb “is”

Objective: Construct sentences using the verb “is”. The second “be” verb we are looking at in English grammar is the verb “is”. This perhaps is one verb that is used in very many English sentences. We saw in the previous lesson that the verb “am” is used by an individual to tell us what he/she does. The verb “is” also serves the same purpose. However, we use it to report what somebody else does. Therefore, it is the subject that is different. For the verb “am” the subject is always “I”. For the verb “is” the subject can be several pronouns: he, she, and it; further, the subject can be the name of a place or somebody. We can begin by borrowing sentences from the “am” lesson. 1) I am a teacher. 2) I am a pilot. 3) I am a doctor. 4) I am a musician. 5) I am an actor. 6) I am an athlete. 7) I am a footballer. 8) I am a farmer. 9) I am a journalist. 10) I am a mechanic. 11) I am a pupil. For the subject “I” we will use he/she. For the verb “am” we will use the verb “is”. Your sentences should look like these: He is a teacher. She is a pilot. Complete writing the remaining sentences. We can still write the same sentences but this time instead of using a pronoun, we use somebody’s name. Thus, John is a teacher. Joan is a pilot. Rewrite the remaining sentences using the names of your friends. The verb “is” can also be used to tell us how somebody feels or what condition somebody is in e.g. ill, happy, sad, angry, clean, dirty, hungry, satisfied, thirsty tired etc. Once more you can use somebody’s name or a pronoun. Thus, John is ill. He is ill. Make your own sentences using the remaining words from the list above. Be sure to use both a noun and a pronoun for each word. Further, you can use the name of a place as your subject e.g. Nairobi is cold. Kibuye is noisy. Now make your own sentences. Make sure that the word that comes after “is” describes a condition. The verb “is” is also used as a helping verb. In other words it is used alongside another verb. In this way we are able to construct the present continuous aspect. We will make a list of verbs in the –ing form: sitting, walking, writing, running, jumping, eating, reading, playing, sleeping, resting etc. Our sentences will follow this pattern: James is sitting. He is sitting. Now make your sentences using the complete list of verbs above. I hope you enjoyed this English grammar class. In the next post we shall look at question tags with the verb “is”

Question Tags with the Verb “am”

Objective: Construct question tags with the verb “am” Prerequisite: Basic rules of forming question tags. There are three basic rules in forming question tags. 1) When the sentence is positive, the question tag will be negative. 2) When the sentence is negative, the question tag will be positive. 3) Use the auxiliary verb in the statement to form the question tag. We will start our lesson by looking at negative sentences. Give the correct question tags for the following sentences. 1) I am not reading. 2) I am not playing. 3) I am not sleeping. 4) I am not resting. Now let us find out how you fared with the exercise. 1) I am not reading, am I? 2) I am not playing, am I? 3) I am not sleeping, am I? 4) I am not resting, am I? Try your hand and make your own sentences. You can borrow mine from the previous lesson but make sure you turn them into negative sentences first. Now let us look at positive sentences. This does provide a problem. The auxiliary verb in our sentences will be “am”. But what is the negative of am. We saw that in the sentences above we used am not. Question tags are made using the contracted (shortened) form of an auxiliary verb. You naturally will be tempted to use amn’t I? This is wrong. The correct negative tag is aren’t I? Aren’t (pronounced ant) We are now good to go, aren’t we? Give the correct question tag for the following sentences. 1) I am ill. 2) I am happy. 3) I am sad. 4) I am angry. 5) I am clean. 6) I am dirty. 7) I am hungry. 8) I am satisfied. 9) I am thirsty. 10) I am tired. Well, I will supply the answers to the first three items just to give you confidence that you are on the right track. 1) I am ill, aren’t I? 2) I am happy, aren’t I? 3) I am sad, aren’t I?

The “Be” verb (A4)

Objective: Construct sentences using the verb “am”. A verb is an action or state word. Today we will look at state verbs. State verbs do not tell us what somebody does. They tell us the state or condition somebody is in. Therefore, a state verb is a word that tells us the state or condition somebody is in. The “be verbs” are state verbs. There are five be verbs: am, is, are, was and were. In this post we will look at the verb “am”. What would you like to become in the future? We can make a very long list: a teacher, a pilot, a doctor, a musician, an actor, an athlete, a footballer, a farmer, a journalist, a mechanic etc. Now each of these people can tell us who they are using the verb am. 1) I am a teacher. 2) I am a pilot. 3) I am a doctor. 4) I am a musician. 5) I am an actor. 6) I am an athlete. 7) I am a footballer. 8) I am a farmer. 9) I am a journalist. 10) I am a mechanic. 11) I am a pupil. The verb am can also be used to tell us how you feel or what condition you are in e.g. ill, happy, sad, angry, clean, dirty, hungry, satisfied, thirsty tired etc. 1) I am ill. 2) I am happy. 3) I am sad. 4) I am angry. 5) I am clean. 6) I am dirty. 7) I am hungry. 8) I am satisfied. 9) I am thirsty. 10) I am tired. The verb “am” is also used as a helping verb. In other words it is used alongside another verb. In this way we are able to construct the present continuous aspect. We will make a list of verbs in the –ing form: sitting, walking, writing, running, jumping, eating, reading, playing, sleeping, resting etc. 1) I am sitting. 2) I am walking. 3) I am writing. 4) I am running. 5) I am jumping. 6) I am eating. 7) I am reading. 8) I am playing. 9) I am sleeping. 10) I am resting. We have looked at three ways of using the verb “am”. Now make three sentences from each section. In the next post we shall look at question tags with the verb “am”.

Simple Past Passive Verb (supplementary material)

It is unfortunate that I can not use tables in the blog. Some aspects of grammar are best taught using tables. Even so we can still do a good job without them. I got feedback from one of my students and I understood the real problem second language learners of English have. Their problem arises from having very few English words. The lesson could therefore begin with one making a list of nouns of the things in their environment for example table, chair, pen, window, and book. The next task is to think of actions that can be done to these nouns. Table-make, paint. Chair-clean. Pen- buy, throw. Window –wash, shut. Book –read, sell. The next task would be to ensure that all the verbs are in the past tense. Then turn the verb into a passive verb. made – was made. Paint –was painted. Clean – was cleaned. Buy – was bought. Wash – was washed. Throw –was thrown. Shut – was shut. Read – was read. Sell – was sold. Finally, start your sentences with the subject that you had come up with and then finish it with the correct passive verb form e.g. The table was made. You should be able to make eight more sentences. Remember that if what is in the subject position is plural then you must use a plural verb e.g. “The plates were washed” and not “The plates was washed”. Have fun making sentences. Remember this lesson should be used alongside the first lesson on The Past Simple Passive. The next post will be on the "Be verbs"

Question Tags with the Verb “Have”

Well I do hope that you have had a nice time working with the verb “have” to create sentences in the present perfect aspect. The other aspect that results from the have verb is the past perfect aspect. This one presents no problem t users of English because it uses only the verb “had” e.g. I had gone to school. The only thing you need to know about the past perfect aspect is that is usually used to report two activities that are complete. Thus, I had gone to school by the time the accident occurred. Now we can turn to the lesson that I promised you yesterday: Question tags with the verb have. Objective: to construct question tags using the verb have. We will remember that when we looked at question tags with the verb do, we said that question tags are formed from auxiliary verbs in the sentence. Therefore, if a sentence has any form of the verb “have”, that is what we will use to form the tag question. Of course we now have a huge stock of sentences to use. We will begin by borrowing sentences from the have lesson. 1) I have driven this car, haven’t I? 2) You have driven this car, haven’t you? 3) They have driven this car, haven’t they? 4) We have driven this car, haven’t we? 5) Mary and John have driven this car, haven’t they? That is it. Just remember to observe the punctuation instructions. Now try and construct question tags for the sentences you had constructed for this exercise. Let’s now borrow sentences from the “has” lesson. 1) Mary has begun her music course, hasn’t she? 2) The gardener has burned the rubbish, hasn’t he? 3) The teacher has caught a thief, hasn’t she? 4) He has found the hidden treasure, hasn’t he? 5) My spouse has given me a gift, hasn’t she? 6) She has gone to school, hasn’t she? 7) The nurse has shaken the medicine bottle, hasn’t he? 8) The child has stood in the rain for long, hasn’t he? I notice that all my sentences are positive. So you can begin by changing them into the negative and then create tags for them e.g. I have not driven that car, have I? Mary has not begun her music course, has she? Finally, the perfect aspect can also be used to make tag questions. They had driven that car for five years before I bought it, hadn’t they? Well you should now use the have verb with lots of confidence. Of course I have intentionally avoided the progressive aspect because it hardly presents a problem. However, should you have any problem with me just enter your comment or contact me directly via email.

The Verb “Has”

Objective: Construct sentences using the verb “has”. As mentioned earlier, we use has for singular subjects. Thus, Mary has, it has, the town has, Kenya has, and my school has. Be careful not to construct sentences that show possession. For example, “Mary has a pen.” In this case “has” has been used as a main verb. Your sentences should look like these: 1) Mary has fed the puppy. 2) It has rained. 3) The town has won many awards. 4) Kenya has produced world class athletes. 5) My school has bought a projector. We shall now construct sentences with the verbs that formed your assignment on the verb “have”. This will help you confirm whether you got the past participle forms of those verbs. Further, it will help you make constructions with the verb “has”. 1) Mary has begun her music course. 2) The gardener has burned the rubbish. 3) The teacher has caught a thief. 4) He has found the hidden treasure. 5) My spouse has given me a gift. 6) She has gone to school. 7) The nurse has shaken the medicine bottle. 8) The child has stood in the rain for long. So, did you get the past participle forms of these verbs right? If you did, congratulations are in order. If you did not, develop a habit of using your dictionary. Now construct your own sentences using the same verbs. I will now give you another set of irregular verbs for further practice. Wake, write, tear, teach, sweep, swim, put, ride, dig and blow. Take note that the present perfect aspect is used with reference to activities completed in the recent past. In the next post we shall look at question tags with the verb have.

The Verb “Have”

Having looked at the “do” verb, let us turn our attention to the verb “have”. Objective: Construct sentences in the present perfect aspect using the verb “have”. Like the “do” verb, the “have” verb is a helping verb. Take note that you can use the verb “have” as a main verb under two circumstances. First, if you use it to mean eat e.g. We have supper at 8:00pm. Second, we use it as a main verb when referring to possession e.g. I have a pen. “I am having a pen” is wrong. The verb “have” has three forms: have, has and had. We use have and has to form the present perfect aspect. For all plural subjects and the pronoun I, we use have. Therefore we say I have, you have, they have, we have, Mary and John have. For singular subjects we use has. Thus, Mary has, it has, the town has, Kenya has, and my school has. Because the “have” verb is a helping verb, it has to be used alongside a main verb. The main verb has to be in its past participle form. Care should be taken to use the correct form of the irregular verbs. Most good dictionaries have an exhaustive list of irregular verbs. These are the verbs that do not add –ed to get the past and past participle forms. Therefore the verb “add’ is regular and so is the verb “walk”. Your sentences would look like these. 1) I have added sugar to your tea. 2) We have walked to the park. We will now turn our attention the irregular verbs. Let us start with the verb drive, shall we? The past tense is “drove” and the past participle is “driven”. Your sentences would look like these. I have driven this car. You have driven this car. They have driven this car. We have driven this car. Mary and John have driven this car. Now let us look at the verb eat. The past tense is “ate” and the past participle is “eaten”. The resulting sentences will look like these: 1) I have eaten lunch. 2) You have eaten lunch. 3) They have eaten lunch. 4) We have eaten lunch. 5) Mary and John have eaten lunch. I will now leave you with ten irregular verbs of activities that are common. Construct as many sentences as you can in the present perfect aspect. Begin, burn, catch, come, feed, find, give, go, shake, and stand. In the next post we shall look at “has”.

The Truth of the Pudding

Standard Four Sentence Pattern: “Same… Nominal...As…”

Objective: Write sentences that draw comparisons of nouns with similar qualities. This sentence pattern is used when talking about things that are similar. At school we can have similar marks, points, answers etc. If you shared similar marks, points or answers with you friends then you can say: 1) Mary scored the same marks as I did. 2) Julius wrote the same answer as I did. 3) Rose wrote down the same points I did. Now think of anything that you have that is similar to one that your friend has. Write down seven sentences to show that you have similar items. We can move away from the classroom. Do your sentences resemble these? 1) Mary watches the same movies as I do. 2) Rose likes the same dishes as I do. 3) Julius visits the same barber as I do. 4) Jane’s dress is the same colour as mine. 5) The Game Parks in Kenya have the same animals as those in South Africa. 6) Kenyans speak the same Kiswahili as Tanzanians. 7) KTN has the same movies as NTV. Good. Now keep looking around you and when you find things that are similar to yours make a sentence to show that similarity. All the nouns we have used so far are common nouns. It is also possible to use abstract nouns, for example, length, height and depth. 1) My pen is the same length as yours. 2) Our fence is the same height as yours. 3) Their swimming pool is the same depth as ours. Now use the nouns length, height and depth to make two sentences each. Look at the environment in which you are reading this lesson and use items from it to make your sentences. Finally, make as many sentences as you wish following the pattern you have just learned. You are free to use both common and abstract nouns.

Standard Four Language Patterns: “HOW MUCH …than”

Objective: To construct questions using the sentence pattern “How much...than”. Well the London Olympics, 2012 edition is over and many of us had a good time watching athletics. The track events are of particular interest to Kenyans. Just how well do you know your track events? The track events have three broad categories: the sprints, middle distance and long distance. In the sprints we have the 100m, 200m and 400m races. How much longer is the 400m race than the 200m race? How much longer is the 400m race than the 100m race? How much longer is the 200m race than the 100m race? Of course you got the answers right. The challenge, remember, is not the math but the sentence pattern. Now let us move into the middle distance. Again we have three races here: 800m, 1500m and 3000m. Now create your own questions similar to the ones above. Remember to start with the greatest distance. You should have a total of 3 questions. I hope you had a good time making those sentences. However, is it possible to start with the shorter distance? Yes it is, but we replace the word “longer” with “shorter”. We will look at the sprints first. How much shorter is the 100m race than the 200m race? How much shorter is the 100m race than the 400m race? How much shorter is the 200m race than the 400m race? Great! It is time for you to make your own sentences. We travel back to the middle distance. Remember to start with the shortest distance. I believe you had no trouble making those sentences. Do your sentences look like these? How much shorter is the 800m race than the 1500m race? How much shorter is the 800m race than the 3000m race? How much shorter is the 1500m race than the 3000m race? Congratulations if they do. If they do not find out where you are going wrong and make the corrections before you proceed to the next exercise. Now we have a long journey to make. We will travel the long distance. The long distance also has three events: 5000m, 10000m, and the marathon which is a whooping 42kilometers. Most of us have trouble walking a kilometer. These athletes must be very strong to run this race. I believe every one of them who finishes the race ought to be given a medal for completion. Anyway, back to our sentence patterns. You have learned that you should compare things that are similar. So we need to convert the meters to kilometers. 5000m is 5km and 10000m is 10 km. Now we have similar units it is easy for you to construct your sentences and complete our Olympic challenge. This time I will ask you to run the marathon. First make three sentences using “longer”, then make three more using “shorter”. I hope you earned your gold medal for that marathon race and this exercise as a whole. Congratulations!

Standard Four Language Patterns: “MORE THAN”… “LESS THAN...”

Objective: Use more than... and less than... to make comparisons of quantity (number). Prerequisite: Knowledge of count nouns and mass nouns. Count nouns are those that we can count easily like people, sweets, cakes etc. Mass nouns are those that do not take a plural form like salt, pepper, soup etc. “More than” and “less than” are used in making comparisons. They are the most common ways of making comparison. When we talk of comparison, we mean that we are looking at two items. The items could be people, places or things. We use the pattern more than when an item has a greater number than the other. We use the pattern less than when one item has a smaller number than the other. Examples of sentences using more than include: There are more sacks of maize than potatoes in the store. We were served more sweets than biscuits at the party. Kenyans take more tea than coffee. He has earned more "Bonga" Points than I. Now let us look at sentences with “less than”. He has less money than I. She likes less margarine on her bread than I do. His plate has less food than mine. It is now time for you to explore your environment. Give examples from the items/situations you usually compete in. Your examples should have just two words e.g. more goals, more compositions, more sums, more friends, more towns. We have reached that stage that you have to construct your own sentences. They should look like these: I have scored more goals than you. I have visited more towns than you. I have written more compositions than you. I have solved more sums than you. I have more friends than you. I have visited more towns than you. Construct at least ten sentences. We now turn our attention to “less than”. Supply the names of the food items that people add to the main dish or eat along with the main dish e.g. sugar, salt, pepper, spices, soup, sauce etc. Your sentences will look like these: She uses less sugar than I. He uses less sauce than I. Now construct your own sentences using salt, pepper and spices. Finally, replace “less than” with “more than” in the sentences that you have just constructed. They will look like these: She uses more sugar than I. He uses more sauce than I. Notice that you can use “more than” with both count and mass nouns, while less than can only be used with mass nouns. NB. To show a smaller quantity with count nouns we use “fewer than” e.g. He has fewer friends than I.

Primary English Sentence Patterns

STANDARD FOUR LANGUAGE PATTERNS I wrote in one of my posts that the language patterns taught in primary school are purely grammar items. The pattern of the day is the use of the simple past passive. PREREQUISITE: Structure of the simple sentence OBJECTIVE: Construct passive sentences in the simple past The English sentence has a subject and a verb. The subject is what is talked about. The verb is what is said about it. In this lesson we shall introduce something we have not talked about in our lessons so far: the object. The object appears in sentences with active verbs. The object comes after the verb. Look at this sentence: James plays football. James is the subject; plays is the verb and football is the object. ‘S’ is used to indicate the subject, ‘V’ is used to indicate the verb, and ‘O’ is used to indicate the object. Now identify the subject, verb and object in the following sentences. 1) James cut the cake. 2) Jane ate the apple. 3) John washed the plates. 4) Joan laid the table. 5) Mary cooked lunch. Now, all these sentences are in the active voice. The verbs cut, ate, washed, laid and cooked are active verbs. The simple past passive form of these verbs are: was cut, was eaten, were washed, was laid and was cooked. The final thing you need to do to transform the active sentences into simple past passive is to move the subject into the object position and the object into the subject position and replace the active verbs with the passive verbs and introduce ‘by’ before the doer of the action. The sentences will now read: 1) The cake was cut by James. 2) The apple was eaten by Jane. 3) The plates were washed by John. 4) The table was laid by Joan. 5) Lunch was cooked by Mary. Let us take note that the doer of the action need not be included in a passive sentence. 1) The cake was cut. 2) The apple was eaten. 3) The plates were washed. 4) The table was laid. 5) Lunch was cooked. Now let us pick five nouns: shoe, ruler, house, book and hair. I will ask a fixed question: What was done to your shoe/ruler/house/book/hair? 1) My shoe was polished. 2) My ruler was broken. 3) My house was locked. 4) My book was covered. 5) My hair was plaited. Now look around your house and write down ten nouns. Ask the fixed question we used in the last exercise and write down your answers in the simple past passive. You are at liberty to include or leave out the doer of the action.

Question Tags ‘Do’ Verb: Present Tense (II)

OBJECTIVE: Construct do verb question tags in the present tense. PREREQUISITE: The Do Verb (II) If you found the previous exercise interesting and perhaps easily done, I am glad. Problems arise with the present tense. If you have not mastered the work in ‘do’ verb II may be you need to go back and do more practice. However, if you moved through it smoothly, we shall very quickly recapitulate the important points before we move into the lesson proper. You will remember that for the pronoun ‘I’ and other plural subjects (you, we, they, John and Jane) we use do/don’t. On the other hand, for singular subjects (he, she, it, James) we use does/ doesn’t. We will look at sentences with I and the plural subjects first. Further, we shall focus on sentences with positive statements first then move to those with negative statements. Rewrite the following sentences and supply the correct question tag for each. 1) I do speak fluent English. 2) You do speak fluent English. 3) We do speak fluent English. 4) They do speak fluent English. 5) James and Juliet speak fluent English. Now find out how you fared. 1) I do speak fluent English, don’t I? 2) You do speak fluent English, don’t you? 3) We do speak fluent English, don’t we? 4) They do speak fluent English, don’t they? 5) James and Juliet speak fluent English, don’t they? Congratulations are in order if you got all your answers right - and I hope you did not cheat on the punctuation items. If you did not get all your answers right, find out where your problem is, Revise it and move on. Let’s examine the singular subject statements, shall we? 1) He does his work well. 2) She does her work well. 3) It does the work well. 4) Jane does her work well. Now rewrite these sentences and supply the correct question tag for each. 1) He does his work well, doesn’t he? 2) She does her work well, doesn’t she? 3) It does the work well, doesn’t it? 4) Jane does her work well, doesn’t she? How did you fare? Well I hope. Fine, now rewrite all the sentences in the negative then supply the appropriate question tags. e.g. I don’t speak fluent English. He doesn’t do his work well. The correct answers will be: I don’t speak fluent English, do I? He doesn’t do his work well, does he? When you are done, create ten sentences revolving around your experiences and supply the appropriate question tags. First make your statements positive then rewrite them in the negative.

Question Tags with the do verb (I)

We have examined the common problems that students of English face with the do verb. The last of these arises in the use of question tags. Objective: Form question tags in sentences with no auxiliary verb Prerequisite: Knowledge of tag formation This lesson would ordinarily come after a thorough grounding of question tag formation. Here it has been brought forward to make you completely comfortable with the ‘do’ verb. 1) The basic rule of forming question tags is that when the statement is in the positive then the tag is in the negative. Similarly, when the statement is negative, the tag is in the positive. 2) The second rule is that the question tag is formed using the auxiliary verb appearing in the statement. We shall begin this lesson with sentences that have the do verb in them. 1) You do not trust me. 2) You did not ask for a soda. Both these statements are in the negative. Further they each have an auxiliary verb: do. The following are the correct question tags for the two statements: 1) You do not trust me, do you? 2) You did not ask for a soda, did you? Notice that a comma appears between the statement and the tag. Further, the tag begins in the lower case. Finally that the tag ends with a question mark. These are very important elements of punctuation that students generally ignore. Now what happens when you have a statement that has no auxiliary verb? e.g. She reported to school late. The general rule is that when a statement does not have an auxiliary verb then the question tag is formed using the appropriate form of the ‘do’ verb. Appropriate here is in relation to the tense of the statement. The verb in our statement is ‘reported’. Therefore the statement is in the past tense. The past tense of the ‘do’ verb is did. Finally, the statement is in the positive therefore the tag should be in the negative. Our answer then is “She reported to school late, didn’t she?” Now try your hand at these: 1) He told you the truth. 2) She offered you a soda. 3) They spoke a lot about their school. 4) Jane played football. 5) You liked your teachers. Now find out whether you are on the right track. 1) He told you the truth, didn’t he? 2) She offered you a soda, didn’t she? 3) They spoke a lot about their school, didn’t they? 4) Jane played football, didn’t she? 5) You liked your teachers, didn’t you? I deliberately gave you sentences in the past tense because they are easier to construct. Now create 10 statements of your own that have no auxiliary verbs and then create the question tags. The trick is to talk about things that happen in your life. In the next post we shall look at sentences in the present tense.

The Do Verb (II)

In the last lesson we examined the special problem people experience when using the verb ‘Do’ in the past tense. May be you have had enough time practising; if you haven’t this lesson will provide you with more room for practice. Now let us move to the problem that remained unresolved in the previous lesson. The two sentences in question were: 1) Youth doesn’t have money. 2) I doesn’t know the answer. In both of these cases the speaker has no problem with the base word. However, a new problem has cropped up. The subject and the verb ought to agree. Again there is a very simple rule that you need to remember to avoid making this kind of mistake. For singular subjects the verb should be plural and for plural subjects the verb should be singular. Having said that I need to remind you that the exception to this rule is the pronoun “I’ – it takes a singular verb. For you to understand this rule you must know what a subject is. The simplest English sentence is made up of a subject and a verb: Jesus wept. The subject is what the sentences talks about. Think of it as the topic of the sentence. Without it there is no sentence. The normal position for the subject is before the verb. Back to our rule we examine how to apply it. We will start with the plural subjects. 1) I do not know the answer. (Exception to the rule) 2) We do not know the answer. 3) You do not know the answer. 4) They do not know the answer. 5) John and Jane do not know the answer. 6) The youth do not know the answer. Now let us examine the singular subjects. 1) He does not know the answer. 2) She does not know the answer. 3) It does not know the answer. 4) Jane does not know the answer. N.B. the word youth refers to young people in general. I promised you that we shall get more practice for the previous lesson. Here it is, rewrite all these sentences in the past tense e.g. I didn’t know the answer. Remember the key point is to maintain the base form of the verb. In the next post we shall look at question tags that require the ‘do’ verb.

The Verb Do

Many people find using the ‘do’ verb quite a challenge; it need not be. Look at the following sentences picked from everyday conversation: 1) I didn’t knew you were in the classroom. 2) Youth doesn’t have money. 3) I doesn’t know the answer. 4) He didn’t went to school yesterday. These are common mistakes and very embarrassing. So what does one need to know in order to avoid such mistakes? We need to know that the do verb is an auxiliary (helping) verb. As a helping verb it combines with the main verb to form a verb phrase. In such constructions it is the do verb that controls the tense and not the main verb. The main verb remains unchanged. One of the instances in which we use such constructions is when we want to emphasise something. For example i. The students do work hard.(present tense0 ii. The students did work hard. (past tense) The main verb in each of these sentences is ‘work’. Notice it remains unchanged i.e. we do not say, ‘The students did worked hard’. So, this is the one rule you want to remember. Let us look back at the first four sentences at the beginning of this lesson. In particular sentence 1 and 4. If we follow the rule we have just learned, then it is possible to correct the mistake in these sentences. The main verb in sentence 1 is ‘knew’ and in sentence 4 it is ‘went’. The rule says that these verbs should remain unchanged. We should therefore use the base form of these verbs. If you are one of the people with this problem, attempt to correct the mistake in those two sentences before you read on. If you understood the concept, your corrected answers should read: i. I didn’t know you were in the classroom. ii. He didn’t go to school yesterday. Now, think of all the gold medals the Kenyan athletics team hoped to win at the London Olympics but did not and make sentences e.g. Kenya didn’t win a gold medal in the marathon. Now think of the things that you had planned to do yesterday but didn’t e.g. I didn’t post a grammar article yesterday. Finally, find ten things your friends and family failed to do yesterday and construct ten more sentences. Do this every day for the rest of the week until you can make the correct sentences without thinking of what form of the main verb to use. In the next post we will resolve the problem with sentence 2 and 3.

Use of the Gerund as the Subject in a Sentence

e.g. Smoking is bad for you. First we need to understand the English sentence structure. The English sentence begins with a subject which is followed by a verb. SUBJECT + VERB e.g. John laughed. John is the subject while laughed is the verb. This is an example of a simple sentence. We can think up other examples: Jesus wept. He sings. Babies cry. It is important to note that all the items in the subject position are either nouns or pronouns. However, it is possible to have a word ending in –ing in the subject position. This is what is called the gerund/jerand/. i. Laughing is good for your health. ii. Smoking is forbidden in my school. iii. Jogging is good for your health. We can look at other examples: Making noise is forbidden in my school. i. Staying in touch with friends and family is easy because of the mobile phone. ii. Learning a new language is difficult. iii. Making friends is worthwhile. These examples show us that the subject can be made up of more than one word. the verb in each case is 'is'. Everything to the left of the verb is part of the subject. Now think of chores that you perform around the house and write three of them down in the –ing form e.g. mopping... Finally, use the three words to construct three sentences. Make sure you use each of them as the subject.

Breaking the Ice

Well, I hope that a number of you have visited my blog. From the silence that I have many might be wondering how to start. My friend Madero is a tricky one. He has asked me to look at two poems that are way above my pictured audience. However, in doing so he has brought to my attention a fact that had eluded me. There are people out of school who are grappling with some grammar concepts and would not mind seeking my advice; they are welcome. Having said that, I did mention in my post yesterday that we teach four English skills in the Kenyan curriculum: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In addition to these we also teach grammar and study skills. This is consistently done from primary school to secondary school. Regrettably though, study skills is taught only in secondary school. The move to teach grammar in primary school is to me one of the best things KIE has done. Previously only sentence patterns were taught. Sentence patterns are actually grammar in action. The reasoning here is that English is learned as a second language and the learners need their attention to be brought to as many English patterns as possible which they may not meet in daily conversation. The current primary syllabus retains the sentence patterns besides teaching grammar. My friend Erick and I did a thorough analysis of the primary English syllabus from class four to eight and I love what is in the offing. At that time Erick was handling a candidate class and he wanted my input. I did develop a number of lessons around sentence patterns and grammar which he moderated. In particular he wanted me to do something on gerunds. I will share this post with you today in the hope that it will break the ice. Further, I will make another post for secondary students on the ‘DO’ verb. I have learned from experience that this verb gives many students a problem way past secondary school. Enjoy your reading. Your comments are welcome.

The Road to Take

The English language is basically made up of four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. The Kenyan syllabus has undergone a lot of transformation since independence. Although we expect the syllabus to change somewhat because of the new constitution, it may not deviate much from the current one which focuses on the teaching of the four language skills. This is what is taught from primary through to secondary school. Another beautiful thing about this syllabus is that it is spiral. What this means is that a learner is introduced to language concepts at a basic level and then the same concepts are taught in the upper classes but the degree of difficulty increases somewhat. The internet is not yet a source for information for primary and secondary students in this country. However, at college level the internet has almost replaced the text book. The journey I wish to take with you is one in which the internet complements the text book as well as the teacher. In my twenty three years of teaching English in rural secondary schools, the one thing that I have come to appreciate is the poor grounding of grammar concepts that my students bring to the classroom. Over the four years that the secondary course takes little or no meaningful improvement takes place in the students’ spoken or written language. I attribute this to the fact the students think of grammar not as a set of rules to be regularly applied in ones day to day communication but rather as a school subject/course. It is in the application of what is learnt in grammar to ones daily interactions that improves the four skills of English. The hardest of these skills is writing. Students need to see the relationship between their grammar competency and their composition/writing competency. The road to take therefore is to get a thorough grounding of ones grammar and relate it to ones environment. Grammar can be very boring if it just learnt as a set of rules. Although the parts of speech are first taught in upper primary school then rigorously taught in form one, many students are unable to distinguish them in a sentence at any level in secondary school. However, if students constantly relate the parts of speech to their environment they will find their mastery of the concepts improving threefold. Therefore, this road that I will walk you through will start from an interactive point of view. I would wish for that bold step to come from students who are grappling with their grammar. Shoot that question that bothers you and I will try to deal with three questions everyday. Further, I would like students to appreciate the close link between poetry and grammar. Therefore, I will also welcome poetry questions as long as you send me the full poem and tell me exactly what aspect of the poem you have a problem with. After the August holiday, I will assess how much ground we have covered and whether it will be appropriate to move to listening skills. Suffice it to say that this is all for free. You will get my expert advice at no cost. Grammar questions are welcome from primary school pupils and secondary school students- state your class in our post. Just send me an email: wallbiz.akach35@gmail.com and let’s start interacting, shall we?