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?