Essay Writing in the UPSR English Exam - Paper 014

In Paper 014, one of the questions requires candidates to write a picture composition between 80-100 words. This is what the instructions for the question say:

"You may use the words given to help you."

 Students should use the given words in their writing as the words explain the plot or key events in the story. The difficulty many students face is to write their composition within the number of words specified. From experience, it is better to write between 90 and 100 words as your composition would then cover enough details to make the story more interesting. If your writing is about 80-90 words, it could make the story weaker in terms of the development of your plot. Here's an example from my e-learning course that you can find at my website: www.myenglishbooks.com :

Do we apostrophe 's' or don't we?

That diminutive symbol which marks a noun to signal possession or ownership was the subject of an amusing discussion in my workplace not long ago. Yes, I mean the apostrophe. We place the apostrophe right after the proper or common noun to indicate that someone or something belongs to the person or thing in question. Here are some examples: the woman's dog; the boy's bike; the city's residents; the cat's tail; the car's doors; Dora's car; Nora's husband; James' skis; Jesus' teachings; the women's dogs; the children's school; the boys' teacher; the girls' bags.

The example, the car's keys may run into trouble with strict grammar rules which restrict ownership to only living things. In this case, a car cannot own keys. To circumvent this problem, some writers would phrase it as the car doors, where the words car and doors are taken together as a noun. Likewise, it may be awkward to say the table's legs. Instead, we would say the table legs are broken, for example. So far, so good, but what about lamp's bulb. I have no trouble with that although strict grammarians may insist on saying the bulb of the lamp.

The use of the apostrophe with proper nouns such as Nora's husband presents no difficulty. However, traditionalists may argue that James' skis would be out of sync with the traditional rule that requires the letter 's' after the apostrophe for names that end with 's' as in James's skis. The same rule says that it's not necessary to have the letter 's' for Biblical or classical names as in Jesus' teachings and Hippocrates' Oath. The trend now ignores this traditional rule and it's common to see writers writing Jess' speech alongside Jesus' teachings. I think Jesus wouldn't object to that.

Needs Analysis in Language Teaching

Recently I had the opportunity to teach an Intensive English course to a foreign student for one month. My slot was on Speaking. I was required to do a Needs Analysis, which I found quite useful as I was able to introduce speaking topics based on information obtained about his job, family, education, and interests.In the field of training and development, conducting a needs analysis on training participants is de rigueur. Yet, in schools, colleges and universities, it is almost unheard of.  Students could be asked to fill up a form at the beginning of the year to obtain not only general information but also the students' different learning styles. A good understanding of the students will go a long way in helping the teacher tailor his or her lessons based on their needs.

Click this LINK for more information.

What's your condition?

I often tell my students that English is a language where it's quite common to see writers making mistakes. A case in point is the opening sentence of a recent article in a local English daily: "If you live in Petaling Jaya, you would probably have heard of it. Three armed men rushed into a famous chilli crab restaurant shortly after closing time-and they were not looking for food".

The sentence in italics is a conditional sentence, but it's faulty. If the writer had intended to write in the "third conditional" the sentence should have been written thus: If you had lived in Petaling Jaya, you would probably have heard of it. However, we use the third conditional to express regrets for something that happened or didn't happen. Here's an example: If I hadn't missed the bus, I would have arrived at the office on time. It's quite obvious that the third conditional is not appropriate in this context.

The writer should have expressed his idea in the "first conditional": If you live in Petaling Jaya, you will/would probably know this. This sentence is possible as it expresses the idea that if the condition is fulfilled, the result is likely to happen. The use of would makes the writer's assertion more tentative.

Learning English by Listening

Having taught English for a good number of years, I have often reflected on how to help my students learn the language in the quickest way possible. I must say that there's no shortcut to learning English, or any other language for that matter. Much has been written about how one can learn a language through listening, so what I'm about to share here is nothing new. 

Listening. This skill is often overlooked in the school system. Today,students are fortunate in that they have easy access to a wealth of free listening resources on the Internet. A quick search on Youtube using the keywords English listening exercises reveals 140,000 results. Pick the ones that you like which might not be too difficult for you to understand. Listen to each video several times: Understand what is being said, and after having understood it, learn to speak like the person in the video. I'm not saying you should mimic the person's accent because you may end up speaking as though you're parroting the speaker. If the video is good, you'll somehow know it, learn to adopt the speaker's fluency, pacing, and pronunciation. You might also want to pay attention to the speaker's body language, for example, eye contact and hand gestures for emphasis. Do this over several videos. Not only will you learn the language but you'll also become a good public speaker. 

What are you waiting for? Go to Youtube now!

Allies & Enemies - Exploring the Left and Right Dichotomy

As it appeared in Star 2, Mind Our English, Wednesday 30 November 2011

When my recently politically-conscious 17-year-old daughter asked me what right wing was, my right brain was tickled into action: I wanted to know more about this left-right dichotomy in this small world of ours.

To begin with, those of us who had been schooled in the 1970s and earlier must have been dullards  because we only had one brain. I guess our grey matter must have been really grey as the post-1990s generation possess two brains: the right and left brains which they use to optimim effect with such  learning technologies as lateral thinking, accelerated-learning and Neuro-linguistic Programming, playing light ambient baroque music in the background even as they are swotting up their algebra. Dang, we didn’t even know that we had two brains! No wonder, schools today are churning out SPM students with double-digit As like Beryl chocolates.

Well, I certainly have a lot of catching up to do before my grey matter turns greyer. I did a free online brain test with 54 multiple-choice questions. I had to respond to statements such as ‘I need complete quietness to read or study’ and ‘I have the ability to listen to music or television and study at the same time’. What did I find out? I am 57% left-brained and 43% right-brained (http://www.wherecreativitygoestoschool.com).

This makes me ‘a critical thinker who uses logic and sense to collect information’. And I rely on numbers, words, and symbols to retain information. It kind of confirms what I’ve always thought of myself- a critical thinker and a logical person. Yet, every now and then, I know the playful, creative right brain would tease my logical left brain- at times leading me astray- with wild, fanciful, and grandiose ideas. Fortunately, most times, when tantalizing ideas pop up, they are filtered by the logical thinking of my left brain.

On the political front, the left-right brain dichotomy has nothing to do with whether you have right or left wing political leanings. The terms originated in France where the Left is called the ‘party of movement’ while the Right is the ‘party of order’. Taking Malaysia as an example, the Right- Barisan Nasional- favours the established social order while the Left-Pakatan Rakyat Malaysia- favours equality and social change. This is not to say that right-wing parties do not favour equality. 

Although the terms are convenient descriptions of polar opposites, politicians on both sides may take a right-wing stance or a left-wing stance depending on the issues involved. The far right would include fascists and extreme conservatives and nationalists, while the far left would include communists. In Europe, German political scientist Professor Klaus von Beyme, who categorized European political parties into nine families, was able to arrange seven of them from left to right: communist, socialist, green, liberal, Christian democratic, conservative and right-wing extremist ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics).

Politics aside, what does the left-right dichotomy have to say about the cultural psyche of  peoples in different parts of the world? It is estimated that mancinists make up 10% in a right-handed world. Yes, you guess right: mancinism is another word for left-handedness. As this is predominantly a right-handed world, it is no wonder that left-handed people have often been viewed with suspicion. Do you know that the Latin word for left is sinistra, which originally meant left, but later took on the meaning of evil? And it is this later meaning that the English adopted in sinister. The Greek word skaios for left-handedness also means ill-omened, while the French word for left is gauche, which in English means awkward or tactless.

The Bible also contains unfavourable references to the left hand. In the Final Judgment of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says that “He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ’Come you are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world’”. To those on the left, the King will say, ’Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons’. Those on the left ‘will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life’. Yes, even being good is spelt righteous.

Until a few decades ago, a Chinese or Japanese child holding chopsticks with  their left hand  would be met with a reprimand or a rap on the knuckles. In Victorian times, school teachers would punish children who use their left hands to write. The English term cack-handed is slang for left-handed, which also means clumsy. It is said to have been derived from the Latin cacare, which refers to the performing of ablutions with the left hand. Similarly, in India, Africa and Malaysia the left hand is deemed unclean, and using your left hand to touch another, or give and receive something is definitely taboo. An African proverb says, ‘You do not use the left hand to point the way to your father's village’.

There is an anecdote about an American who asked a Chinese gentleman at a Chinese Christmas party in the United States what he thought was the strangest thing he saw when he first came to the US. Without hesitation, the Chinese gentleman replied, ‘left-handed people’. Perplexed, the American wondered if there were left-handed people in China. He replied that he had not seen anyone write with their left hands until he came to the U.S. This prompted the American to say, “Isn’t that genetic?” The Chinese went on to say that ‘kids in China are taught to write with their right hand’. He continued to explain that unlike in the U.S where devices are made for left-handers, in China it was a question of practicality.

Up to this point, a lefty reading this article should be indignant. Well, you shouldn’t be. Being right- or left-handed is genetic. Unfavourable references to sinistrals, or left-handedness, are the result of ignorance. Being a righty, I envy you. Firstly, you are among the elite group of people who make up only about 700 million of the world’s population unlike the ubiquitous righties. More significantly, the left hand is controlled by the right brain which is associated with creativity. And lefties have excelled in the creative, sporting and artistic fields. Famous lefties include US president Barack Obama, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, tennis great Rafa Nadal, badminton great Lin Dan, Alexander the Great, author H.G. Wells, Rennaissance artists Leonardo Da Vinci and Michaelangelo, and the greatest guitarist in musical history, Jimi Hendrix.

Left and right are like the complementary opposites or dualities of yin and yang: one cannot exist without the other. You cannot clap with one hand.

 

Exercise Your Grammar Muscles 3

A common mistake among students is in the use of though/although. Identify the mistake in each of the following sentences.

1. Although I left home late, but I was in time for school.
2. Although there was only one apple, but I shared it with my brother.
3. Though he is a multimillionaire, but he is not generous with his money.
4. Though the movie isn’t good overall, but it has a lovely ending.
5. Although the room was dark, he managed to find the pendrive.

In all five sentences, "but" has to be taken out. We do not use "although" with "but".

Sun, Earth, Moon...When Do We Capitalise?

A reader wrote in to Mind Our English (Star2, Thursday 21st July) about when to capitalise sun, moon and earth. Fadzillah Amin, MOE's language adviser answered: There are no hard and fast rules about when to capitalise the first letters of these words and when not to.

There is indeed a grammar rule which states that proper nouns are capitalised. Examples of proper nouns are Karim, Malaysia, Mumbai, Sungai Pahang, etc. So, the names of the planets, stars and constellations are spelt with capital letters: Earth,Sun, Venus, Mercury, Leo, the Milky Way, etc. However, we say the earth, the moon, and the sun unless of course when they are personified. Remember, personification? When you personify an idea or an inanimate object, it means you are investing it with human qualities. Thus, in HD Carberry's poem, Nature, the four seasons are personified: Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn.

Therefore, when we apply the rule of capitalizing proper nouns, we'll have to disagree with the example that Fadzillah Amin quoted from a NASA website: The strategic placement  permits constant observation of spacecraft as the Earth rotates on its own axis. Here, the Earth should be spelled in lower case as the earth. She's right when she said: The case of the moon is different. Earth has only one moon, and in ordinary writing, we call it the moon... So it's more common to use the moon, and we don't ever call it Moon without the before it, as we call earth without the.

Again, when she quoted NASA to justify her explanation, we should disagree with her: NASA, however, uses initial capitals for all three space objects, i.e. the Sun, the Moon and the Earth...Is it OK in scientific writing to break grammar rules? I don't think so.

Exercise Your Grammar Muscles 1 : There Is and There Are

When there is not emphasized, we frequently use a or an after the verb :
There's a boy waiting to see you in the office.
There's an English man in the gym.
However, when there is emphasized and refers to a particular place, we can use the/a/an according to the situation:
There is the boy I've been talking about.
There is a paper clip. Didn't I tell you that you could find one in that bookcase?

Put in is or are.

1. There ..... still a few old bicycles in the garage.
2. There ..... a lot of of work to be done.
3. There ..... a lot of things which need to be done before we can take a holiday.
4. There ..... not enough pencils to give to all the examination candidates.
5. There ..... a lot of money in the car boot.
6. There ..... something wrong with our project.
7. ..... there enough math teachers in our school?
8. There ..... only a few hockey sticks in the storeroom.
9. ..... there any computers in our school?
10. .....there any more apples in the fridge?
11. There ..... a lot of spelling mistakes in your essay.
12. There ..... quite a lot of sugar in this coffee!
13. There ..... usually quite a lot of students at the end-of-year dinner and dance party.
14. There ..... a number of cracks in the wall.
15. There ..... quite a bit of dust on my laptop screen.
16. There ..... quite a number of shops still open after midnight.
17. There ..... a number of people who saw what happened.
18. There ..... a lot of men in the boat.
19.  ..... there a lot of money left in the bank?
20. ..... there a lot of coins in your piggy bank?

Go to www.pmrenglish.com and www.spmenglish1119.com for additional resources.