Language
knowledge and sense 23/12/12
Language
learning is a kind of experience. Through
language experience / exposure. you acquire the language and use it at will
just as our mother tongue. I speak a Foochow
dialect which I picked up in the Foochow speaking family and environment. I learn the Chinese language when I went to a
Chinese primary school. I have more or
less mastered the language through my constant experience / exposure to the
language through,listening, reading, writing and speaking in the Chinese language in the Chinese speaking environment. For a
second language learning like English, you may not be enough chances to be exposed to it and
I wonder how often you will use the language in speaking and writing.
English
is learnt as a second language in Malaysia.
Hence it is required to learn with some deliberate effort to know the English
grammar to ensure the accuracy of your language. Since language is a system, thus the grammar
(forms and functions in the structures) can be learnt systematically. I believe in drilling each of the grammatical
items in order to make learners get
familiar with the forms and functions. After
that I will also present the overview of these items to show how these items
are related. For example, teaching 3 Persons
and 8 Pronouns
Topic 1 Personal Pronouns
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
1. I my me mine myself
2. You your you yours yourself
3. He his him his himself
4. She her her hers herself
5. It its it --- itself
6. We our us ours ourselves
7. You your you yours yourselves
8. They their them theirs themselves
1.
[I] ---------- the first person singular
2.
[You] ------- the second person singular
3.
[He] --------
the third person singular
(boy / man)
4.
[She] ------- the third person singular (girl / woman)
5.
[It] --------- the third person singular
(animal / thing / place)
[
I / You / He / She / It] ------ Singular in person
[He / She / It] ------- the third person singular
6.
[We] -------- the first person plural
(I ----We )
7.
[You] -------- the second person plural
(You--- You)
8.
[They] ------- the third person plural
(He / She / It --- They)
Peter and I ------------ We
You and Peter --------- You
The
children
The cats
The
stones
-----------
They
George
and his friends
My
parents
(Without ‘I / You’, all the plural subject
nouns can be replaced by They)
P1
(Nominative Case) / (Subjective
Case)
All the persons ‘I / You / He / She / It /
We / You / They’ are followed by verbs of different tenses.
I walk to school every day.
Peter shouted a lot
yesterday.
P2 (Possessive Adjective) P2 + noun = P4
It is an
attributive adjective / determiner. Therefore, it is
only placed before a noun.
That is my brother.
[Their parents] are busy every day.
P3 (Objective Case)
It is used as an object of a Verb, a
Preposition or a Gerund. In other words,
it is placed after a Verb, a Preposition or a Gerund (F2).
After a Verb:
[My mother] hugs (me) every day.
I feed (my dog) every day.
I give (it) (rice and meat).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After a Preposition:
[I] pointed at (him) just now.
[My aunt] bought (a watch) for (me).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After a Gerund: (F2 / Ving)
[We] thanked the man for helping (us).
[Biki] remembered meeting (her) before.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P4 (Possessive Pronouns) P4 = P2 + noun
It is used to avoid repeating the Noun
mentioned earlier.
[That book] is yours.
(yours = your book)
[Mine] is here.
(mine = my book)
[This] is Tom’s bicycle.
[Hers] is over there. (Hers = her bicycle)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P5 (Reflexive Pronouns)
It is used to emphasise. It must agree with the right person.
[I] wash the shoes (myself) every Saturday.
[She herself] prepares breakfast every morning.
The
overview gives the whole picture how these items are related. With the good knowledge of this, it is not
easy to make grammatical mistakes. Hence learners can speak and write confidently like me.
Thus, I repeat here that a good knowledge of grammar is essential.
As
we know, a language has both its spoken and written forms. Therefore, the knowledge of English sound system is important
as we learn a language through hearing and listening / by ears fast.. Hearing / listening to how a language is
being used in the spoken form is as important as text reading to know the
written version. Listening and text
reading are the input whereas speaking and writing are the output of the
language. Again, here I teach phonemes /
speech sounds one by one and I also show my students the overview of both the
vowel and the consonant phonemes. The
overview presentation will give them the ideas what sounds the English language
has. Any sound outside these boundary is
not correct.
A) Vowels
No.
Phonemes
Helping Words
1. /
i: / E
2. / I / it
3. / eI / A
4. /
e / egg
5. / æ
/ cat
6. / a:
/ R
7. / ɒ
/ dog
8. / ʌ / up
9. / u: / blue
10. / U / book
11. /
ә U / O
12. /
Ɔ: / awe
13. / 3: / sir
14. / ә
/ ago / ә’gәU/
15. / aI
/ I
16. / aU / cow
17. / Ɔ I / oil
18. / I ә / ear
19. / e ә / air
20.
/ U ә / tour
B) Consonants
No.
Phonemes Helping
Words
1. / p / p --- pen
2. / b / b --- bed
3. / t / t --- tea
4. / d /
d --- desk
5. / k /
c --- uncle / k
---ankle / ch --- mechanic
6. / g /
g --- girl
7. / ∫
/ sh -- she /t -- patient /c -- ocean
8. / ӡ / s -- leisure
9. /
t∫ / ch – chair
10. / dӡ / ge – orange /dge – bridge/ J -- June
11. / f / f – fly / gh – rough / ph –
elephant
12. /
v / v – vase
13. / s / s – sea / c – cell / x – box
14. / z / z – zoo / s – boys / es – houses
15. / q / th – three
16. / ð
/ th – father
17.
/ h / h --
hat
18. / m / m – mother
19. / n / n
– no / n – on
20. / ŋ
/ nk – sink / ng – sing
21. /
l / l
– all / l -- like
22. / r /
r -- red
23. / j / y
– yes
24. /
w / w
– we
Grammar and
phonetics are the language knowledge. Whether
you are competent or not depends very much on your language knowledge. However, to cultivate language sense / intuition,
you need to read to reinforce your learning of grammar. Besides, how well you can perform the
language in speaking and writing, well, relies on how rich your language
experience / exposure is. Remember, it
is mostly through reading, you acquire your range of vocabulary.
When you have a
rich stock of vocabulary, you may, at times, have to choose the words in
different spellings but are more or less similar in meaning. For example, the words {hardworking,
diligent, industrious and the like}, which word can best describe the person
may pose some problems to the speaker / writer if he did not learn these words in
context. Again, I would like to
emphasise here, reading texts is the best way to acquire vocabulary, get familiar with the structures and
cultivate the language sense. If you
have the language sense, you use it without much hesitation. Disprove me if you can.
Here, I would also like
to appeal to all young / old, male or female, read for your own good. Through reading, you will get a lot of
information and knowledge. I read every
day like taking water and food. I
read for pleasure and knowledge. Thus,
I seldom feel bored and lonely in life. Besides reading,
I also enjoy writing to share my ideas, opinions and thoughts whether you like
it or not.
Language learning like drinking and eating is
a life-long process. You have to do a
lot of reading to become well-acquainted / well-versed with it. If you put in persistent effort to refine
your language, you will master the language.
When you are proficient in / at the language, you can use it at will like
me. And you will find the language will
also bring you a lot of fun, too, especially, when you can play with the speech
sounds. For example,
For
the speech sound /Iə/ with the letter clusters “ear, eer, eir, ere”:
*Sphere, the *deer does not like
Pound,
the hound to get *near him.
He
thinks Pound, the hound
has
a really strong smell of *onion /ʌˈnIən/
It
looks like he is infested by *bacteria /bækˈtIərIə/
in *millions or *billions
When
Loho rides his motorbike, Pound, the hound
Likes
to take a *pillion seat for a ride.
At times, he likes to *rear up
on his hind legs to please Loho, his master.
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