Oh! Oh! Our English

Oh! Oh!  our English                             31/3/2013

          It was reported in See Hua Daily News,  March, 2013 there was only 30% of the 200 teachers taking an English proficiency examination could pass.  In another report there were only 2 students scoring  2A+;   8% getting Band 4 and more than 36% obtaining Band 3 in the latest MUET results disclosed.   I am not at all surprised at the results scored by both our English teachers and students.  They are after all are what they have been ‘fed’.  Thus it is expected.  So don’t jeer / sneer /scoff at /condemn them for their poor performance.  I wonder which aspects and areas they were tested.  Is the examination geared to them properly in terms of scope and relevanc?. 

          To me, it is nothing surprising and upsetting.  I studied in a Chinese primary school and I only learnt English when I was in primary 3.  And English proved to be so difficult and alien to/ for me to learn at ease.  Being a restless, lazy and slow person, I did not learn it well.  When I was in the secondary school, I went to an English medium school.   Except the Chinese language, all the subjects were in English and  I had a hard time  for the first few years.  Gradually,  I got used to the language though I still had no ideas how it worked. 

          Hence my English based more on the language sense / intuition/spontaneity because I had a lot of language exposures/ experiences.  I had no idea whether the sentences were correct or not.  It was because I lacked the knowledge of the language to know them.  I had not grasped the 12 Active Tenses and 8 Passive Tenses.  Besides, I also had no idea the differences between the Active Tenses and the Passive ones.  I also could not differentiate the word in different word classes. 

          For example, I had no idea the difference between the words “confidence, confident and confidently” to be used in sentences.  Can you?  Let me test you now:

          Fill in the blanks with the words:  confidence, confident, confidently, confide

1.     He is ___________ that he can win in the speech competition now.  

2.     John did not have the ______________ to take part in the speech competition last year.

3.     Now he speaks Chinese, English and BM __________________.

4.     He ___________ in me that he really read a lot to improve his different languages.

(Decide the tense before you attempt question 4.)

          So I can say my English was in a mess and I lacked the confidence to speak and write  English .  Especially for my spoken English, I also lacked the complete information of English speech sounds, word stress and intonation.  I did not pass my SC with credit in my Form Five English and I failed HSC Form Six English general paper.  Hence it was one of my reasons to study English as a major in the university.  I started to take my studies seriously in Form 3 because I realised the importance of education .  But I had missed out a lot of learning for the past years being restless and lazy and for lacking of mind-focus. 

          When I was studying English in the university, I really took English seriously.  I studied grammar and tried to find out how this language works.  I studied quite a number of grammar books written by different writers.  I was lucky to have come across a Taiwanese grammarian called 贺立民 who wrote a series of English grammar titled  “A New English Grammar”.  There are 6 grammar books with detailed description and explanation of 8 word classes: Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, Conjunctions, Prepositions and Interjections.  I also bought more compact one in 2 books.  After going through the books written by him, I became more / less enlightened as I got the ideas in a systematic and holistic way though I still had a lot more to learn and confirm.
          While studying there, I was once puzzled why my coursemates not acquiring as many English words as I did could  beat me all the time.  Soon I found out the truth.  They were very and very hardworking / diligent.  Besides, they were really well-versed with the English grammar.  There was almost no mistake at all in their writing.  They had well-trained memory and were smart in dealing with all types of questions.  Moreover, they were always well-prepared for their examinations.  Hence they beat me all through.  I had only one strong point that I had a richer stock of vocabulary.   And I could use the language in speaking and writing more fluently than they could though there were  mistakes here and there.   The professors marking our papers took grammatical errors harshly.  Thus, I found the need to take my English grammar seriously and so I studied them critically and analytically.  Gradually, learning English became one of my hobbies.  
       Another reason that I had to take grammar seriously because I gave English tuition and was paid well.  Thus I needed to know the rules and regulations well to help my tuitees.  I remember once one of my tuitees asked me why   "She is dedicated to teaching" not "to teach" as the rule of "to F1".  I could not explain to him based on a general rule.  So I told him to remember the point that "dedicated to F2".  It was only years later that I discovered the rule.  It is because for ' be dedicated to ' , the 'to' here  functions as a preposition so it is followed by  noun / F2.  I knew ' be dedicated to F2' because of my language sense.     I discovered  this  general rule through my studies of English grammar.   This awareness fostered me to gather 'verbs with to F2 and I found quite a few:   ascribe to, commit to, dedicated to, devoted to, prefer to......to,  resort to, be used to, .........
         This interest and passion fostered me to write some grammar books to share, too.  This attempt enabled me to explore,  investigate and discover even more.  Besides grammar, I also see the importance of English speech sounds and thus I wrote a book to deal with them.  The knowledge of English speech sounds also inspired me to compile a book dealing with the Chinese speech sounds.  All these efforts put me in a better position to talk about a language and to learn another new language more at ease. 

          Now can anyone tell me if we have good, holistic and systematic English curriculums to programme them to command the 4 basic skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing since small.  If you have no idea what good, holistic and systematic English curriculum means, you may refer to the ones in Singapore for reference.  If you are still not sure, go to Sinpore, our small dot neighbour to find out.  Then you can understand why our teachers and students perform/ed not so well.   Now do you know whom / where you should point your gun at?  You will feel fed up to hear me repeating the same thing.  Thus I leave you to ponder on it.  It is just like a mother who does not cook proper meals for her children and thus they resort to snacks to fill up their stomach.  The English language teaching and learning has become so snacky and  improper.  What is the end result? 

          In language learning,  a learner must have enough viewings of the texts in order to grasp the basic structures, vocabulary and speech sounds.  Besides viewing of the texts  help learners  cultivate the language sense/ intuition and thus acquire the fluency of the language.  That means a learner must have enough language experiences / exposures in width, length and depth to acquire the language.  Besides, there must be enough drills of grammar to create the awareness of the forms and functions of the language to ensure the correct use of the language.  If a learner has acquired the fluency and accuracy in speaking and writing of the language, he can declare that he has more / less mastered the language though language learning especially the acquisition of English words is a life-long process.

          Besides intensive learning of the language through lessons in school, a learner must read extensively in order to build up a rich stock of vocabulary for/to use at will.  Moreover, a learner can also gain a lot of knowledge through  reading storybooks, newspapers, journals, magazines and so on.    Hence there must be a good reading programme for learners to build up their vocabulary.  It is through reading that they are reinforced with the structures, forms and functions of a language. 

          If a learner has enough language knowledge in the forms of grammar, pronunciation, intonation, word stress, spelling and punctuation;  a rich stock of vocabulary, well-versed with different current issues/ events / are so knowledgeable and enough language exposures and practices, what can prevent them to score well in any standard English proficiency examination?

         But our education system leave our teachers and students with little time for reading.  Our learners, parents, teachers, principals, the education department and the society are so obsessive with As’ results that nobody/ very few have the patience with proper means to reach the end.  Hence our students go for tuition just hoping to improve the grade.  I have come across a Form 2 student who did 8 English workbooks in a year hoping to score well.  Therefore her learning of English was so shallow/ superficial and fragmental.  She had no idea how to differentiate one tense from another well.  Out of the 12 tenses in the active voice and 8 tenses in the passive voice, she only knew a few.  She is not an exception.  I bet majority of students ‘learning English’  through commercially-produced English workbooks.  If you don’t believe, polling around to find out the truth to disprove me.

          Or find out how many students or English teachers know the 12 tenses in the Active Voice and 8 tenses in the Passive Voice in forms and functions well.  Besides they should know the forms of the verb which have both the Regular and Irregular forms.  The difference is that for Regular forms of the verb, F3 (Simple Past) and F4 (Past Participle) are F1 (base / root form) + ed whereas the Irregular forms, F3 and F4 may have different forms.  Hence it is important to know which verbs (less than 5%) are in the category of Irregular forms and to know the rest to be in Regular forms.   For example:

Regular Forms of the Verb

          F1                F2                F3                F4

          walk             walking        walked         walked

          talk              talking           talked           walked

Irregular Forms of the Verb

          F1                F2                F3                F4

          go                going           went            gone

          break           breaking       broke           broken

          hang            hanging        hung            hung

12 forms of Active Tenses  in the 3 time slots: Present  |Past | Future

Aspect                    Present                            Past                       Future

I. Simple Tenses      Simple Present                  Simple Past            Simple Future

                        i.   Verb-to-be

                             am / is / are                     was / were             shall/ will be

                      ii.    Ordinary Verb

                             He /She/ It F1 +s/es         [S]  F3                   shall/ will F1

                             I/We/You/You/They F1

II. Continuous         am /is/ are F2                   was/ were F2          shall/ will be F2

    Tenses

III. Perfect       i.   Verb-to-be    

      Tenses            have/ has been                   had been                shall/will have been

                       ii.  Ordinary Verb

                            have/has F4                      had F4                   shal/will have F4    

IV.  Perfect

      Continuous       have/has been F2              had been F2           shall/will have been F2

      Tenses

          To test their knowledge on the 12 Active Tenses, just ask them to use the verb ‘run’ / the verbs that they can  construct 12 sentences with 12 different tenses in related ways.  For example:

         

          To use the verb ‘jog’:

          I jog every day.  
          I am jogging in the park now

          I have jogged for one and half an hour already.

          Actually, I have been jogging since 5pm.
          I shall have been jogging for 2 hours if I jog for another half an hour.

          Yesterday, I jogged in the Sibu Square. 
           While I was jogging there, I saw a python.
            I had jogged there for an hour when my friend, Alina called me on the handphone.
            I had been jogging there since 4pm before I went to meet a friend.
            I shall/ will jog in the Bukit Lima park with a group of friends tomorrow.
            We shall/ will be jogging there at 5pm.
             We shall have jogged 6 times this week if we go jogging tomorrow.
         
            Did you notice that the Verb structure will tell you what tense it is?  So is it important to know the forms?

8     Forms of the Passive Tenses

I.  Simple Tenses  (3)

1.Simple Present Tense

          The Active Voice                             The Passive Voice

          [He/She/It] F1 + s/es                           [He /She/ It]  is F4

          [I]  F1                                                 [I] am F4

          [We/You/You/They] F1                          [We/You/You/They] are F4

2.  Simple Past Tense

          [S]  F3                                                [S] was/were F4                                  

         

Note:  [S--Subject] ===    I   /   You  /   He/ She/ It  (singular)

                                        We     You  /  They            (plural)

3.  Simple Future Tense

          [I/We] shall F1                                     [I/We] shall be F4

          [You/You /He/She/It/They] will F1         [You/You /He/She/It/They] will be F4

Note:  If the subject is [I/We], you may also use the auxiliary verb ‘will’ especially when the

          speaker/ writer expresses his/er ‘will/determination’ to do something.

II.  Continuous Tenses  (2)

1.   Present Continuous Tense              

      am/is/are F2                                            am/ is/ are being F4

2.  Past Continuous Tense

     was / were F2                                          was/were being F4

III.  Perfect Tenses  (3)

1.   Present Perfect Tense

      have/has F4                                            have/has been F4   

2.  Past Perfect Tense

     had F4                                                     had been F4

3.  Future Perfect Tense

     shall/will have F4                                      shall/will have been F4

So you see it is 12 – 4 = 8.  The four tenses without the passive tense are Future Continuous Tense and all the 3 Perfect Continuous Tenses.

         

          Do you agree that we need to know the forms well first before you can apply them in functions which you must have the idea when to use each tense correctly?  If you know 12 Active Tenses and 8 Passive Tenses well,  you have more / less won half of the battle to master the grammar of the language.  Do you agree?

          All in all to acquire grammar, you need to undergo through a lot of language exposures in contexts and drill the items in isolation.  There must be enough repetition and rehearsal to learn them in a systematic and holistic way.   I can bet on the fact that these teachers and students who did poorly not only lack the knowledge of the language but also practices in proper ways to get on the track to perform.   This is what the linguists say to master a language, a learner must have the competence / knowledge of the language and being able to use the language in speaking and writing  is the performance. 
             Language learning  just like drinking and eating is life-long.