adminCharles Dube, Highway to Success
The beginning of the school year requires total focus from the students hence last week I suggested that they go back to the basics. They should have a checklist of all the key areas of study so as to remove weak areas from the strong ones. Students under normal circumstances are not weak in all the areas of the syllabus. Presented with such a scenario they need to be selective and decisive on areas of focus and study.
Today we move on from the noun to the pronoun. A pronoun is a word used in place of one or more nouns or pronouns. For example, consider these two sentences. Pretty left school to take up a job. She left school to take up a job. Pretty is a noun in the first sentence. She is the pronoun used in the place of a noun Pretty. A pronoun may also take the place of another pronoun. One of the machines is broken. It is being repaired. (The pronoun it takes the place of the pronoun one.)
Personal Pronouns: A personal pronoun refers to the person speaking (first person), the person spoken to (second person), or the person or thing spoken about (third person). Students need to understand this because they get confused when asked to write compositions in the first or third persons. This is largely due to the fact that they would have missed this concept in the early stages of learning. These personal plurals have singular and plural forms as shown below.
First person singular: I, me, my mine. Plural: we, us, our, ours. Second person singular: you, your, yours. Plural: you, your, yours. Third person singular: he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, it. Plural: they, them, their, theirs. Some of the personal pronoun forms — my, your, his, her, its, our, their — are used before nouns in the same way that adjectives are used. Demonstrative
Pronouns: A demonstrative pronoun points out a noun or another pronoun. (this, that, these, those).
Examples: These are the items I brought in town. Is this the one you want? Interrogative Pronouns: An interrogative pronoun introduces a question: who, whom, which, what, whose. Examples: What exactly do you want? Whose fault is it? Relative
Pronouns: A relative pronoun introduces a subordinate clause: that, which, who, whom, whose. Examples: The house that I chose is in Bulawayo. The woman who runs the business is my niece.
Indefinite Pronouns: An indefinite pronoun refers to a person, place, thing, or idea that may or may not be specifically named.
Examples: all, both, few, nobody, several, another, each, many, none, some, any, either, more, no one, somebody, anybody, everybody, most, nothing, someone, anyone, everyone, much, one, something, anything, everything, neither, other, such.
Examples: Did everyone attend the meeting? All the members voted.
Many indefinite pronouns can also be used as adjectives. Examples: Both of the watches are on sale. (pronoun) Both watches are on sale. (adjective). Students can be asked to identify pronouns from a paragraph to demonstrate the understanding of the concepts being taught. I make a confession here which I have made before concerning the teaching of language skills. It is not a friendly area maybe that is the reason most teachers do not give much attention to thereby translating to students not performing well in it.
Students perform better in topics they enjoy. It is imperative for teachers to dig deeper in their methods of teaching to make students like the subjects they teach. Students need to be actively involved during the learning process. They do not like it when they are made passive recipients of information. As we move forward with improving our writing skills, we now tackle the adjective. An adjective is a word used to modify a noun or a pronoun.
To modify means “to describe or to make more definite.” Adjectives modify nouns or pronouns by telling what kind, which one, or how many (how much) Examples: what kind? Brown shirt, loud music, sad child, ripe mangoes. Which one? This computer, those girls, next step. How many? Many people, both answers, two students. How much? Enough time, more money, some news, less trouble.
An adjective usually precedes (comes before) the word it modifies. Example: The tired and hungry team finally arrived at school. For emphasis, however, a writer may place an adjective after the word it modifies. Example: The team, tired and hungry, finally arrived at school. By mastering all the parts of speech and their uses students will be able to communicate effectively. On top of learning definitions of the different parts of speech, it is also advisable for them to learn functional uses so as to produce good expressions and sentences.
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