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Charles Dube
THE prescribed method of teaching language, English Language, to be precise is the functional approach. Singling out particular words and defining them does not offer much help to the learners. However, it is safe to say such methods cannot be totally ignored as learners continuously show weaknesses in those areas. This method works well in subjects like isiNdebele where various parts of speech are easily understood by starting from definitions to sentence construction. I believe once in a while it can be used even in English Language.
As a demonstration of the importance of the commonly ignored necessity of definitions some text books have glossaries where unfamiliar terms are defined. The main setback learners encounter is taking issues for granted and egoism takes over and they fail to concentrate on matters they deem to be too easy for them. But, experience has proved that most valuable marks are lost where learners think they know, hence dropping points.
On the other hand, I am not encouraging rote learning or cramming as that does not pay. Learners have to be efficient users of language. For example, we have the following commonly talked about or used words. Learners should know and use them correctly in sentence construction. I am going over these words to help learners avoid losing marks unnecessarily. What is an adjective? It is a word that describes a noun. Example: “beautiful morning”.
In the above phrase, “beautiful” is an adjective describing morning which is a noun — name of something. Note that an adjective also describes a pronoun. A pronoun is a word that stands in place of a noun or noun phrase. Examples: she, it, he, they, we. She is a smart girl. “Smart” is an adjective describing “she”. In the sentence “she” could be standing in place of Jane, Daisy etc. What is an adverb?
An adverb is a word that describes a verb. Examples, “run quickly”, “dance happily”. It can also be defined as a word that can modify a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a phrase or a clause. Speak loudly. “Loudly” modifies the verb “speak”. She is always smart. “Always” modifies the adjective “smart”. He writes very slowly. “Very” modifies the adverb “slowly”. Remember, a verb is a word or phrase that shows an action, or a state. For example, walk, speak, sat, is and ill. She is ill.
Next we come to the apostrophe (‘). A mark which shows that letters are missing. For example: “We have” = “We’ve”.
Apostrophes can also be used to show possession of something. For example, “Her father’s car.” “Ralph’s knife.” Apostrophes are used with “s” to show ownership or possession as shown in the given examples. There are points to be noted here. The (‘) comes between the noun and the “s” when the noun is singular. Example: the boy’s boot, the man’s hat. The (‘) comes after the ‘s’ in plural nouns and in personal names that end with‘s’.
Examples: the puppies’ mother or Jones’ friend. In all irregular plural nouns the (‘) comes between the noun itself and the ‘s’. For example: the children’s games or the men’s team. Apostrophes are also used in contractions or short forms, to show that some letters are missing: can’t (cannot), I’m (I am). Aren’t (are not). It’s (It is) It’s a busy day today. It’s (It has) (It’s been a busy day today). Please note ‘Its’ — which means belonging to, or connected with ‘it’ does not have an apostrophe.
For example you can say: It hurt its tail as it went through the fence. The tail belongs to it. Other learners have challenges when it comes to the use of comparatives. A comparative is a word that compares one thing with another. Examples: longer, better, younger. This stick is longer than the one you are carrying. That man looks younger than my father. She performed better than last term in the examinations. All one-syllable adjectives, and many two-syllable adjectives add “-er” and “-est”. For example, the adjective hard, has the comparative harder and the superlative hardest. Big, bigger, biggest. However, there are exceptions to this: “dead, right, wrong, real, true, and full,” have no comparative, or superlative forms.
Look closely at the following examples: Shirley is beautiful. Rose is more beautiful than Shirley. Linda is the most beautiful of the three girls. Many two-syllable adjectives and all adjectives of more than two syllables use “more” in the comparative, and “most” in the superlative. More examples: courageous, dangerous, foolish, careful, gentle, careless, handsome, attractive, and childish.
Connectives. A connective is a word or phrase that joins two clauses or sentences, for example, and, but, therefore, however, on the other hand, nevertheless, as soon as, although, after a while, first, next, finally and lastly.
Learners also display gross errors in the use of direct and indirect speech. Direct speech and quotation marks. The learners should note that only the actual words spoken or written are enclosed in the quotation marks. Here are some sentence examples: He said, “I will not tolerate any nonsense from you.” “Where is my book?” she asked. “My name is Rose,” she said. “My name is Rose,” she said.
Before we end take note of the following: Most adjectives can be used next to the nouns, which is attributively. Example – clever driver, long journey. Predicatively: that is, after verbs such as: look, appear, seem, became, and be. He was looking smart, appeared healthy, became poor, seems happy, be sick, proved difficult.
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