The Sunday News
THE year 2016 has gone with its scars and I think it is prudent to urge those students who might not have done well to completely forget about it. It is wise to positively look ahead. Students should use the past experience to do better in their school work.
We have been generalising educational issues in the past three weeks, but now it is time to be direct and discuss specific troublesome parts of our English learning. The year has just begun and it appears like it is a long way towards the final examinations for those getting ready for them.
But sooner than later they will be on and to avoid panicking at the last minute they should be studying hard right now.
However, this is some bit of digression from our real business of the day. The key issue today is to emphasise the need to start the learning process from what are considered simple topics or tasks. Taking certain topics for granted leads to disappointment. You find students at secondary school level or to be more exact even at O-level failing simple sentence construction.
This indicates a stage that has been missed by such disadvantaged students. Teachers should not tire to teach the eight parts of speech, namely; the noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and the interjection. The assumption at secondary school level is that when students come into Form One they would have covered that area. That could be an acceptable assumption, but, students being students, they forget and produce disastrous work when the expectations for better work are high.
A functional approach to teaching these parts of speech is recommended as opposed to simple parroting the definition of the different parts. While it is also important to know the different definitions of the parts of speech it becomes useless if they cannot use them properly in sentence construction. Talk of preaching what you do not do. I will define these parts of speech and give examples, but, my intention is to go on and give other examples not covered in this column before.
Note that this work applies to primary and junior secondary schools, though students at higher levels lose nothing in reading and studying it. A noun is a word used to name a person, a place, a thing, or an idea. Examples: persons: plumber, tourists, team, cousins, Jane. Places: cities, theatre, forest. Things: bricks, books, birds. Ideas: justice, creativity, power, and opinions to mention but a few.
Common nouns and proper nouns. A common noun names any one of a group of persons, places, things, ideas. A proper noun names a particular person, place, thing, or idea. Common nouns are not capitalised except when they begin a sentence or they are part of a title; proper nouns, however, always are capitalised. The following are common nouns as well as corresponding proper nouns respectively: woman, Judith, Chief Ndiweni; nation, Zimbabwe, Zambia; event, Africa Cup Of Nations, YES Games; holiday, Heroes Day, Unity Day; language, English, Bantu.
Concrete and Abstract Nouns. A concrete noun names an object or event that can be perceived by the senses. An abstract noun names a quality, a characteristic, or an idea. Examples of concrete nouns: gravel, star, sneeze, Bulawayo City Hall.
Abstract nouns: peace, civilisation, honour, Romanticism. Collective Nouns. A collective noun names a group. Examples of collective nouns: jury, band, family, class, fleet, flock, troop, committee.
Compound Nouns. A compound noun consists of two or more words used together as one noun. Some compound nouns are written as a single word, some as separate words, and some as hyphenated words. Examples: One word compound nouns: stairway, bookcase, Newfoundland. Separate words: lieutenant general, ceiling fan. Hyphenated compound nouns: sister-in-law, jack-of-all-trades, stick-in-the-mud. Such work should be followed by exercises if students are to understand them fully, for example, a worthwhile exercise is where they are asked to identify and classify nouns from given passages or sentences. They could go on and classify each noun as proper or common and as concrete or abstract.
This kind of work is designed to remove rust from those students who might have totally forgotten about school during the past holiday. The following might also help the more mature. For example, what is a short story? A short story is a brief fictional narrative that combines elements to create a world that attracts the reader’s attention and interest. An effective short story uses details to create a setting of time and place in the reader’s mind.
It presents a main character who takes part in the action; introduces and develops conflict, or a problem to be resolved, relates a series of events that make up the story’s action, or plot, suggests a theme or generalisation about life. Here are examples of short stories. Like other forms of fiction, short stories may be categorised according to the types of setting or conflict they present. Mysteries present a story with important missing information, which is revealed as the plot unfolds.
Thrillers create a high level of tension by introducing danger in the conflict they present.
Do you like writing short stories then these points are directed to you. Students follow ideas given here and your work will impress your readers, your teacher as well as the examiners.
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