Grammar oh grammar_Part 2

One of the things that I find it difficult to teach is preposition (grammar).  Why?  In Malay, the word “di” could be used to refer to location/place in generic form.  But in English, “at” can be used to refer to a location/place and time.  “At” is used when you are referring to a location/place which is in a smaller scale as compared to a place like where you stay.  “At” is also can be used to refer to time which is specific (hours).  

For “in” (which is not included in the diagram), it can be used to refer to generic place and more specific place.  A more specific place like room, kitchen, store, veranda, toilet, classroom, office.  For example, “See me in my office”, “Where is your mom?.  She is in the kitchen” 

I found this on this website 


When I teach them preposition for place, I made some adjustment.  I made my own handout.  There are other examples of prepositions for time, and movement.  

 

My second tuition class after Latihan Ikhtisas

I had the 2nd tuition class today with them.  The first one was two weeks ago.  Only three of them submitted the homework.  The other two did not but I noticed that Raiz did his (the best his could) but Aiman, he only wrote less than five sentences (what should I do with him?).  These kids need lots of TLC apparently.  

I bought 2 tins of biscuits yesterday.  Guess what?  Yup.  It is nearly finished.  A small portion left for the teachers 😀   Opsiee….  Well, to be honest, I never thought the form 3 would also had their tuition class today with Ida.  So, I offered some to the form 3 students as well.  

The boys requested that we did a rationale cloze exercise today.  Well, well, well, this is the first time they asked to do an extra work.  Normally, they are not this willing.  They also asked for a homework.  They requested to do a Directed Writing composition.  What should I do to retain this desirable behavior?  

Before the break, we did a quick revision on the literature part.  Aalia did continuous writing with her class (Advanced class).  Ita did Captain Nobody’s discussion as well on themes.  

For rationale cloze, one of the trickiest parts is to use preposition accurately.  Rationale cloze is easily known as “fill-in-the-blank” thingy.  Students would either have to fill in the blank (by choosing the most appropriate word) with words either a verb, preposition, noun, adverb or adjective.   For example, students would be given a short text with incomplete sentences.  You have to choose one word to make the sentence complete.  

It is not easy to select the accurate answer especially we are not native speakers.  Even I would be confused sometimes 😀  But, there are some principles that we can follow.  Knowing the principles of tenses, prepositions and whatsnot make things easier.  😀 (Easy said than done, huh?)   Well, it is all about practice.  

Everything was normal until 9pm.  Then all of a sudden, the night __16__ extremely quiet.  All we could hear __17__ the sound of flowing water.  A few of us noticed the sudden quietness and were bewildered __18__ it.  But my brother who has the most experience in the jungle, cautioned us to be quiet and __19__ still.  __20__, everyone was together at the campsite.

16        A         become            B            became            C            becomes          D         is becoming

 17        A         is                     B            are                   C         was                  D         were

 18        A         by                    B            at                     C         with                 D         about

 19        A         stays                B            stay             C         stayed              D         is staying

 20        A         Happily           B            Obviously       C            Surprisingly    D            Fortunately

Answers: 16. A,  17. C,  18.  A,  19.  B,  20.  D

Beamish Museum, Durham: A living museum

It was summer 2010.   Kam had the courage to drive an old red Nissan owned by one of our friends to Beamish Museum.  It took us around 45 minutes from Bowburn.  We had to pay GBP13 per entry.  Since we were Durham University students, we thought that we could get a discount, but, nope.  No exception here.

When I was in Durham, I went to several museums in Bath, Bristol and Nottingham and castles cum museum like the Edinburgh castle.  But, nothing prepared us when we went to Beamish museum.  It was surreal.  The staff who work there wear costumes and whatsnot.  It is a nice experience to be able to go to an open space museum.  I took many pictures but unfortunately, I wore something which was not shari’ah compliant 😀 

There you go, I only post one picture here.  When we took this picture, the three of us was at this primary-cum-secondary school.  They used wooden-slab and chalk to write, instead of using paper based exercise book.  Beamish was an old coal mine.  So, it has an actual village equipped with facilities like a church, shops, a bank, living quarters for the workers and such.  Summer is the best time to come here if the weather is nice.  We went there when the weather was nice and perfect for summer (i.e. no rain).  So, we had a blast!  This was the year before Kam and Fiqah finished their study.  

 

Using song to teach grammar_Part 1

When I did my Latihan Ikhtisas, I used songs to teach grammar.  It is normal in other schools, but in my school, the teachers are skeptical to use English songs to teach grammar.  Why?  This is a school which emphasises on religious studies.  But, what a heck! 

This is not a love song.  This song is famous (well, coincidentally, the movie “Bohemian Rhapsody” was premiering at the time when I taught the form 4 using this song).   Alhamdulillah I am not the typical teacher and they never consider me as one so when I did something “unusual”, the GPK and principal just let me off the hook   😀 That’s the perk of being a lecturer-cum-teacher at school.   

But, I am not the Miss Goody-Two-Shoes teacher.  So, I did use a breakup song and “motivational cum uplifting” song to teach grammar.  😀 .