Teaching simple present tense in classPosted by Winnie Melda on March 28th, 2019 Introduction: Teaching is regarded as a process in which a teacher passes knowledge on a given topic to students or learners. The role of a teacher is usually formal and takes place at a school or any other formal education. Teachers facilitate student learning and this objective is achieved through formal or informal approach to learning. These learning approaches include lesson plan and course study that teaches knowledge, skills, and/or thinking skills. When choosing the method to be used in teaching, a teacher should consider the students’ background knowledge, their learning goals, environment, and standardized curriculum as provided by the relevant authority. These factors affect the students understanding as well as their ability to use what they learn in class in daily language use. Non- native students may have a rough time in understanding the content of the language they are learning. Therefore, these students require special attention and more informed strategies to facilitate their learning. The teacher should develop an appropriate teaching method that would accommodate the needs of these students. A teacher is required be prepared before he or she delivers his or her service to the learners. Similarly, a teacher needs to understand the structure of the class to be able to ensure that the learners grasp the knowledge passed to them. In most cases, the majority of language teachers put more emphasize in teaching grammar. Grammar consists of the set rules that govern the composition of clauses, words and phrases in any language. The rules studied in grammar lies under the fields of morphology, syntax, and phonology. Grammar teaching has an important role in teaching English as a Foreign Language. This is because the language use would be constrained if there were no good command of grammar. Teaching grammar involves teaching language rules which are also known as sentence patterns language rules are essential to define use and meaning of the language. In this lesson, we will focus on the simple present. The present simple expresses an action taking place in the present either once or several times. It also gives facts in the present and also describes actions taking place one after the other and actions that are set in a timetable or a schedule. Teaching context: My teaching context consists of eight Asian children who have enrolled in English center for children which is a private program that assist non-English speaking students to learn how to speak and write English. These children are aged between ten and fourteen years of age and are enrolled in different primary schools in the neighborhood. Theparents of thesestudentswant them to learn how to speak and write English language as they view English to be a tool for upward mobility within the society. Though the children are attending different elementary schools, there are no inclusive programs that could assist them in learning the foreign language. The parents feel that the little they learn in school could drag their learning. The sessions take place in a rented classroom and the learning takes place on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays between 4.30 pm to 6.30 pm. The class uses jump start with CNN intermediate textbook. The students do not have many resources related to the target language outside this classroom. Most of the students speak in their native language back at home and much of the movies and television they watch are aired in their native language. However, they have a local movie theater that shows English movies. In addition, thestudentshaveaccess to a library which houses English books for all levels and also they can access computer labs where they can generate information that helps them sharpen their skills. Grammatical structure: Grammatical structures are building blocks making up a language. The grammatical structures include words, phrases, clauses and sentences. In this session, we will learn about clauses. A clause is a set of words that include a subject and a verb. Aclause is distinguished from a phrase because it contains a subject and a verb while the phrase does not. For example, in a sentence like `John is drinking from a bowl while watching the news’, `drinking from a bowl’ is a phrase while John is drinking from a bowl is a clause. On the other hand, a clause can be part of a sentence or can be a complete sentence by itself. Clauses that make a complete sentence are said to be an independent clause as it expresses a complete thought. On the contrary, clauses that are parts of a sentence are said to be dependent clauses as they usually support a sentence and cannot have a meaningful proposition. The following are examples of independent clauses.
From the three examples, it is evident that a sentence may not be complete if it lacks the independent clause. Examples of dependent clauses include:
The dependent clauses also known as subordinate clauses could be independent clauses if the opening words were removed. The opening words i.e. after and even are known as subordinating conjunctions and they turn a clause from being independent to dependent. Usage of clauses in a sentence: Clauses serve a number of functions in a sentence. A clause can either be a noun, an adjective or an adverb. Noun clauses: A noun clause is a clause that acts a noun. For example:
Compare the sentences above with these.
The word Peter and Christine are nouns. The clauses `the man who won the race’ and the boy who committed suicide’ acts as the nouns making them noun clauses. Adjective clauses: An adjective clause is a clause that serves the purpose of an adjective. For example:
Compare the sentence with this:
The adjective clause can be removed from a sentence without destroying the meaning of the sentence. This is because the adjective clauses give additional information and should be offset by commas, brackets or dashes. If a clause is safely removable from a sentence, it is referred to as non-restrictive clauses. A restrictive clause is a set of words that consist a verb and a subject and cannot be removed from the sentence since it is essential to the sentence. For example: The woman who stabbed her husband to death was arrested. You cannot remove “who stabbed her husband to death’’ because it is not offset by commas making it essential to the sentence. Therefore, it is a restrictive clause. Adverb clause: An adverb clause is a set of words with a verb and subject and acts as an adverb. For example:
After attendingthechurchservice, plays the role of the adverb `later’. Therefore, it is an adverb clause. Adverb clauses can also replace other types of adverbs in a sentence. These other adverbs include adverb of reason, adverb of time, adverb of condition, adverb of concession, adverb of degree and adverb of manner. Examples of adverb clauses in the types of adverbs include:
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