"Speak like the native!" - Please don't!

I just read a comment in the previous post that included a link to another site that teaches one English. Out of curiosity, I took a look and found the exhortation that a foreign speaker will be guided to speak like a native so as to not feel embarrassed.

As a linguist and a teacher and researcher into the learning of the English Language, this immediately set off alarm bells in me. There is no such thing as a singular `native' speaker. Even within a family, there are differences in the speech patterns among the members. On a global scale, there are differences between the native speakers of English in England, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. There are differences between native speakers in different settings within a country. A farmer speaks differently from a lawyer.

Your environment, educational settings and profession affect the manner in which you speak.

So, the next time you learn a new language, remember there is nothing to be ashamed of if you speak with an accent. Learn the conventions, grammar and pronunciation for those help you to understand and to be understood but if you have an accent, don't worry. Language is about communication and if you can communicate, you are doing well!

Learning English

As we embark on the year 2016, it might be a good idea to go over some of the topics covered in previous posts and their relationship to the learning of the English language. 

Anyone would agree that learning a new language is never easy. A language embodies not just rules that have evolved over centuries to form its grammar but it also includes certain cultural peculiarities that would be foreign to speakers of other languages.

A Vietnamese adult student of mine lamented the difficulty in learning the English language because there are rules that, on first sight, don't make sense to her. Only when the logic is explained does she appreciate these rules. As many languages as there are, there are differing logical applications of the grammars and language conventions.

(I will discuss a problematic rule that the Vietnamese student had in the next post as a further illustration of why differing logical applications are acceptable; there are no black and white here, it all depends on the perspective of the speaker or community.)

Coming back to the English language, we need to understand that even something that seems as minor as Punctuation is important in altering the meaning of a statement. Ignore the comma, and your statement changes in meaning. For instance:

Don't kill the weeds with pesticide.

Don't, kill the weeds with pesticide.

Here, the two statements assume opposing stands. In the first statement, it is clear that the writer is advising against the killing of the weeds using pesticide. However, in the second statement, the killing of the weeds with pesticides is advocated instead and, presumably, alternative modes of getting rid of the weeds are deemed unacceptable.

In addition, one has to learn about the rules pertaining to Syntax so as to create intelligible sentences that get across the intention of the writer with clarity. Of course, one also has to understand logic behind the rules governing the Grammar so as to better internalise the learning of the language.

Finally, a language is boring if there is no Creative Expression, and as in any other language, the English language has produced master weavers who can expertly navigate through their thoughts and express these thoughts in artistic forms.

If you would like to find out more about the English courses that The Pear Tree Centre for Education offers, or would like to discuss possible areas in which we can help you with your English language learning so that we can adapt according to your needs, contact us at admin1@thepeartree.info - we will not only teach you the basics but gradually, guide you to achieve creativity in your use of the language as well!

Adjectives and Adverbs

Why are adjectives and adverbs important?

They add descriptive details that enable the reader to visualise even more graphically what is written.

To recap:

Adjectives: Descriptive words that tell you more about the noun or pronoun.

Adverbs: Modify the verb, adjective or adverb by giving one more information about any one of those.

Additional Refresher Exercise Rapidly they came, like a 21-gun salute, Exploding into multiple single crackling pops. The jolly red fire-crackers danced gleefully As each thick roll jerked heavily back and forth And the string of rolls turned into smoky black ashes.

Identify the adjectives and adverbs in the boxed exercise. Suggested answers will be given soon as a blog post on The Pear Tree website


So, why are adjectives and adverbs important?

Just take a look at the following:

A man and his daughter came upon a window from which light fell onto the pavement outside. One could see through the window many kinds of watches and seated within the shop, was a man who was working over a device.

The above is an adaptation of an extract from Nathaniel Hawthorne's story, `The Artist of the Beautiful'. Wouldn't you agree that, as a reader, you cannot adequate visualise what Hawthorne is trying to describe? Now, read the original version:

An elderly man, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was passing along the street, and emerged from the gloom of the cloudy evening into the light that fell across the pavement from the window of a small shop. It was a projecting window; and on the inside, were suspended a variety of watches - pinchbeck, silver, and one or two of gold - all with their faces turned from the street, as if churlishly disinclined to inform the wayfarers what o'clock it was. Seated within the shop, sidelong to the window, with his pale face bent earnestly over some delicate piece of mechanism, on which was thrown the concentrated lustre of a shade-lamp appeared a young man.

 You will find the original, by being more descriptive, is graphic enough to give the reader a better picture of what the author wants to get across than the adaptation with very few details. Therefore, make sure to include adjectives and adverbs the next time you write so as to make your writing more graphic.

Sentences: Ways of starting a sentence

So do the examples above include `proper' sentences?

Thundering down in torrents, rain came, battering the barren earth in merry glee.

So long as the sentence has a subject, verb and optional object, if it is needed to complete a thought, it does not matter in which order these appear. If I were to rearrange the words, I would get:

The rain came, thundering down in torrents (and) battering the barren earth in merry glee.

The subject is the rain and the action is `came'.  So, it does not matter whether the subject is at the beginning or in the middle; so long as it's there, and along with a verb (came), the sentence gets across a complete thought, it is a proper sentence.

Now, go over the following and ask yourself if they are complete or incomplete sentences:

1. The field is overgrown with grass.
2. I can't believe that
3. James running into the room in anticipation
4. She was in tears when she came up to me and apologised
5. Lush and green, the fields appeared in the morning glow.

The answers can be found in one of the posts in The Pear Tree website.

Tenses and its relationship to Timeframe

In the earlier post, it was mentioned that tenses, in particular, the ones that are highlighted below, will be examined more closely in the next post. Let us look at the extract, with the highlighted tenses, that is reproduced below:

The poet hopes that the ability to appreciate the wonders of nature, which he had at his infancy and right up to adulthood, will continue to be a part of him even when he becomes elderly. He would rather die than have this sense of awe and wonder disappear as he ages. For to him, life becomes meaningless if he were to lose interest in the natural beauty around him.

 Tenses are used in writing to indicate the time-frame in which a particular action or state of being occurs. Let us now look at the examples given above.

In using the present tense at the start, `hopes', the author is saying that the hope is ever-present, something that is still present in the poet. The appreciation of nature is something that the poet had in the past, in his infancy and he hopes it will continue, be with him int he future too.

So far, so good - the use of the different tenses is easy to understand when one realises that the different tenses are used to denote different periods of time, present, past and future. However, now, we come to the tricky part.

`life becomes (present tense)... if he were (past, plural)'

If' indicates a conditional state of affairs. Whatever is stated hasn't happened. So, here, what is stated is a possibility, and in English the past tense is used in such situations. It is probable that the intention is to suggest a situation in which the probability, or hypothesis, has already occurred and hence, the past tense should be used. Once the reader is placed within the time-frame of the occurrence of the hypothesis, the natural outcome or `truth' or `statement of fact' takes place and so, the present tense is employed. Now, why is the tense for plural subjects used even though the subject or pronoun is in the singular? When such conditional situations are presented, `were' is used even when the subject or pronoun is singular. It could be, because, since the situation or action is merely a hypothesis and is not real, it does not matter if the subject is singular or plural, hence a neutral `were' is used, merely to indicate past tense and not subject-verb agreement.

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Improving your Basic Reading Comprehension Skills: Useful techniques

Please refer to the May 6th post (Requisite basic skills for comprehension) and then, go through the answers and the worked-out thought processes in answering the following two questions, out of the five found at the end of the post. The worked out examples and suggested answers to the remaining three questions can be found in the May 13 blog post in The Pear Tree website.

Questions:

1.     Why did the author decide not to tell the doctor what is `the matter' with him?

I said: "I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is NOT the matter with me.

Often, we look for contextual clues in the sentences that come either before or after the reference found in the question.  Here, the clues lie in the sentences that come before the reference made to not telling him what is `the matter with him (refer to the highlighted texts).

Answer: The author feels that his medical problems are too many and hence, would take too much of the doctor's precious time, which is already limited in its short span.

2.     What does the `it' refer to when the author mentioned that he `came to discover it all'?

He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, commonplace patients, with only one or two diseases each."... Why I have not got housemaid's knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I HAVE got."

And I told him how I came to discover it all.

Again, the clues lie in the sentences that come before the `it' is mentioned in the passage (refer to the highlighted texts).

Answer: The `it' refers to the knowledge that, excluding housemaid's knee, he had all the diseases.

Coming Soon: Our diagnostic quiz that allows you to test your comprehension skills and discover your level of comprehension, thus enabling you to decide on the kind of help you would need to improve in your reading comprehension skills.

Writing Creatively III: Personification

Imagine an inanimate object. If you were to breathe life into it and make it act like a human, what would be the effect?

Let's take a look at the following image and imagine that the candle has a life of its own.

Now, I shall describe the candle by personifying it.

The white candle, anchored in an ancient decorative candle-stand, stood tall, proudly allowing its dark wick to flicker into a yellowish flame which dimly illuminated the narrow interior with its radiant smile.

The candle is given human characteristics here for it is referred to as being `proud' and having the capacity to `allow' light to shine in the room. Again, the candle is said to `smile'. We all know a candle cannot do these; however, by giving the candle these human characteristics, the reader is able to visualise a candle that is straight.  Moreover, in `smilingly' lighting up the room, there is a sense of the light providing a comfortable, pleasant effect on the room.

Personification is not used just for the sake of being creative or imaginative. Rather, it has the effect of creating a mood while providing a graphic description. Now, revert back to Wordsworth's poem (reproduced below). For the full effect, get someone to read while you sit back with your eyes closed and you try to visualise the descriptions.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud 

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;

A poet could not be but gay,

In such a jocund company!

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

My version of the effects of personification in the above poem will be given in The Pear Tree Centre for Education website on Friday, 1st May.

Writing Creatively II: Similes and Metaphors

In the earlier post, a poem was provided and you were asked to identify the similes in it. Another similar form of literary device is the metaphor. There are metaphors in the following poem too.

What are metaphors? A metaphor is an indirect comparison between two dissimilar objects. For instance,

"John is truly a lion. He stood up to the bullies without any fear," said Peter in admiration. 

Here, the speaker is obviously not referring to a lion that someone had named John! The speaker is comparing John's characteristics with those that are normally attributed to a lion; in other words, like a lion, John is fearless and bold.

Now, refer to the poem, reproduced below, and try to differentiate between the similes and the metaphors which are highlighted through the use of different colours.  The explanation and the effect of using these devices in the poem can be found in the blog page of The Pear Tree Centre for Education.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud 

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;

A poet could not be but gay,

In such a jocund company!

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

The next article will be on personification, the device used to give inanimate objects, an abstract idea or animals human characteristics.

Writing Creatively I: Use of Similes

Humans have this wonderful capacity to, not only create alphabets or symbols to articulate basic observations, feelings and thoughts but also, elicit reactions and emotions in readers through the creative use of the language. 

Similes

A simile is used when one would like to make a direct comparison between two dissimilar objects. In making the comparison, `like' or `as' is used to link the two objects and to indicate that a comparison is made.

Let's  use the following poem, Oh, my love is like a red, red rose, by Robert Burns as an example:

Oh, my love's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
My love is like the melody
That's sweetly played in tune.

In the above stanza of the poem, love is compared, first, to a red rose, and then, to a melody.

Love is an abstract emotion but the comparison to a rose and then, a melody allows the poet to convey the poet's ideas about love. What characteristics of a deep red rose and sweet melody come to your mind?

In my mind, when I think of a deep red rose, I see it as a beautiful object, pleasant to the sight. The deep red also makes me think of blood and the heart, which is often used as a symbol of love in English literature, is the lifeline through which blood is pumped to the body. Hence, the poet sees his love as a pleasurable emotion that is necessary and life-enriching, filling one with agreeable sensations.

Similarly, just as music that is in tune evokes an enjoyable listening experience, the poet claims his love which has all the `notes' in place is engaging or appealing.

Now, just take a look at the following poem by William Wordsworth and identify the similes. How do the similes help the poet to describe the objects and/or feelings that he sees or experiences as he views the scenery around him? Suggested answers will be provided mid-week.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud 

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;

A poet could not be but gay,

In such a jocund company!

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Descriptive Writing - Going Graphic

What I see, what I feel, what I think

To put these into words, to colour these into graphic descriptions, is not easy. One can merely provide the information in skeletal form and the reader would have a basic idea.  However, ask one to paint a picture of what one wants to express and one is left grasping for words, the right words, the most apt descriptions that will transfer the image as far as is possible into the reader's imagination.

Let me give you an example of how bland a piece of writing can be when I adapt an extract from
Vance Palmer's The Rainbow Bird.

The day advanced so slowly while the teacher talked on monotonously and the bored children made paper darts. However, she waited for the time when she could see the bird fly out of its home.

Yes, you get the basic idea of what is happening, but that is all. You don't get the emotions, the sounds, the characteristics of the persons included in the extract. It is a dull reading. Now, compare this with the original which is given below:

The hands crawled over the cracked face of the clock with aggravating slowness; the teacher's voice droned on and on like a blowfly against the windowpane; the other children squirmed in their seats and folded paper darts to throw across the room. But all she lived for was the moment when she would again see the coloured shape skim from its cavern in the earth, making her catch her breath as if the wings has brushed across her heart.

You have graphic descriptions in the use of words such as `crawled', `cracked', and `droned'. Moreover, when a comparison is made to the sound that a blowfly makes against the windowpane, at once, it becomes easy to hear the dull, undulating pitch of the teacher's voice. You can almost see that classroom in your mind's eye!

Write to interest, to convey the picture as you see it in your mind. Words have the power to attract attention, to impress and to elicit reactions.

Below is a bare description of a person watching the rain fall:

The heavy rain falls on the greenhouse and I am seated in the shelter. The rain is so heavy that I can hardly see anything.

In mid-week, a suggested graphic description will be offered. In the meantime, try to imagine the scene and paint a picture in words that will appeal to the reader. 

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Academic Writing for Polytechnic & University Students

At The Pear Tree Centre for Education, we guarantee improvement as attested by the testimonials of our students.

To attain best results, contact us at info@thepeartree.com.sg to negotiate with us on how best we can help you through a customised learning programme, whether it is through online courses, blended learning of face-to-face and online sessions or face-to-face sessions.

Adult Communication Skills - Pronunciation

 What I learnt from the letter `X'

Hmm, you may well wonder, what has adult communication skills, in general, and pronunciation, in particular, got to do with the letter `X'?  One would have heard of something being X-rated, and come across too few words beginning with `x' and the impossibly sounding x-words with a hint of the snake's hiss in it!

I was having a particularly challenging moment!  The adult student in front of me stared hard at me, probably trying to get a hint from the way I moved my mouth.  I laboured on and stressed, "Ex' but she continued to vocalise it as "Es".  I needed a breather, a time-out period, to think how I could lead her to differentiate between `ex' and `es'.  It didn't help even when I continually tried telling her it was an `x' and not `s' after the `e'. 

I had taught language acquisition courses in the university and read through quite a bit of literature on the `critical age theory' when I embarked on my research in designing and testing the effectiveness of the Literature-Driven English Curriculum.  So, could this be an instant of the `critical age theory' proving itself correct in that this adult learner of the English Language simply could not vocalise the `x' because it is not a sound she is familiar with in her native language?  As such, she has reached a stage where unfamiliar sounds may be difficult for her to vocalise since she is already set in her ways.  Her repertoire of sounds becomes limited to what she has learnt in her native language, and hence, non-native sounds that require different modes of working one's speech apparatus become difficult to imitate.

What I have learnt in my experience is that theories are well and good to increase our understanding of the status-quo, of the state of affairs as it exists in the present moment.  However, as an educator, I have to go beyond being a linguist and discover a way to reach the student, whatever the `critical age theory' may say.

A few more attempts were made to spit out the correct `ex' in preference to the `es'.  Then, lo and behold, the `Eureka' moment descended on both of us.  We looked excitedly at each other as I scribbled on the whiteboard, `eks'.  "You are missing out the `k'!" I was almost in a rapture as she finally pronounced `ex' and thereafter, `expert' correctly. 

Indeed, our lean and mean, `x' stealthily hid three letters in it!

If you think, learning a language is boring, think again!  It is a puzzle to be solved, and that puzzle also holds the key to unlocking man's ingenuity in creating languages and systems to propagate these languages.

Come join us for our first online Adult Communication Skills course in which you will learn pronunciations of words in common usage, learn sentence structure and create sentences with appropriate structures.

Making sense through grammar

Grammar is a system and we make sense using a known system to discover the meanings in written and spoken words. This system may develop over time or it may be created but it is one that is acknowledged by those using that particular language.

So, as in any other language, evolved or created, English too has its system of grammatical rules, conventions of usage and mechanics.

Now,  we are going to see how simple grammatical rules, mechanics and English Language usage were ignored when e.e. cummings wrote his poem, anyone lived in a pretty how town. Let's consider the first stanza of the poem.

	Unusual Use of Grammar and Mechanics
1)   anyone lived in a pretty how town	No capitalisation at the beginning; odd insertion of `how' that is usually used when asking a question
2)   (with up so floating many bells down)	The parenthesis indicates that this is an explanation, not quite a part of the main sentence. So, what would the implications of that be? Notice that the syntax, the way in which parts of the sentence are constructed.
3)   spring summer autumn winter	There are no commas to separate the seasons and no linking words to indicate a link with the beginning of the main sentence (1).
4)   he sang his didn't he danced his did	Again, linking words are not used to connect (4) with (3) and there is no punctuation to separate the ideas. Use of the possessive pronoun `his' with no explicit mention of what or who belongs to the `he'.

How would Cummings' unusual use of grammatical rules and neglect of the common usage and mechanics of the language provide us with clues that will help us to make sense of the poem?

To get at the clues, we need to have a knowledge of the grammar, mechanics and usage as is commonly followed in the English Language.

Try to work out the solutions on your own before you check the possible answers when you go into: Making Sense through Knowing Grammar, Remember, language is subjective and there could be other possible responses.

Also remember to check out our available Online Courses for students in Upper Primary and Lower Secondary or Grades 5 to 8.

Learn Grammar for Enhanced Understanding

Not convinced that you have to learn grammar in order to better understand what you hear or read?

Consider the following extract from a poem by e. e. cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.

Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

Most students, I have come across, would look at me in bewilderment, almost as though I had somehow conspired with e. e. cummings to create a poem that no living person, except the poet himself, would be able to understand!

However, once you point out a few grammatical concepts, they begin to `see the light'! After all, grammar is a system and all systems have logical components.

I am going to leave you here for the moment to consider how a poet, who seemingly threw the concept of grammar to the winds, needs you and me to have a good grasp of grammar to understand his poem!

Look out for my next post to see if you were able to see where I am coming from. Meanwhile, Happy Reading and Happy Thinking!