WEEK 5: SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE, SIMPLE PAST TENSE

                                   WEEK 5

                           ENGLISH LANGUAGE

TOPICS:

(A)  SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE, SIMPLE PAST TENSE

(B)  IDENTIFICATION OF WRITER'S MAIN IDEAS, MOODS AND INTENTIONS

(C)  AFFRICATES

Specific Objectives- By the end of this lesson, the students should be able to:

i.             Fill in the blanks in given sentences with the appropriate forms of given verbs.

ii.            Write down at least three important points made in the poem "Africa".

iii.           Pick out words that contain affricate sounds from a given list and write out the affricate sounds in each word.

                           INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURE

                                        Period 1

Topic- Simple Present Tense and Simple Past Tense

Step 1 Meaning of Tense

The tense of a verb indicates the time of the action or the state of being that is expressed by the verb.

The six tenses in English language are: present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect and future perfect.

Step 2 Present tense and its uses

The present tense tells us about an action that happens in the present time and its uses are:

(1)  To express something that is always true - The earth goes round the sun.  

(2)  To express habitual action - We walk to school.

(3)  To express actions as they happen one by one, as in a commentary on a match - The referee blows his whistle.

(4)  To express something that will happen in future - Saleh leaves for Gombe tomorrow.

(5)  To express ability - Uchenna speaks French very well.

Step 3 Simple past tense.

It is used: 

(1)  To record a complete event in the past. It is the tense most often used for telling a story. Example - She opened her bag, took out a N100 note, and gave it to the beggar.

(2)  To talk about imaginary events in the present or future. (The past simple is sometimes said to be the tense of unreality). Example- If I had the resources I would build a house.

The past tense of the regular verb is formed by adding 'd' or 'ed' to the present form such as 

Call         called

work       worked

divide     divided

increase     increased

Irregular verbs do not take 'd' or 'ed' to the show past form. Example:

win       won

hear      heard

draw     drew

cut         cut

                                    Period 2

Topic - Identification of Writer's Main Ideas, Mood and Intentions:

Mood - It is the state of a writer. It is the feeling of a writer ie how a writer feels while he is writing. Mood is also the feeling that runs through a literary work. The feeling is usually generated by events in the work. Thus the mood of literary work maybe dull, happy, gloomy etc.

Main ideas - This is the most important point that the writer is trying to make through his or her own writing. The entire writing centers around explaining or expounding on this major idea, and the details in the writing serve to lend support to the main idea.

The first step in identifying the main idea of a piece of writing is to skim over the entire passage to get an overview of its content and general organisation. This initial reading of the material will assist the reader in understanding the main idea and how the minor points or details serve to support or prove the main idea.

Intention - Authors write stories articles and books for various reasons. They sometimes write to amuse or entertain, they write to inform and some have the serious purpose of attempting to change the way readers think about important topics. It is left for the reader to question whether the writer has written to inform, amuse or convince.

Readers should also evaluate the writer's view point by noticing whether or not the writer is for or against the topic, or appear to remain neutral.

                                      Period 3

Affricates - The affricate sounds are /ts/ and /dz/. For the articulation of the affricates, the flow of air is totally obstructed by the articulators and this obstruction is slowly released. It is the gradual release of the airstream that marks an important difference between the articulation process of the affricates and that of the plosives.

/ts/ is voiceless and /dz/,voiced.

Words that contain affricates are:

/ts/- watch, charge, fetch, choice, actual, posture, puncture, punctual, fortune.

The spelling symbols are:

ch - chief

-ture - mature

-teous - righteous

-tual - ritual

/dz/- The spelling symbols are:

j - joy

g - gin

dg - bridge

d - soldier

Words that contain /dz/ are - jaw, edge, change, giant, jeer, fragile, just, judge. 

Evaluation Questions: Answer the following questions.

(1) Put the verbs in bracket into its correct tense.

A. (Circle) The moon ____ round the earth once a month.

B. (lose) I ____ my pen in the stream last Sunday.

C. (Say) Eze has ____ so several times.

D. (Shut) They have ____ their doors.

E. (Make) Students frequently ____ mistakes of tense usage when they do this exercise.

F. (Steal) Mr Mamah is upset because somebody just ____ his car.

(2) Read the poem 'Africa' on page 29 of your New Concept English and write down at least three important points made in the poem.

(3) Pick out the words that contain affricate sounds from this list and write out the affricate sounds in each word.

Chip, Pressure, Prestige, Sugar, Jump, Large, Mention, Oblige, through, March.

Assignment:

Write out words that contain affricates.

Five words for each affricate.

Note - Don't write any of the words mentioned abo