To Do list

Planning how to spend your time wisely can help live a successful live. You may start your day by planning things you would like to focus on early in the morning. Write a to-do list. It can help you better use your time.

Try to fill in the list to help you organise your day. See the sample list below.
Date: ______________
1. Read-aloud your selected articles twice a day
2. Write down and spell the words you don't really know
3. Finish two pieces of summer homework everyday.

Check the list at the end of the day. See how many items you have finished working on them.

Chunking Sentence into Phrases

Sentence chunking is the way in which we divide long sentences into shorter pieces, separated by slight "mental" pauses, in order to help reader, speakers, and listeners organise meaning for communication purposes.

As readers, it is important to have your eyes' fixations lie on the chunking bits; i.e. thought groups marked with slight 'mental' pauses, usually each thought group contains a keyword. Chunking is crucial for comprehending long passages.

Similarly, when we speak English, we do not speak in single words but in groups of words uttered meaningfully and rhythmically.

As listeners, we will also focus our attention on the meaning units rather than individual sounds. It helps better understand speaker if we can follow chunks of the big sound waves we hear.

Story Writing

What is story?
Story is a piece of writing that describes a chain of related events. Every story is about one or more characters trying to deal with some sort of difficulty.

What is a story map?
A story map is a map that helps writer organise the story by focusing on characters, setting, and plot with some related series of events that starts with beginning, rising, climax and ending.

What is a story plot? What are the eight types of plot we can find in story?
A plot can be defined as the arrangement of narrative events in a story. It is usually organised in such a way as to create interest and involvement for the reader. It also helps to establish and emphasise causality. There are usually eight types of plot mapped by writer to devise the sequence of events in the story. The eight types of plot can be devised and mapped from:
1. problem to solution,
2. mystery to solution,
3. conflict to peace,
4. danger to safety,
5. confusion to order,
6. dilemma to decision,
7. ignorance to knowledge, and
8. questions to answers.

Task: Read the story, “The Fight”. Discuss the ways that the plot is developed by the writer. Fill in the story map at the end of the story.
Try to answer the following questions when you read the story.

• Who is the main character in the story?
• What is the setting of the story?
• What happen in the story? How did the writer arrange the development of its plot ? "My nose is bleeding! He hit me!”
  The nine-year-old boy, Jimmy was screaming, holding his bloodied nose, leaving a trail of blood to the bathroom. His seven-year-old brother, Michael, had punched on it, after an argument over control of the TV remote.
  
  Their mother, Mrs. Lam saw them fighting. Her first thought, on this day of long summer school break was, “It’s eight-thirty in the morning and these two are at fight again. I can’t go through another day like this.”
  
  Mrs. Lam sent Michael to his room for a time-out and got Jimmy cleaned up. Then she called both of them into her bedroom for a talk. She wasn’t angry with them, only disappointed in her leadership of their home; not able to help her sons live in harmony and work out their differences.
  
  Mrs. Lam sat between them with an arm around each. “Let’s talk about this. You are fighting and hitting a lot and it upsets all of us. Jimmy, would you tell Michael how you are feeling right now?”
  
  Jimmy stared at Michael and shouted, “My nose hurts! You hit me for no reason! You kept pinching me and I told you to stop! The only way to get your attention was to take the remote and then you hit on my face.”
  
  Michael was angry, too, and he started his rebuttal: “You always hit me!”
  Mrs. Lam interrupted Michael and asked him to repeat what he just heard Jimmy say.
  
  Michael said, “I’ve always got the remote and nobody likes me.”
  Mrs. Lam prompted Michael, “What else did you hear Jimmy say?”
  "His nose hurts and I was pinching him and he got in the way of my head," Michael said.
  
• "Jimmy, is that what you said,”
  "Yes. He didn’t have to smash my nose!”
  Mrs. Lam said, “How do you see what happened, Michael?”
  "Jimmy always gets to do anything he wants! When I’m watching TV he always turns the channel! When I’m playing with something, he takes it away and says it’s his!”
  
  Their mother said, “Jimmy, what did you hear Michael say?”
  
  “Michael thinks that I take over every thing and get to do anything I want.”
  “Is that right, Michael?”
  “Yeah.”
  They went through a few more rounds of “What did you hear him say and did he get it right?”
  The mood in their home changed for the positive in a few minutes. The boys started to look at each other, smile, and make jokes. The tension was gone and feelings were understood.
  
  Then Mrs. Lam asked, “The next time you guys disagree with the TV channel or anything else, what can you do besides hit?”
  
  Jimmy thoughtfully answered, “Go and do something else or talk to Mom or Dad.”
  Michael added, “Go outside or play with others.”
  "How about if you look at the TV listings for one or two programs each day and talk with each other ahead of time about what you want to watch?”
  "That’s a good idea!" They were through talking now.
  
  Mrs. Lam was amazed at how understanding each other’s feelings and viewpoints help solved the conflict and raised self-esteem. The boys saw themselves differently, more capable and in control because of the ideas they came up with.
  

Ways to Improve Your English - Add Life to Your Learning

The essence of effective language learning is to add "life" element to your learning. What does it mean? It means the process learning language involves not only the language items but also the interactive processes of: social, cultural, intellectual, and life enhancement. They are all spirit-related.

(John 6:63 ) The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

The essence of effective language learning is to learn to understand so to add the “life” to one’s learning.

Proverbs 16:22 Understanding is a fountain of life to those who have it, but folly brings punishment to fools.

What does adding “life” to learning means ?

It means the process learning language involves not only the language items but also the interactive processes of: social, cultural, intellectual, and life enhancement. They are all spirit-related.

John 6:63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

Impact

Good teaching and learning should have a meaningful impact on individual life.

Acts 5:20 Go ye, and stand ye, and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.

7 ways to enhance language learning:

1. Learn by listening: Make use of the English television or radio news to learn English so to better understand the world around you.
   
2. Learn by reading: Read news in English newspaper at least twice a week. Learn the titles of the news. They are windows for showing you the "life" around. Learn them so you have more to talk about.
3. Learn by incorporating learning resources into daily life: Read and study English daily by checking and reading English e-mail messages or learning resources on the Internet.
   
4. Learn by using vocabulary in phrases: Keep a note of phrases you find useful to develop your language or personal skills
   
5. Learn by repeating: Repeat and study the phrases that is meaningful to you.
   
6. Learn by memorizing: Know the styles of learning that will work for you. For example, you may need to write an expression several times before you can remember it; you may need to read aloud to memorize ideas or information you consider to be important; or you may need to talk more in order to gain confidence in expressing yourself.
   
7. Learn by writing and sharing ideas: Use a variety of exercises to develop your English skills. You may develop or record the exercises that you think useful and share them with your friends. Keep a record of your learning by writing blog messages

Share with us how you add "life" into your learning!

Kid IQ Quizzes

1. Sam gets a gift from his father. He then throws it onto the floor. Do you know why?

2. Sam wants to move the picture of the upside-down man to the normal position without moving the picture. Do you know how he can do it?

3. Sam’s father shoots and kills one of the six hummingbirds flying near a tree. How many birds will stay there on the tree?

4. Sam asks his friend Tom, “What animal will eat happily at night?”

Session Ten - Vocabulary words pronunciation

Do you know the following vocabulary words? If not, check their pronunciation and meaning from a dictionary. You may want to pronounce the words before you check the sounds from a dictionary.

1. conventions
2. truant
3. soliloquize
4. interregnum
5. atavism
6. cogitation
7. prudery
8. translucent
9. efficacy
10.injudicious
11.lugubrious
12.hullabaloo
13.penurious
14.figurative
15.ribaldry
16.convolution
17.superfluous
18.ministration
19.circuitous
20.alacrity

Session Nine - Thought Groups

Tips for identifying thought group divisions

1. Falling pitches mark the end of thought group.
2. Pauses also indicate the end, it gives listeners time to think about what's been said.
3. The use of punctuation can help identify the thought groups; in spoken format speakers use a falling pitch or a pause to indicate the marks.
4. The mastery of employing thought groups can improve clarity of both speech and listening.
5. The alteration between syllables that are stressed and pronounced clearly and syllable that are unstressed and spoken quickly forms the prosody of English language.
6. Sentence emphasis and de-emphasis act as the discourse navigational guides to distinguish the new and old (shared) information in speaking.
7. Words carried old information are said with relatively weaker stress and lower pitch.
8. Words that are focus of thought (with new information) are highlighted by a lengthening of the stressed syllable and a change in the pitch.

Session Eight - Diphthongs

Session Seven - Consonants

Task 1: Work on a warm-up exercise by distributing the twenty four IPA consonant cards to participants. Cover the cards and randomly say the sounds of the IPA symbols. Participants will reveal their cards as the corresponding sounds are read-aloud. Those who can show the right card will win and can enter to the second round of the game. Shuffle the cards again and read-aloud the sounds faster this time. Participants who can show their cards correctly will win and enter the third round of the game. Reshuffle the cards again and say it faster than the second time. The game will stop if the facilitator considers participants have sufficient practice to expose to the sounds.


Task 2: Can you think of any words which contain the following consonant sounds? Write one for each symbol.


Task 3: Say and pronounce the words below, focusing on the pronunciation of the consonant sounds. Remember to focus in particular on the pronunciation of final consonant sounds.

Session Six - Word Stress

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Seven stress Rules

1. When a word contains a prefix and /or suffix, the accent usually falls on or within the root word.


2. The stress usually falls on or within the first word of a compound word.


3. In a two-syllable word that functions as either a noun or a verb, the stress is usually on the first syllable when the word functions as a verb.


4. When there is a double consonant within a word, the stress usually falls on the syllable that ends with the first letter of the double consonants.


5. In multisyllabic words ending in tion, the primary stress falls on the syllable preceding the tion ending.


6. When the vowel phoneme within the last syllable of a two-syllable word is composed of two vowel letters, that syllable is usually stressed.


7. When there is no other clue in a two-syllable word, the stress most often falls on the first syllable.

Session Five - Six Consonants

voiceless th - thin, third, mouth, north, three,threat, health, and length

voiced th - that, there, breathe, bathe, breathes, bathes

voiceless sh - shop, shut, fish, ash, shrimp, shrine, trashed, crashed

voiced sh - rouge, garage, rouged, garaged

voiceless ch - China, church, much, rich, lunch, fetch

voiced ch - join, gin, huge, ridge, lounge, George