SS 2 English Language (1st Term)

PHRASAL VERB

Phrasal verbs are derived from a combination of a verb and other particules like the adverb and preposition. Examples of phrasal verbs are: Phrasal Verbs Meaning Account for give good reason Back out withdraw, refuse Carry out perform, obey, fulfil Catch up with over take Clean up mess Die down become gradually calmer and finally, disappears (riot, fires) Deal with tackle a person Get back recover, reach home Hand over surrender authority Give away give something Hold up stop, delay Jump up accept Pull off succeed Move in move oneself from a flat Take after resemble Examples in sentences You must account for what you spend He promised to help me but he backed out later. You must carry out my orders He carried out the hazardous task and won the appreciation of all The lorry driver tried to catch up with the car. Malians must try to… Read More »PHRASAL VERB

LETTER WRITING

A letter is a writing communication sent by post or messenger. These two persons might be living in the same town, city, country or may as well be living in different countries. Types of Letter Letter writing is divided into two major types Formal letter Informal letter FORMAL LETTER This is an official type of letter. In most cases, the persons, involve in this type of letters are not known to each other. They may not have met in their lifetime. Everything about this leteer is formal / official. The writer has to mind his/her language and tone. This letter could be from one pension to a group of people e.g. letter for employment or (letter from a group of people of an individual) e.g a letter from a community to their local government chairman. Features of Formal letter The following has to be put into consideration when writing a… Read More »LETTER WRITING

WRITING A PLAY OR POEM

When one intends to put ideas, information findings or opinions down in paper for the purpose of storage for postenfy, utmost care and castion need to be taken by the writer to ensure that the intention is perfectly communicated and the readership duty considered. Stages in the creative writing process Deciding on a theme and genre: taking a decision on what to write about and the genre to adopt for your writing is an important exercise towards a fulfilling writing process or career. Language Usage: Writing involves using the words of a language. A writer must therefore be versatile in the language he choosed to write in. perhaps the fact needs to be stressed that the quality of any writing is largely assessed in the basis of language. Therefore, a writer should be at home with the rules of punctuation, spelling and grammar of the language for correct usuage. A… Read More »WRITING A PLAY OR POEM

SYLLABLE

Syllable is a unit of sound composed if a central peak of sonority (usually a vowel) and the consonants that cluster around this central peak. A syllable is also that part of a word, which is said with one breath or pulse. It is the smallest unit of speech, which can be pronounced at once. It usually contains one vowel and some consonants e.g. in ‘baby’ there are two syllables, each containing a consonant and a vowel /beil/ and /bi/. Words and syllables Words may be classified in the bars of the number of syllables they have. It could be one syllable, two or more than two syllables. There are three (3) categories of syllables namely. Monosyllable Words: words that are made up of one syllable. Every monosyllable word which makes makes its counterpart, i.e. structural words to be stressed is when they appear in isolation e.g. Prepositions –… Read More »SYLLABLE

COMPREHENSION

Structure: Complex sentences: analysis of complex sentences The complex sentence is a combination of the main clause and one or more subordinate caluse(s) Ex: I prayed before I left She came as soon as she heard The analysis of a complex sentence Find out the principal clause Find out the subordinate clause Identify each sub – clause as noun clause, adjective clause and adverb clause Explain how each sub-clause is related to the principal clause And finally analyse both the principle and sub-clause as you analyse a simple sentence Examples: Bukola told me that she would marry me Bukola told me – main clause That she would marry me – noun clause, object of the verb “told” When I received my salary I went to Lagos where the zoo was situated. I went to Lagos – main clause When I received my salary – adverb clause of… Read More »COMPREHENSION

PART OF SPEECH

An adjective is described as a word that qualifies or modifies nouns and pronouns. Adjective generally, give more information about nouns and pronouns – in items of the attributes such as quality, colour, quantity etc. Such words come nearer to the nouns they modify than all other elements that modify such nouns. TYPES OF ADJECTIVES USES There are two uses of every adjective, namely: (i) Attributive use (ii) Predicative use ATTRIBUTIVE USE: An adjective used with a noun is known as attributive use. Examples: beautiful girl Cleaner student Tall tree Fair face Lovely flower PREDICATIVE USE: An adjective used with a verb is known as predicative use. Examples: she is afraid He is alive They are dead He looked happy KINDS OF ADJECTIVES Adjectives are divided into ten types namely: Adjective of quality Adjective of quantity Adjective of number Demonstrative adjective Distributive adjective Interrogative adjective Possessive adjective Emphasizing… Read More »PART OF SPEECH

SUMMARY WRITING

Summary writing is concerned with producing a bridge versions of a given test or passage so that all the salient issues are brought out. It involves a critical analysis of a given text to determine the purpose of a writer and using that as a point of departure to form an opinion on the subject within the prevailing socio-cultural circumstances. For SSCE candidate, summary questions require the candidate to express ideas in one or two sentences depending in the question. Steps to summary writing Certain skills are required for a successful summary writing exercise! Good vocabulary development is essential in carrying out the task. Write in sentence: summary answers should be written in sentences. When the student writes a preamble (a kind of introduction to his sentence) to his answers, the preamble must flow into the sentences. Short and concise answers: summary answers should be short and concise. Avoid inclusion… Read More »SUMMARY WRITING

STRESS

Stress means the extra force usually applied when pronouncing a partivular word or syllable. In other words, it refers to a property of syllables which make them stand out as more noticabe than others. Stress can also be described as the contrast between different degrees of breath – force given to syllables in English. Stress embraces three clear categories. They are word stress, sentence stress and emphatic stress. WORD STRESS Word stress is more or less fixed. Each word possesses strong/weak stresses which is content words in English. These are Nouns, Adverbs, Verbs and Adjectives. It begins strongly at the beginning of the stress and dies down at the end of the syllable. It is often made wit stable pitch. In speech we use words of one, two or more syllables. In any words of more than one syllable, one syllable is stressed and the other syllable normally has a… Read More »STRESS

ESSAY WRITING

Writing is a form of persuasive communication. There is always a point of view to project and which the writer wants the reader to understand. In order words, we write for a reader. The success of writing is therefore best judged by how well the reader understands the message we are trying to send by writing. Writing is one of the most significant features if a literate society. It is the use of language in its written form. The writer’s opinion is the thesis, which indeed an essay should contain organised materials properly synthesized constitute good writing. THE QUALITIES OF A GOOD WRITING The qualities of a good writing have been discussed in varied forms. However, we find these noted in Ebele Eko (1987) more encompassing and exhaustive than others. They are Economy Simplicity Clarity ECONOMY: Economy in this sense means conciseness. To ne concise is to utilise the… Read More »ESSAY WRITING

CONSONANT

The crowding of consonant sounds within the same environment before the insertion of a vowel sound in words is consonant cluster. It is the coming together of more than one consonant sound in a word. It can be easily identified if the transcription is done. It can appear at different locations – initial, medial or final position, but the common ones are initial and final position. It can be expressed as (ccc) (vccc) that is 3 consonants may come before vowel and up to 2 consonant may follow the vowel. Examples 2 consonant clause words Initial (ccv) Medial (vccv) Final (vcc) Play after shift /plei/ /a:fta/ /sift/ Twinkle master risk /twiokal/ /ma:ster/ /risk/ Consonant cluster words Initial (cccv) Final ( Strength texts /stregke/ /tesk/ Strong ask /str3g/ /a:sk/ Initial Skw Kw Squander queen Square equality Squash quench Squad quiet Squalor … Read More »CONSONANT

COMPREHENSION/STRUCTURE/SPEECH WORK/VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT

COMPREHENSION Comprehension is a process of reading, understanding and explaining what is written in a passage. For every comprehension exercise, there must be a passage to be read. The purpose of comprehension exercise is to test students’ understanding of a given passage. In comprehension, the thought of the writer are presented to students for reading, understanding and explaining. Useful Hints On SSCE Comprehension SSCE comprehension is to test students’ understanding of the passage. After reading the passage, you interpret or explain the content of the passage in your own words. It is when you do this that you claim to have understood the passage. Although you are at liberty to make use of words from the passage, you must be careful not to be too reckless in copying down the portion of the passage which you feel answers the questions. Always restrict your answer to you understanding of the passage.… Read More »COMPREHENSION/STRUCTURE/SPEECH WORK/VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT

CONSONANT CLUSTERS

This refers to when two or more consonants occur together in a word without a vowel between them. E.g. street, slump etc. It can be found at the beginning (initial) middle (media) or end (final) of words, In many Nigerian languages, there are no consonant clusters, but in English, there may be initial cluster of two, three or four consonant in a word without an intervening vowel. Two consonant sounds in initial position: examples are bride, dwell, crime, flame, spice, play, crop etc. Crust /krᴧst/ trickle /trikl/ Stay /stei/ cradle /greit/ Scheme /ski:m/ graph /grᴂf/ Fruit /fru:t/ prince /prins/ Tree /tri:/ drop /drↄp/ ONLINE WORK Give eight examples of consonant clusters in the initial position and transcribe your examples. See also SUMMARY WRITING CONSONANT SOUNDS ADJECTIVE AND VERBS UNSEEN POEM UNSEEN PROSE

SUMMARY WRITING

Summary writing is primarily concerned with starting so much in very few words by remouing superfluous and expanded details. Also, summary writing is concerned with producing a bridged versions of a given text or passage so that all the salient issues are brought out. It also involves writing down a brief and concise account of a long passage. There are four main things students have to note in order to write a good summary. These are: Brevity: this demands that the student must be brief and concise in their answers. There is no room for the use of flowering language or any other additional information aside from the main points. Relevance: thus calls for a candidate’s answers to be relevant to the points mentioned in the passage. Students are not expected in summary writing to give any fact or point outside the passage, however relevant they think the fact or… Read More »SUMMARY WRITING

CONSONANT SOUNDS /j/ and /ʋ/ /jʋ:/

Consonant sounds are sounds that are produced when there is an obstruction in the air stream. The obstruction can be partial or total. The English consonants according to Roach (2002) are sounds that obstruct the flow of air through the vocal tract. Consonants could also be described in mainly articulating terms because they usually involve contents of speech organs in their description. These sounds are produced with the air which originates from the lungs called “Pulmonic egressive air” and passes through the vocal tract. These are twenty-four (24) consonant sounds in English language. Each has its mode of articulation. The consonant sounds are divided into two: (i) voiced sounds (ii) Voiceless sound Voiced sounds: these are sounds produced when the vocal cords vibrate in the course of their production, in order words, some English consonants are voiced sounds. There are fifteen (15) voiced sounds in English. They are: /b/, /d/,… Read More »CONSONANT SOUNDS /j/ and /ʋ/ /jʋ:/

NOMINALIZATION OF ADJECTIVE AND VERBS

Nominalization is an academic grammar tool which is used to turn verbs and adjectives into nouns. Example: Exercising is essential for good health in this example, we have turned the verb “exercise” into a noun so that it can serve as the subject of the sentence. Nominalization function just like nouns: as subjects and objects of verbs and preposition. Also, in linguistics, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a word which is not a noun (e.g. a verb, an adjective or an adverb) as a noun or as the head of a noun phrase, with or without morphological transformation. The term can also refer specially to the process of producing a noun from another part of speech. How Nominalization are formed: Example: The Fiber in apples helps with digestion. Nominalizations are formed by adding a suffix to the original verb or adjective. A suffix is a meaningful segment that… Read More »NOMINALIZATION OF ADJECTIVE AND VERBS

SS 2 English Language (1st Term)

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