English Language Lesson Note For SS1 (Third Term)
Scheme Of Work
WEEK 1: COMMON MISSPELLED WORDS; THE USE OF THE DICTIONARY; IDIOMS
WEEK 2: SUMMARY: PRACTICAL APPROACH TO WRITING GOOD SUMMARY; WORDS ASSOCIATED WITH ADVERTISING; ADJUNCTS
WEEK 3: SUMMARIZING TO IDENTIFY THE WRITER’S PURPOSE; WORDS ASSOCIATED WITH STOCK EXCHANGE; HOW TO WRITE AN ARTICLE
WEEK 4: DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN MAIN AND SUPPORTING IDEAS; WORDS ASSOCIATED WITH GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS; CONSONANT CLUSTERS, WRITING SKILLS AND WORD INFERENCE
WEEK 5: WRITING SKILLS: SCANNING, STRUCTURE: CONJUNCTS, DISJUNCTS, DETERMINERS AND QUALIFIERS.
WEEK 6: SKIMMING AND SCANNING; PUBLIC SPEAKING; CONJUNCTS AND DISJUNCTS; PHRASAL VERBS
WEEK 7: PLURAL FORMS OF NOUNS; CHARACTERISTICS OF DIFFERENT WRITING STYLES; QUESTION TAGS AND HOMOPHONES
WEEK 8: UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A WRITER’S PURPOSE AND TONE; PRONOUN REFERENCES TO THREE PERSONS
WEEK 9: HOMOPHONES; WORDS ASSOCIATED WITH SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT; FEATURES OF COMPLEX SENTENCES
WEEK 10: SPOKEN ENGLISH: CONSONANT SOUNDS FOLLOWED BY /KW/; PUNCTUATION; DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COMPOUND AND COMPLEX SENTENCES
WEEK 11; DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ARTICLES AND SPEECHES
lesson note on English language for SS1 Third Term
Week 2
Topic: Commonly Misspelled Words
In written language, spelling is the choice and arrangement of letters that form words, it can also mean, forming of words with letters in an accepted order; orthography (the act or process of writing words using the letter conventionally accepted for their formation).
Note: Orthography is the art of writing words according to accepted usage.
Heterography: is the practice of spelling in way contrary to standard usage.
Here are some of the reasons people misspell words. To learn more, click here
Mispronunciation
Mispronunciation is known to be one of the commonest causes of misspelling. Hence, phonetic misspelling is common, once a word is mispronounced; for example, the word “realize” may be misspelled as “relize”. To learn more, click here.
Typing errors
Some spelling errors are introduced because people’s typing isn’t perfect, such as
- letters are doubled, or more frequently double letters tripled, such as “betwween” and “betweeen”
- letters are singled, such as “betwen”
- keys are transposed, so “because” becomes “becuase”.
Week 3
Topic: Summary: How to Write a good Summary
How do you go about summarizing a composition? There are five stages
1. Find the relevant parts of the text: First you have to find quickly the relevant parts of the text.
2. List or find the key points: Summaries must contain the key points, each point included earns a mark. Some students make a list of pints to include if there is time, others underline them in the book if it is their own.
3. Write a rough draft of the entire composition.
4. Write your own final draft of the summary and make necessary adjustments.
5. Final check: Check your final draft for careless errors.
Notes:
The summary must bring out the key elements in the composition.
The first person ‘I’ must be avoided in summary. To learn more, click here.
Week 4
Topic: Summary: Identification of a Writer’s Purpose
What are the reasons behind why people write what they write? Could they be writing to persuade, to entertain, to inform or to express? There is a reason behind any topic a writer chooses to write about. As a matter of fact, a writer may have more than one purpose for writing a piece; said purpose which may be explicitly stated or left to be inferred by the readers.
Having said that, it is therefore the work of readers to be reflective and be able to analyze information contained in their reads so that they may be able to pinpoint any writer’s purpose. This is important because identifying the authour’s purpose will give readers clues about how to approach a text and what strategies to use before, during, and after reading to build understanding. Below are some guiding tips (questions you must strive to answer while reading) to help you understand an authour’s purpose for writing anything-
Tips: Guiding Questions
- Based on the title, why do think the author wrote this selection?
- Which words do you think best describe the main reason the author wrote this selection: to provide readers with information? To describe a person, event, or issue? To express their own thoughts and feelings? To persuade readers to think about an issue in a certain way and to take action? Or to entertain the reader?
- Why did the author write the article from a particular point of view?
- How did the author influence your response to the selection? To learn more, click here.
Week 5
Topic: Differentiating between Main and Supporting Ideas
The main idea and supporting idea are two of the most confusing elements when writing sentences and paragraphs. However, knowing the differences between the two can actually brought an end to said confusion. The truth is that differentiating between the two is just as easy as knowing the difference between day and night. The terms ‘main idea’ and ‘supporting idea’ both have to do with the central idea of a sentence or a paragraph. Yet, inasmuch as both may mean the same thing, they are absolutely different. How so? Read on to find out.
The main idea is the most general idea that the writer wishes to convey. It is composed of an entire phrase or sentence expressing the main thought of the sentence or paragraph. Examples of main ideas are, dogs can be trained, cats have nine lives, my grandmother is old, your mistakes cost the team’s defeat, her comb was custom-made, and many others. Main ideas are stated using full statements.
On the other hand, supporting ideas are additional details that support the main idea or topic sentence in a paragraph. In other words, the main idea lets the reader understand and learn more about the main idea. These details can be reasons, descriptions, examples, explanations or comparisons. To learn more, click here.
Week 6
Contents:
Writing Skills: Scanning
Structure: Conjuncts and Disjuncts
Determiners and Qualifiers
A. Reading Skills: Scanning
Scanning means reading very quickly through a text to find specific information. When you scan, you don’t read all the words on the page. You let your eye move over the page quickly to pick out the information you want.
Skills Focus: How Link words help us Scan.
In a well-developed paragraph, each idea must be linked to the idea that comes before or after it. There are certain words or phrases in English that we can use to show these links. When we scan a text, spotting these links help us follow a writer’s thinking quickly and easily.
Here are some examples of link words:
1. To give a purpose or result: so, so that, therefore.
2. By restarting a point: in other words
e.g. in other words, these manufacturers are not only selling cream but hope
3. To show a sequence or list
4. To give a reason: because, for this reason, why
e.g. I slapped him because he stole my sweet
5. To add information: another, other, also
He gave Tolu 500 naira and he also gave Teni too
6. To present a contrasting idea: but, however, though, on the other hand
e.g. He is friendly though he lacks manners.
7. To provide examples: for instance, for example.
Sometimes we find a link when a word in one paragraph is repeated in the next.
Link words are very important for scanning to be made possible. To learn more, click here.
Week 7
Topic: Skimming and Scanning
What is it? Skimming involves running your eye very quickly over large chunks of text. It is different from previewing because skimming involves paragraph text. Skimming allows you to pick up some of the main ideas without paying attention to detail. It is a fast process. A single chapter should take only a few minutes.
When to use it: to quickly locate relevant sections from a large quantity of written material. Especially useful when there are few headings or graphic elements to gain an overview of a text. Skimming adds further information to an overview.
How to skim:
- note any bold print and graphics.
- start at the beginning of the reading and glide your eyes over the text very quickly.
- do not actually read the text in total. You may read a few words of every paragraph, perhaps the first and last sentences.
- always familiarise yourself with the reading material by gaining an overview and/or skimming before reading in detail.
What is Scanning? Scanning is sweeping your eyes (like radar) over part of a text to find specific pieces of information.
When to use it: to quickly locate specific information from a large quantity of written material. To learn more, click here.
Week 8
Topic: Plural Forms of Nouns
A plural noun is a word that indicates that there is more than one person, animal place, thing, or idea. When you talk about more than one of anything, you’re using plural nouns. When you write about more than one of anything, you usually use the same word, simply adding an s, es, or ies to the end. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but not many – one of the best is that a single moose is a moose, and a group of moose are still moose.
The difference between singular and plural nouns is simple once you know what to look for. Here, we take a look at singular and plural nouns, providing both singular nouns examples and plural noun examples to help you recognize plural nouns when you see them. To learn more, click here.
Week 9
Topic: Understanding the Relationship between a Writer’s Purpose and Tone
Instruction: Read the comprehension passage below [carefully] after which you should check the next segment to examine the authour’s purpose and tone.
Car alarms are a public nuisance. Their persistent and disruptive noise has been shown to boost stress hormones that are linked to physiological illness and psychological distress. Studies also show that children regularly exposed to car alarm noise have difficulty concentrating on quiet tasks like reading. Because car alarm noise makes people irritable, it also increases the tendency to be impatient and rude. In short, noisy car alarms are helping erode public civility. And for what? For nothing. According to police, criminologists, insurance companies, auto manufacturers, and even car thieves themselves, car alarms are next to useless. A 1997 analysis of insurance claims from 73 million vehicles concluded that alarms did not deter car theft. No one pays any attention to car alarms any more because 95 to 99 percent of the alarms are false. According to the Progressive Insurance Company, fewer than 1 percent of people surveyed say that they would call the police if they heard a car alarm. To learn more, click here.
Week 10
Topic: Homophones
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning, and may differ in spelling. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of “rise”), or differently, such as to, two, and too. Homophones (Sound-alike words) are words that are pronounced identically although they have different meanings and often have different spellings as well. These words are a very common source of confusion when writing. Common examples of sets of homophones include: they’re and their; bee and be; sun and son; which and witch; and plain and plane.
Some Examples of Homophones are:
- Compliment, Complement
Compliment: a polite expression of praise or admiration.
Complement: a thing that completes or brings to perfection.
- leach, leech
Leach: (with reference to a soluble chemical or mineral) drain away from soil, ash, or similar material by the action of percolating liquid, especially rainwater.
Leech: This is a segmented worm. To learn more, click here.
Week 11
Topic: Introduction to the Consonant Sounds Followed by /KW/
Although now written with a consonant and a vowel as qu-, the /kw/ sound is made up of two consonants. As a result, it falls under the consonant cluster category. The letter q is used the most rarely of all English letters with the exception of z. In the Old English period it was very rarely seen, as even the sound /kw/ was usually represented by the letters cw- as in cwen “queen”. However, in the Middle English period, English began using q more frequently due to the massive influence of French, which used it much more. Q has thus taken on two sounds /kw/ and /k/, the latter often being spelt qu- in French as in words like plaque /plæk/, clique /kli:k/ and cheque /tʃek/, which English has borrowed from that language. In this post, we will deal with qu- words with the /kw/ sound.
Some of the modern qu- words that have evolved from forms in Old English appear to have a trembling shaky quality. These words are dynamic and mobile, they are all aquiver. Many are fearful and pulsating, others, like quell and quash may cause trembling or subdue an uprising. Below are more examples of words with the /WK/ consonant sound-
| quite | He’s quite good-looking. | |
| quiet | If the baby is asleep there is peace and quiet. | |
| quilt | The quilt is filled with feathers from the eider duck. | |
| query | I sent my query by email. | |
| question | He was reluctant to answer my question. | |
| squid | A squid has eight arms. |
To learn more, click here.
Week 12
Topic: Summary Writing
When we are studying a text, perhaps with a view to writing notes or summary, the main point or idea in a paragraph is conveyed through the “topic sentence”. This is the sentence which states the main idea r topic of a paragraph.
All other sentences in the paragraph develop the idea or theme stated by the topic sentence. An important summary skill is the ability to identify topic sentences of paragraphs as a way of identifying the main points or ideas of individual paragraphs. You may never be asked to summarize a whole passage.
How do you go about summarizing a composition? There are five stages
1. Find the relevant parts of the text: First you have to find quickly the relevant parts of the text.
2. List or find the key points: Summaries must contain the key points, each point included earns a mark. Some students make a list of pints to include if there is time, others underline them in the book if it is their own.
3. Write a rough draft of the entire composition.
4. Write your own final draft of the summary and make necessary adjustments. To learn more, click here.
