ESL Blogs

Hello everyone…

My third blog this month is not about the blog, but still it relates to English learning. In my previous blog you can find I mentioned Literature Based Approach. This is an approach to learn English using literary texts. There are many reasons for using it in the process, one of reason is literature expands language awareness. When we use literary works in the class, we actually exposed many functions of written language. By reading we gain familiarity with many features of written language such as the formation and function of sentences, the variety of possible structure, different ways of connecting ideas which can broaden and enrich our writing skills. Literature can also help us increase our reading skills through which can develop the ability in making inferences from linguistic clues, to deduce meaning of context. By this, we will be more aware of the norms of language use.

Here I show you example how I examine sophisticated or non standard of language use which can occur in literary texts. I choose traditional fairy tales because the lexical and syntactic difficulties suitable with high school students. You can choose any text you can comprehend it.

The Ugly Duckling

It was summer and the countryside looked beautiful. Mother Duck was sitting on her nest in some tall reeds near a pond. There were five eggs in the nest and Mother Duck knew that they would hatch soon. She had been sitting on them for a very long time.

Look at the first sentence, it consists of two sentences connected by conjunction “and”

1. It         +         was                 +          summer

   Subject            to be (past)                  identification of time             

2. The countryside          +          looked            +          beautiful

    Subject (place)                        V2                           adjective

We can see “it” at the first sentence refer to “summer” and “was” between them indicated the event happened in the past. From the second sentence, we can say it was past tense because the using of Verb two and beautiful as adjective because the word explain about the countryside.

The sentence after that seems have different structure with a long adverbial of place.

Mother Duck   +    was   +       sitting     +      on her nest in some tall reeds near a pond

Subject(n)        to be (past)      Ving                            Adverbials of place

Guess what is the tense used on that sentence? Yup, it is past continuous tense because the verb+ing on it. Word “was” as to be just indicated it was happening in the past. About the adverbials of place we can see that preposition “on” used for more specific place than “in”.

 There are two sentences left, if I separate them like two sentences before like this

 1. There + were + five eggs + in + the nest + and + Mother Duck + knew + that + they + would + hatch + soon

2. She + had + been + sitting + on + them + for + a very + long time

Imagine  how many information can we gain beside new vocabularies and enjoy the story.

I think that’s all from me. I am still very new in this world of blog so if you find some mistakes I did, please leave your comment and #corrections , I would love to accept that from you J

Thanks for your attention and Have a great day!!!