ENGLISH NOTES FOR FORM ONE – ALL TOPICS

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Intensive Reading

This refers to reading detailed information for comprehension. We can read intensively about diseases, soil erosion, drug abuse, and child labour.

Responding to Specific Questions on Text Read

Respond to specific questions on a text read

Read the following text and answer the questions that follow:

MALARIA THE KILLER DISEASE

Malaria affects people, apes, monkeys, and other mammals. It is one of the most ancient diseases known to man. In America, the first cases of the disease were reported in 1493 – hence the belief that it was probably imported by Columbus and his expedition.

The main transmitter of the disease is the female anopheles mosquito, however,one can acquire malaria through artificial means, such as blood transfusion. When one is bitten by the anopheles mosquito, the blood is infected by a germ called plasmodium. A person who has contracted malaria will suffer from symptoms including periodic fever, spleen enlargement, loss of appetite, vomiting, headache, and anemia. There is a general belief that there is only one type of malaria, this is false. As you can see below, there are several types. The most widespread variety is the Vivax malaria, sometimes called Tertian malaria. This type is notorious for resisting treatment. There is also falciparum malaria, also called Subtertian malaria. This has the most severe and most fatal. It develops best in areas with high temperatures hence its confinement to tropical areas. There is also Quartian malaria, prevailing in the Mediterranean coast land. Tertian malaria has been reported in East Africa and isolated areas of South America.

Now that malaria is killing thousands of people each day, are we all going to perish? The answer to this question is yes; unless deliberate efforts are taken to prevent it. There are preventive measures against this killer disease, these include destruction of the mosquito breeding places, taking anti-malaria drugs and using treated mosquito nets. If you think you have malaria, you have to consult a qualified physician for proper diagnosis and medication. For varying reasons, some people opt for local herbs.

3. Are majority of Tanzanians aware of the malaria disease? (give five reasons).

4. Define the following terms that have been used in the passage a) infection, b) diagnosis, c) germs, d) prescription, e) symptoms, f) physician

Interpreting Simple Stories

The Message from Simple Stories Read

Explain the message from simple stories read

This story is about a man called Masumbuko, his neighbour and a rope. Masumbuko was friendly to most of his neighbours but there was one woman who he didn’t like. She was very interested in other people’s business and liked to gossip. It was a habit of hers to borrow things from her neighbours and forget to return them. This woman knew Masumbuko had a new rope in his shed and one day she came to his door and asked to borrow it. ‘Well,’ said Masumbuko, ‘I need to know why you want my rope.’ ‘I did a lot of washing this morning and my clothing line broke,’ she replied. Masumbuko did not believe the woman but lent her his rope anyway. It was custom to get along with one’s neighbours. The woman did not return the rope until a week later and this annoyed Masumbuko very much. Several days later, the woman came to Masumbuko’s door and asked to borrow the rope again.

‘Well’, said Masumbuko, ‘what do you need a rope for this time?’ ‘One of my neighbours is cutting a big branch in my garden’, she answered’. ‘He needs a rope to pull the branch away from the roof of my house’. Doesn’t he have a rope of his own?’ asked Masumbuko. ‘No, he doesn’t,’ the woman answered rudely, ‘why do you think I am here asking for your rope if my neighbour has his own?’ Masumbuko said nothing to the woman but went into his house. The woman could hear Masumbuko talking to his wife. A moment later, returned to the door. ‘I am sorry,’he said to the woman,’but I can not lend you my rope right now; my wife is spreading flour on it.’ ‘She is spreading flour on it!’ the woman exclaimed, ‘but how can one spread flour on a rope? Are you trying to make me look like a fool?’ ‘Certainly,’ Masumbuko answered, ‘it is quite easy to spread flour on my rope when I do not wish to lend it to somebody.’

It is a shame that many girls do not know how to say no to boys who make sexual advances on them. Some girls say no yet still use non verbal actions that suggest a ‘yes.’ What do you think the boy will believe? ‘Boys assume that ‘no’ is a half hearted yes’, said the minister for social and welfare development. For example, when a girl says ‘I don’t think we should do it,’ while looking down at the floor, eating her fingers or killing an unseen insect, her ‘no’ does not get across. Why don’t you say ‘no’ while looking directly into the boy’s face? There are some girls who don not know how to explain themselves when they are asked by boys why they have refused – they start laughing instead of saying ‘no’ and meaning it. For girls to be valued by others, they have to value themselves first. Remember, there are many ‘hit’ and ‘run’ boys who are only after sex. Please say ‘no’ to them, and mean ‘no.‘ You will be preventing pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Look out for your future, mean what you say, if it is ‘yes’ then say it knowing what you are getting into, and if it is ‘no’ it must be a strong ‘No’!

Questions:

Write ‘F’ for facts and ‘NF’ for non fact in the following statement extracted from the passage above :

1. Girls should say ‘no’ to mean ‘no’ and not ‘yes’ to boys who are hit and run.

2. Girls should say ‘yes’ and get into sexual intercourse

3. Girls should value themselves before being valued by boys

4. Some girls don’t know how to express themselves when they asked for sex by boys

5. Girls eat their finger and insects around when they are raped by the hit and run boys.

Analysing Non-Factual Information from the Media

Non-Factual Information from Media

Identify non-factual information from media

Non-factual information refers to information which is not true, lacks an element of truth, and cannot be proved beyond doubt. It contains some elements of uncertainty.

I think Tanzania’s forests are in trouble. It is possible that Tanzania could lose its entire forest cover in under a century if more is not done to reduce the current rate of deforestation, estimated at round one million acres each year. There is a possibility that Mt. Kilimanjaro itself is severely affected by environmental damage. Perhaps, for thousands of years, the Serengeti winds would sweep over the cool and humid forest air carrying this moisture to the top of the mountain, but this is occurring at a smaller scale due to environmental changes.

It might be the deforestation on the slopes of mountain Kilimanjaro has contributed to the melting of its glaciers causing the East African trade winds to stay dry and warm accelerating the demise of the snow caps as this air flow reaches the summit. The dry winds also is no longer replenishing the glaciers, therefore, aiding in the demise of these magnificent mountains of ice. According to UN, Tanzanians population probably may be growing by over 2 percentages per year. It is possible to increasing rate of deforestation due to the demand of charcoal as a cheap source of energy. In addition burning down and cleaning of forests for crop cultivation in order to cater for this growth.

Exercise 1

1. Analyse the non factual information from the text above.

2. Identify five indicators of non factual information from the text above.

3. Give the meaning of the following words as used in the passage: a) Ice, d) Fauna, b) Snow, e) deforestation, c) Flora, f) land degradation

4. State whether the statement below is fact or non fact, according to the passage above. a) Tanzania’s flora and fauna may lose its habitat because of deforestation. b) Tanzania’s population is growing by over 2 percent according to UN, c) There is a possibility of melting of glaciers due to the dry winds in the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. d) The snow and glaciers from Serengeti go up onto Mt. Kilimanjaro summit.

Activity 1

Listen carefully to the newspaper text on gender read by your teacher and point out five facts and five non facts orally and in writing.

Personal Letters

Write personal letters

Friendly or personal letters are means of communication through letter. We normally write letters to loved ones, including mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, lovers, wives, husbands, teachers, friends, etc.

We normally use statements such as ‘Dear mother’, ‘Dear father’,’Dear sister’,’Dear friend’, ‘hi daddy’,’ hi mummy’, ‘hi aunt’. in the greeting (introduction part). We use expressions such as ‘your loving daughter’,’your loving son’, ‘your loving………’, ‘missing you……..’in the closing remarks.

Components of a friendly letter

1. Writer’s address -written on top right hand corner.

2. Date – below the sender address.

3. Salutation – comes after the address.

4. Main body-states the aim or purpose of the letter.

5. Closing statement-ending the letter.

6. Signature and name of the writer/sender- extreme end of the letter.

Example 5

SAMPLE LATTER

Kongani Secondary School,

P. O. Box 340,

Pemba

05^thDecember, 2014

Dearest Mother,

It is my hope that you are doing well. It’s been a long time since I last wrote to you. I am generally fine and continue with my studies. By the way, we will close school for a short holiday this Saturday till early April. I ask that you send me some money for a bus fare from school.Please send me the money very soon so that I may pay the transport officers. Greetings to brothers Jorum and Maven and sisters Jacky and Joan, as well as all my friends.

I hope to see you during holiday and pray for you with best wishes.

Your loving daughter,

N.S

Nasra Shomari Mohamed.

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Keep Practicing the New Language in Your Head

The other use for your dictionary is that you can practice while going about your day and not talking to anyone.

Challenge yourself to think in the new language. We all have monologues running in our head, and typically they run in our native tongue. You can continue to practice and construct sentences and fake conversations in your head in a new language.

In fact, this sort of visualization leads to much easier conversations when you actually have them.

For instance, you can envision and practice a conversation about a topic you’re likely to have before you actually have it. You can begin to think about how you would describe your job and explain why you’re in the foreign country in the new language.

Inevitably, those questions will come up and you’ll be ready to answer them.

You’re Going to Say a Lot of Stupid Things. Accept It

When I was first learning Spanish, I once told a group of people that Americans put a lot of condoms in their food. Later, I told a girl that basketball makes me horny. Um, yeah… It’s going to happen. Trust me.

Figure Out Pronunciation Patterns

All Latin-based languages will have similar pronunciation patterns based on Latin words.

For instance, any word that ends in “-tion” in English will almost always end in “-ción” in Spanish and “-ção” in Portuguese.

English speakers are notorious for simply adding “-o” “-e” or “-a” to the end of English words to say Spanish words they don’t know. But stereotypes aside, it’s surprising how often it’s correct. “Destiny” is “destino,” “motive” is “motivo,” “part” is “parte” and so on.

In Russian, case endings always rhyme with one another, so if you are talking about a feminine noun (such as “Zhen-shee-na”), then you know that the adjectives and adverbs will usually rhyme with its ending (“krasee-vaya” as opposed to “krasee-vee”).

(For a language-learning method that focuses on pronunciation, check out The Mimic Method).

Use Audio and Online Courses for the First 100 Words and Basic Grammar

After that they should only be used for reference and nothing more.

There are a lot of study materials out there (I recommend Benny Lewis’ Language Hacking courses, but there are tons). These courses are great for getting you from absolutely no ability in a language to being able to speak basic sentences and phrases within a few days’ time. They’re also good for teaching the most fundamental vocabulary (words such as: the, I, you, eat, want, thanks, etc.).

I’ve already mentioned Rosetta Stone which I’m not a fan of (you can get better bang for your buck elsewhere—read on and find out). Other than this, there is no shortage of language apps for you to take your pick: Babbel, Memrise, and Duolingo being the most popular ones.

Each has its own shortcomings. None is a magic pill that gives you miraculous language abilities. But there is no doubt you can use them to complement your learning. If anything, the crowd-sourced sentences Duolingo uses to teach you grammar and vocabulary will provide great entertainment (and often a peek into what goes on in the minds of the people whose language you’re attempting to learn).

But remember, the greatest return on investment when learning a foreign language is forcing yourself to speak and communicate with others, and when you’re sitting in your bedroom with a book or a software program, you’re not being forced to formulate meaning and significance in the new language on the spot.

Instead, you’re encouraged to parrot and copy concepts and patterns you’ve observed elsewhere in the materials. As mentioned before, I feel that these are two different types of learning, and one is far more effective than the other.⁵

After the First 100 Words, Focus on Becoming Conversational

Studies have shown that the most common 100 words in any language account for 50% of all spoken communication. The most common 1,000 words account for 80% of all spoken communication. The most common 3,000 words account for 99% of communication.⁶

In other words, there are some serious diminishing returns from learning more vocabulary.⁷ I probably only know 500-1,000 words in Spanish and in most conversations I never have to stop and look a word up in my phone.

The basic grammar should get you speaking fundamental sentences within a matter of days.

• “Where is the restaurant?”
• “I want to meet your friend.”
• “How old is your sister?”
• “Did you like the movie?”

The first few hundred words will get you pretty far. Use them to get as comfortable as possible with grammar, idioms, slang and constructing thoughts, jokes, and ideas in the new language on the fly. Once you’re able to joke consistently in the new language, that’s a pretty good sign that it’s time to expand your vocabulary.

A lot of people attempt to expand their vocabulary too quickly and too soon. It’s a waste of time and effort because they’re still not comfortable with basic conversations about where they’re from, yet they’re studying vocabulary about economics or medicine. It makes no sense.

Aim for the Brain Melt

You know how when you do a lot of intellectually intensive work for hours and hours on end, at some point your brain just feels like a lump of gravy?

Shoot for that moment when learning foreign languages. Until you’ve reached brain-gravy stage, you probably aren’t maximizing your time or effort.

In the beginning, you’ll hit mind-melt within an hour or two. Later on, it may take an entire night of hanging out with locals before it happens. But when it happens, it’s a very good thing.

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Tips to Understand any Language

1. Focus on language content that is relevant to you

When students start learning a language under a traditional method they usually fall into the same boring, outdated and not interesting book contents. It is easy to unfocus if the content you are learning has no relevance on your personal life. Therefore, focus on the content that will help you achieve your personal goals and learning a language becomes much easier and faster.

2. Use your new language as a tool to communicate from day one

A language is nothing other than a tool used to communicate and we master tools by using tools. Use the language to communicate from the very first moment you start learning it, just as a kid does. Draw pictures, make movements with your hands, facial expressions and piece by piece you will understand more and more. Don’t be shy to commit mistakes, it’s part of the process of learning.

3. When you first understand the message you will unconsciously acquire the language

Instead of focusing in learning by grammar, learn by comprehensible input. Language learning is not about accumulating lots of knowledge. You probably know people who have spent yearts at traditional language schools focusing solely on grammar and can’t speak a single word when it comes to real life situations. Comprehension is key and it leads to our next principle:

4. Physiological training

Portuguese is my mother language and although I’ve been speaking Portuguese my entire life, when I moved to Portugal, I couldn’t understand 20% of what Portuguese people said. I knew the words but I just was not used to the different tone, frequency and accent. Our brain has filters that will filter in sounds we are familiar with and out sounds we are not. You can only understand a language if you can hear it and you can only hear it if you train your brain to do so by listening a lot to the language your learning.

And speaking takes muscle… we have 43 muscles in our face that we must learn to coordinate in order to make sounds that other people will understand. Again, there is only one way of doing so… By speaking a lot. If you have ever done a new sport for a couple of days, you know that your body hurts. It hurts because your using your muscles in new ways they were not used before. If your face hurts, you’re doing it right.

5. Psycho-physiological state matters

If you’re not relaxed and happy while learning, you are not going to learn anything. Don’t believe you have to understand 100% of the words people are saying to you, focus on getting the meaning and learn to tolerate ambiguity.

ACTIONS

1. Listen a lot

Put yourself in a context where you listen to tons of contents in the language you are learning. It doesn’t matter if you’re understanding it or not. You’re listening to rhythm, patterns and the things that stand out. As babies, we spend more than one year only listening before we are able to speak. Listening is a fundamental part of the process and you should make it part of your daily life. Listen to podcasts, videos, and other content you might be interested in everyday while commuting, working out and doing other activities that don’t require listening actively.

2. Focus on getting the meaning first (before the words)

70% of our communication is done by body language. From body language you can understand a lot of communication and therefore acquire the language through comprehensible input.

3. Start mixing

Language is a creative process! There is not only one way to say the samething, there are many. If you know 10 verbs, 10 nouns and 10 adjectives you can already say 1000 thousand different things. You might not know a specific word, but you might know a synonym or another way of saying the same thing! It doens’t have to be perfect, it just has to work!

4. Focus on the core

In English, 1000 thousand words cover 85% of anything you’re ever going to say in daily communications. 3000 words cover 98% of anything you’re ever going to say in daily conversations. If you know 3000 words, you know the language, the rest is icing on the cake. Focus on learning the words you’re going to use the most to communicate.

5. Get a language parent

If you look at how parents and children interact, you will notice that they use very particular ways of communicating. When children speak, they use simple words, simple combinations, sometimes quite strange combinations, sometimes quite strange pronunciation that only their parents can understand. The parents give the kid a safe environment to learn and get confidence, communicate with body language and use simple language that they know their children will understand.

Just as a kid, get somebody who is interested in you as a person, who already can speak the language you are learning and will help you understand the message.

Your language parent should:

• Work hard to understand what you’re trying to say
• Not correct you
• Confirm understanding by giving you proper feedback
• Use words that you already know

6. Copy the face

You need to get your muscles coordinating correctly so you can sound in a way people will understand you. One exercise that I’m use to doing when I’m learning a new language is recording myself speaking short paragraphs and then listening to myself to see if I’m pronouncing the words correctly and if I’m speaking in a nice rhythm.

There are plenty of videos on YouTube where people show exactly how to pronounce specific words that you can watch and copy.

7. Direct connect to mental images

Don’t ever try to connect the words you learn to words you know in your mother language, this is extremely inefficient and you will probably forget most of them. Again, just as a kid does, connect the words to their actual image, smell and sound and you’re more likely to remember these words in the future.

After following these 5 principles and 7 actions, I was able to improve my Italian skills and start learning French in a more efficient way, and I know you can, too with any language you are motivated to learn.

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Writing Notes from Oral Texts

Important Points from Oral Texts

Write down important points from oral texts

What to consider when taking notes from different sources.

These include:

To note down important information.

Write in short phrases, not long sentences.

To use dashes and other marks to separate points. These marks are used to separate the noted points to avoid mingling and/or redundancies.

Activity 1

Listen carefully from the text and take notes.

Early marriage puts girls at great risk. Due to their young age, they are not physically mature enough to become mothers. Early marriage also results in early and frequent childbirth, leading to large families. Forced early marriage also denies girls the right to enjoy their childhood, the right to education and the right to choose a husband they love and of their own age group. When girls are forced to marriage with older men, they are likely to become widows at an early age. When this happens, the young widows are left to take care of the children themselves or have to remarry. Many of these women struggle because African customs and traditions do not allow a young wife to inherit her husband’s property as most customs deny women the right to own property.

Writing Notes from Written Texts

Important Points from Written Texts

Write down important points from written texts

Kino jumped forward as the rifle fired and his large knife swung and cut through the man’s neck and chest. Kino was a terrible killer now. He took the rifle with one hand and with the other he pulled his knife out of the man’s body. Kino moved very fast. He turned around and hit a second man’s head. The third man crawled away into the pool. He then began to climb up the rocks where the water was coming down from. The man’s head and feet were caught in bushes. He cried and tried to climb up but Kino had become hard and cruel. Kino raised his rifle and fired, then saw the man falling backward into the pool. Kino walked into the water; in the moonlight he could see the man’s frightened eyes. Then Kino fired the rifle between the man’s eyes.

Kino stood and looked up to the cave, something was wrong. The insects were silent now. Kino listened and heard a sound. He knew the long, rising cry from the little cave on the side of the mountain. It was Juana’s voice. The sound was the cry of death.

Writing Things/Notes in a Diary

Write things/notes in a diary

Diaries or journals are books where you write what has happen each day, year, month, week, etc. It is written to help the writer to remember important events and thoughts. In their diaries, writers comment on what they have seen recently or previously. They also describe their thoughts and feelings. They record the reasons for doing or liking certain things. The language used in diaries is usually informal and the writer will often emphasise certain events and feelings that mean a lot to them. A calendar diary has printed dates, months, days and sometimes years. This helps the writer not have to write them over again but only write when there are details; they are mostly used for work. In it, people record appointments, reminders, meetings, and plans for each day in the future.

A diary is a book with pages for each day of the year in which you can write down what you do each day and what you plan on doing in the future. A dairy can also be used to write our private thoughts and feelings, views or opinions.

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My advice:

• Get the idea that “language learning is hard” out of your mind first. Get all of it off. When people rant about how German grammar is hard or Kanji is hard, ignore them. Just focus on doing and studying.
• What I found is consistent, everyday learning is MUCH more effective than weekly class learning. To me, studying everyday consistently even yields much better result than if I skip a week, or even just one or two days. When you have gaps between days, you forget things you learn between them. Studying everyday is more intense, review-heavy and provides more incentive because you progress faster.
• Even if you’re not studying textbook, keep immersing yourself in that language. Try to read fairytales or product packaging. Find the vocabs you don’t know in dictionaries and add them to your SRS deck.
• Use SRS / Anki to remember vocabularies. It works.
• Try to memorize with stories or comparisons. With Kanji especially, I found that remembering radicals, comparing with similar kanjis, and creating stories also really helped.
• Utilize your time on the fly, especially on commute. I can finish my deck of 250 vocabs during commute alone.
• When you’ve reached an intermediate / upper intermediate level, move on to literature and read shitloads of book in that language. I personally reached my English fluency through this- I don’t even know how many tenses there are in English. All I know is some sentences feel “right” and some sentences feel “odd” to me.
• Set a higher studying / daily goal than you think you can do. Sometimes you can do better than you yourself estimate you are.