Reflection: What have I learnt in week 2

Things that I have learned:

For week 2, we are still concentrating on identifying grammatical errors through text editing. I learned new grammatical terms like determiner and modal verb. Determiner refers to a noun modifier that expresses the reference of a noun or noun phrase while modal verb refers to words that associated with notions of possibility and necessity such as would and should. We went through several examples in identifying and correcting sentence/clause structures ; grammatical tenses. Through text editing, I learned to read the entire passage first to get a gist of it. Next, I should always read before and after the sentence that I am suppose to edit in order to see the sentence structure and its tenses used. After sensitising ourselves with grammar, we moved on learning fundamental elements that make up a paragraph. Basically, a paragraph consists of topic sentence, supporting sentence, example and concluding sentence. In order to write a good paragraph, three things are necessary – planning, logical and cohesiveness. We did a couple of exercises on identifying paragraph structures. At the end of it, we began writing a paragraph on a given topic and were marked by Miss Serene based on planning, grammatical tenses, cohesiveness and whether it is logical.
In addition, I was taught to recognize several common errors in clauses and sentences. Although the terminologies of such errors are very complicated, Miss Serene’s good analytical ability to explain in Basic English helps me to understand and appreciates such terms. There are basically six common errors in clauses and sentences which are sentence fragment, run on sentences, mixed construction, faulty subject –verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement and ambiguous reference & ambiguous word. These terms could be applied in writing sentences to give a quick review of common grammar problems. I am trying to do the self study on Eye on Edit 2 to allow myself how much I understand and allow myself to work on my weak areas.
In the 2nd half of the tutorial, we were asked to do a 2nd draft of the essay on areas of weaknesses. This 2nd draft should be corrected based on the grammatical tenses learned as well as comments by Miss Serene. Based on the marking, my areas of weaknesses are word choice, constructing long sentences, missing subjects, subject verb agreement and over usage of certain words. Although my areas of weaknesses are broad, I think I am able to tackle easily two areas of weaknesses - constructing long sentences and over usage of certain words.
In conclusion, the analytical skills of identifying and correcting errors are quite a handful, I personally hope that with more practice and hard work, I am able to understand and appreciate the English language.

Things that i have difficulties with:

I probably have difficulty in text editing. To be able to identify and correct such errors are quite confusing for some sentences available in the examples. However applying the basic elements of clauses like Subject, verb and object made it easier to identify such errors. I will try to do self study assignment to practise and perhaps buy a text editing book recommended by Miss Serene to enhance my text editing ability.