Reflection: What have I learnt in week 1

1) Things that I have learned:

For Week 1, I learned four important things. Firstly, we are taught to identify grammatical errors with examples. In order to identify such errors, I learnt the fundamental of the English language. Basically in the English language, it is consists of clauses and sentences. Simple sentence consists of one clause, which contains a subject and a verb. A complicated sentence consists of more than one clause.
Subject, verb, subject complement, adverbial, object and object complement are basic elements of clause. These elements usually do not appear together in the same clause. There are basically the five basic sentence patterns in English as mentioned in the notes. In order to identify basic elements of clauses, simple questions can be asked to recognize them. Subject is the element of a clause that performed the action of who or what. Verb is the action that is taken by the subject. However, verbs that are transitive requires both a direct subject; one or more objects. A Subject complement is the element that gives more information about the subject. Adverbials give more information about how (interrogative), when (time), where (place), why (reason) an action is performed.
There are two types of clauses – independent and dependent clauses. Independent clauses are group of words that could stand on its own whereas dependent clauses are group of words that are needed to attach to another clause to complete its meaning. In addition, I learnt different types of sentences. There are basically three types of sentences – Simple, compound and complex. Sentences are classified by the number of types of finite clauses used.
I learnt that in order to avoid confusion, short and simple sentences should be constructed. Long complex sentences should be avoided. Writing in a concise manner is important to avoid the essay from diverting it to become long winded and draggy.

2) Things that I have difficulties with:

With Miss Serene’s passion and detailed teaching, I am able to understand most of it. However the technicality of grammar can be quite convoluted when a sentence becomes complex. The complexity of a sentence can be simplified with a good understanding of the basic elements as mentioned above. I hope to be able to rectify my difficulties before leaving class.