Grammar Online Week 2: PowerPoint presentations on sentences and clause structures

- Effectiveness of practice: (describe here what you have learned)

For week 2, we did a grammar Guide to understanding Grammar and Writing skills. These guides are made available with PowerPoint slides for easy illustration and appreciation. I focused on two weak areas – run on sentences and diagramming sentences.
For run on sentences, the writer gave a good analogy of by associating an independent clause as an independently operated train headed west and getting connected to another train headed east as well. According to the writer, three scenarios could happened which resulted in a run on sentences. Personally, these run on traps could be freed with proper understanding of the context of the sentence. To avoid run out sentences, three things could be done. Firstly, we could insert a period and start a new sentence. Secondly, we can insert a comma plus a coordinating conjunction. Lastly, we can use a semicolon.
On the other hand, diagramming sentence provides a way of illustrating the sentence structure. Although the way the writer explained it in the slides are quite confusing with the introduction of slanted and vertical lines. I think the gist of the whole slides is to understand the entire sentence and view it in its simplest form. The simplest form is basically the subject-verb-predicate relationship.

- Additional grammar work done in the area

Personally, I think the notes that were given to us adequate in covering sentence and clause structures. In these PowerPoint slides given, these grammatical understanding are being illustrated in great detail and examples are shown to perpetuate understanding and appreciation.

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.

Grammar Online Week 1: Sentence and clause structure

- Effectiveness of practice: (describe here what you have learned)

For week 1, the grammar online worked on sentences and clause structure. A very detailed explanation was being shown online. I only worked on my weak areas in identifying sentence structure and punctuations. There are a couple of things which are new to me.
Firstly, a dependent clause is also called a subordinate clause. In addition, clauses are also classified as restrictive and non-restrictive clauses. In our tutorial, we defined independent clauses as being able to stand alone by itself. In the grammar online, it gives in-depth meaning of an independent clause.
Independent clauses are also known as non-restrictive clause. It is not essential to the meaning of the sentence; it can be removed from the sentence without changing its basic meaning. It gave good explanations with example to relate its meaning. In addition, it gives an explanation on the various usages of punctuations such period, semicolon and hyphen. A part that I took great understanding is about the elliptical clauses.
Personally, I do make such grammatical mistake in the sense that the sentence I constructed is missing a relative pronoun. Usually I am unaware that anything is missing. However after reading this passage, I am able to at least guess from the context of my sentence.

- Additional grammar work done in the area

Two quizzes that I took are Identifying Independent Clauses and Identifying Independent Clauses II. I think it is quite a good practice to be able to do it and able to get feedback instantaneously.

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.