Independent Self Learning 1

INDEPENDENT SELF LEARNING 1
SUBJECT: English Language Proficiency (ELP) 1
COURSE CODE: WAJ 3102

THE PART OF SPEECH
I’m really interested to the poetic wisdom that I’ve read from the book “English for Malaysians” entitle “Take Time”.
…
Take time to be aware; it is the opportunity to help others.
Take time to love and be loved – It is God’s greatest gift.
…
The verse above is the third verse for the poetic wisdom that I’d mention before this. While reading the poem, of course I’m thinking about the element that made up the verse of the poem. Then, I’ve found something interesting about it. In this world, we used words in different ways. Sometimes, we are referred to the name of the things that we talked about. Sometimes, we are talked about something that described another thing. For example, the verse above talked about the greatest gift of God. The words God is the name of our Almighty Lord. Meanwhile, the words greatest explained the condition of the gift.
The explanation actually talked about the part of speech. The part of speech is included 9 items. They are nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, articles, conjunctions and interjections. According to Rita Mae Brown, language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides. If the language really exerts a hidden power, then we must understand well then practicing each of the parts of speech. How? By explore its meaning and do a lot of exercises about it. Below are the explanations about each class of the words and some exercises that I’ve done.



1. NOUNS
- Simply, we can say that a noun is a name. (English for Malaysians)
- Generally we can divide nouns into four classes. That is common nouns which divided into two, which are countable and uncountable nouns, Abstract nouns, proper nouns and collective nouns.
EXERCISE:
Choose a suitable noun to fill each blank in the sentences below.
1. The earthquake of 2004 destroyed the towns and villages in the region. (common noun)
2. The national anthem of Malaysia is Negaraku. (Proper noun)
3. My grand-uncle is the youngest brother of my grandmother. (Animates noun and gender)
4. These scissors are very sharp because they are made of top quality stainless steel. (countable noun)
5. The island’s name is unknown and no country’s map show where it is. (possessive noun)
6. The family lost all hope and was in despair when their father lost his job. (uncountable noun)
7. Yasmin had a rather sad expression on her face when I met her in this morning. (abstract noun)
8. I forgot my password and could not access my email account. (compound noun)

2. PRONOUNS.
- Pronouns are words that can take place of Nouns in a sentence.
- A pronoun stands alone. It is not used with a noun. (English for Malaysians)
- Pronouns divided into 5 classes; Personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, interrogative pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and reflexive pronouns.
EXERCISE:
Fill in each blank with the correct Personal Pronoun, possessive pronouns and reflexive pronoun.


Help me! Help me! A weak female voice cried out. Immediately, several people rushed to help. A young man got to the lady first.
‘Let me help you,’ he said to the elderly lady lying on the floor. He helped the lady to her feet.
‘My hand bag! Where is it?’ The lady cried. ‘All my things are inside! Oh dear! I put everything in there myself this morning!’
‘Don’t worry. We will find it,’ the young man said to her. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I am a doctor,’ said a woman in the crowd. ‘Let me take a look. Can you help her to that bench over there?’ he said to the young man.
By now, a policeman had appeared the scene. ‘Can you all please move aside?’ he directed the crowd. ‘Let them through, please.’

Make information questions using the interrogative pronouns.
1. We let the window open so that a little breeze might blow in.
Why did you let the window open?
The suggested answer: Why did you leave the window open?
Fill in the blanks with a correct demonstrative pronoun.
1. “Razali, come here! Can you pick up these tennis balls for me?” Said the coach.

3. ADJECTIVES
- Adjective used to explain the nouns.
- We can use adjective before or after the nouns.
- Adjectives are divided into 6 parts; descriptive adjectives, quantitative adjective, possessive adjective, demonstrative adjective, distributive adjectives and interrogative adjectives.

EXERCISE
1. The watch is expensive. I cannot afford to buy it. (descriptive adjectives)
2. I drank some coffee yesterday. (quantitative adjectives)
3. This basket is mine. (demonstrative adjectives)
4. These are my house. (possessive adjectives)
5. Whose dress is this? (interrogative adjectives)
6. Either Nyla or Nana is wrong. (distributive adjectives)

4. VERBS
- Verbs are very important words.
- They tell us about the actions and situations in a sentence.
- Verbs are divided into two parts; main verbs and auxiliary verbs.
- The main verbs are divided into two – regular and irregular verbs.
- The auxiliary verbs are helping verbs.
EXERCISE:
1. He ………… up late yesterday.
a. Wakes
b. Waken
c. Wake
d. Woke
2. My children ……….. to their grandmother’s house yesterday.
a. Went
b. Go
c. Goes
d. Going




3. Someone is ………….. in the hall now.
a. Singing
b. Sing
c. Sang
d. Song
4. The children ……………. afraid of the fierce dog.
a. Was
b. Were
c. Is
d. Am
5. He ……………. ill yesterday.
a. Was
b. Were
c. Is
d. Am
6. They ………….. happy at the party yesterday.
a. Was
b. Were
c. Is
d. Am

5. ADVERBS
- The words that used to add meaning to verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.
- Adverbs are divided into six parts; degree/quantity, place, manner, frequency, interrogative and time.
EXERCISE:
1. They are happy to leave their bag …………………, as long as they are safe. (adverbs of place)
a. Somewhere
b. Anywhere
2. Even though Durie is young, she has travelled …………….. (adverbs of place)
a. Everywhere
b. Anywhere

3. Adverbs of time.
Arif : Sorry, I couldn’t go over your house ..........(1), Beng Lee.
Beng Lee : It’s OK. We didn’t do very much ………….(2). Because only Arvind and Amir were there.
Arif : Here comes Nurul!
Nurul : Hi, is everyone here……… (3)?
Arif : No, just myself and Beng Lee. But Amin and Jaswant will be here …………(4).

a. a) Yesterday
b) Tomorrow
c) Before

b. a) Till
b) Then
c) Before

c. a) Already
b) Before
c) Still

d. a) Yet
b) Soon
c) Then

4. I have …….. met anyone so stubborn. He won’t even listen to his father. (adverbs of frequency)
a. Rarely
b. Never
c. Occasionally
5. Zaharah is ………. very punctual. She doesn’t like to keep people waiting. (adverbs of frequency)
a. Sometimes
b. Regularly
c. Always

6. Johan answered all the questions from the interviewer ……….. without showing any sign that he had never done it before. (adverbs of manner)
a. Familiarly
b. Firmly
c. Confidently

7. The children scream …………. For their food when they reached home. (adverbs of manner)
a. Eagerly
b. Favorably
c. Boldly

8. The storm last night was ………….. unexpected and we had not even closed our windows. (adverbs of degree)
a. Too
b. Totally
c. Fully

9. He was always ………. Careful with his money so he was able to save enough to buy himself a car. (adverbs of degree)
a. Quite
b. Too
c. Entirely
10. We will definitely accept the invitation to the dinner so that we can meet your family. (Adverb of certainty)
11. The boy was obviously feeling quite ashamed of his bad behavior because he apologized. (adverb of certainty)

6. PREPOSITIONS
- Prepositions are used to show the relationship between one thing and another in the same sentence.
- Preposition can be divided into preposition of time, position, direction, purpose and association.
EXERCISE:
A. You should end your game before sunset for it will get dark soon. (preposition of time)
B. The government built a guest house at the bottom of the mountain for international visitors to rest before their climb. (preposition of place)
C. The house painter climbed …… the ladder as he progressed. (preposition of direction)
a. Against b. up c. from
D. Razali kicked the ball with great force ………….. straight into the goal mouth.(preposition of purpose)
a. Between the two posts b. among the best
E. Asking me to pick one of these activities is like choosing ………… (preposition of association)
a. Between jasmine and dahlia
b. Between a rotten mango and an over-ripe banana.

7. ARTICLES
- There are two types of articles; Indefinite articles and definite articles.
- Indefinite articles is divide into two items; ‘a’ and ‘an’.
- Definite articles is ‘the’.

EXERCISE:
Look at the nouns below. If a noun can be used with an indefinite article, fill in the blank with a or an. Otherwise, leave it blank.
a. A youth.
b. – truth.
c. An avenue
d. An experience
e. A landslide
f. – greed.
Fill in the blanks with a, an and the when an article is needed. Do not write anything if nothing is needed.
A waterfall is a stream of water which falls suddenly from a higher a lower level. If there is a large volume of water, it is called a cataract. If the volume is small, it is called a cascade. Some waterfalls plunge hundreds of meters in a single narrow stream. Others are broad and pour an immense volume of water over their ledges.






8. CONJUNCTIONS
- Words that joined words, phrases or sentences together.
- It consists of five parts; and, but, or, because, so and although.
EXERCISE:
Choose the correct answer.
a. Jack sings (but,and) plays the drum.
b. They played their best (and, but) they did not win.
c. It does not matter whether the children sing (but, or) play.
d. (Although, because) it is raining we have to go.
e. You can do well in examination (if, because) you study hard.

9. INTERJECTIONS
- A word that added to the sentences that convey emotions.
EXERCISE:
1. Hello John, how are you today?
2. Hmm, I’m not sure.
3. Oh, please say yes!
4. Well, what did he say?
5. Ouch! That hurts!
(Taken from http://www.tolearnenglish.com/cgi2/myexam/voir2r.php?id=5546 quiz.)


We might found that there is same word that exists in different class of part of speech. However, we must know that the usage of the element is all depends on the sentences meaning.
From those information and exercises, I would like to conclude that it was not so hard to learn the part of speech but of course it could be a problem if we just neglect it. The finest words are only vain words if you cannot understand them. The words that I borrowed from Anatole France (1844-1924) told us that it was no use if we cannot fully understand the language that we want to use. So, in this Part Of Speech, I’d learned that only practice can make me understand all the function each of the parts of speech.

REFFERENCES:
Choo, T. S. (2007). Grammar Mastery SPM. Selangor Darul Ehsan: Oxford Fajar Sdn. Bhd.
J.S. Solomon, S. S. (2008). English of Malaysians. Selangor Darul Ehsan: Pelanduk Publications.
John Watson, S. K. (2008). Memory Mastery Through Mind Maps English Grammar. Selangor Darul Ehsan: PNI Neuron (M) Sdn. Bhd.
To Learn English. (n.d.). Retrieved JANUARY 12, 2010, from http://www.tolearnenglish.com/cgi2/myexam/voir2r.php?id=5546
University Of Ottawa. (n.d.). Retrieved JANUARY 12, 2010, from The Writing Centre-Grammar Hyper: http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/interjct.html