Elements of Sentence Construction

Subjects and Predicates

Parts of speech have specific tasks to perform when they are put together in a sentence.
A noun or pronoun functions as the sentence subject when it is paired with a verb functioning as the sentence predicate.
Every sentence has a subject and predicate.
A subject can be a noun or pronoun that is partnered with an action verb.
        Example:
                   
Sometimes a verb will express being or existence instead of action.
        Example:
                         
Sometimes we use sentences in which a subject is not actually stated, but is, nevertheless, understood in the meaning.
        Example:
                               
                A sentence like this gives an order or a request to someone.
                       
Because we use such statements when we are talking directly to someone, we omit the word you.  It is understood in the sentence.  Therefore, in statements like this one, we say the subject is  
                                                    you (understood).
This kind of sentence is an imperative sentence.
     
A predicate is a verb that expresses the subject's action or state of being.
            Example:
                            
Sometimes the predicate will be composed of two or three verbs that fit together - the main verb preceded by one or more auxiliary (helping) verbs.
                           
IMPORTANT NOTE:  To be a predicate, a verb that ends in -ing must ALWAYS have a helping verb with it.  An -ing verb WITHOUT a helping verb cannot be a predicate in a sentence.
         
A subject and predicate may not always appear together or in the normal order, as the following examples show:
                            
        
                           
   
                           
      

Phrases

A phrase is a group of related words that 
                1. does not express a complete thought
                2.  does not have a subject and predicate pair
One type of phrase is a prepositional phrase.
                  Examples:                         
                             
Another kind of phrase is a verbal phrase. 
                Examples:  
                       
Even though these phrases contain nouns (pronouns) and/or verb forms, none of the nouns/pronouns/verbs are subjects or predicates.  None of them work as a partnership.
Also, these phrases do NOT express complete thoughts.
         

Clauses

Words and phrases can be put together to make clauses.
A clause is a group of related words that contain a subject and predicate.
Note the difference between phrases and clauses in the following examples:
                     
Only one of the clauses is a sentence.
Clause #1 gives a thought or an idea that is COMPLETE, that can stand by itself, independent of other words.
However, clause #2 gives an INCOMPLETE thought or idea, one that cannot stand by itself, one that needs some more words to make it whole.  The word after changes the meaning, making the thought incomplete.  After reading this clause, we are left hanging.  

These two clauses illustrate the two kinds of clauses:
            independent clauses and dependent clauses
An independent clause is a group of words that contains a subject, a predicate, and a complete thought.
A dependent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate, but does NOT express a complete thought.

Compounding Sentence Elements  

Words, phrases, and clauses may be joined to one another inside a sentence with a conjunction.

The coordinating conjunctions and, but, or, and nor may join subjects, predicates, adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases or dependent clauses within a sentence.  This process is called "compounding."

The following examples show the process of compounding

WORDS

         
  

PHRASES
   

DEPENDENT CLAUSES
  

When entire independent clauses (simple sentences) are joined this way, they become compound sentences.

Avoiding Fragments

A complete sentence needs only two elements:
        a subject - predicate unit    AND    a complete thought
In other words, a simple sentence is actually the SAME thing as an independent clause.
Dependent clauses or phrases are called fragments because they are missing one or more parts needed to make a sentence.  
Therefore, they are only pieces or fragments of complete sentences. 
Look at these examples:

            

Avoiding Comma Splices and Fused Sentences

Sometimes two independent clauses (simple sentences) can be joined to form another kind of sentence: the compound sentence.
Two major errors can occur when constructing compound sentences.
Error #1: The Comma Splice
Writers make this error when they try to separate the two independent clauses in a compound sentence with a comma alone.
A comma is not a strong enough punctuation mark to separate the two independent clauses by itself; thus, using it causes the clauses to be spliced together.
Example of a comma splice:
               
This sentence can be repaired in three ways:
    1.  by adding an appropriate coordinating conjunction   
           
    2.  by changing the comma to a semicolon
               
    3.  by changing the punctuation and adding an appropriate conjunctive adverb
            
Error #2: The Fused Sentence
Writers make this error by joining two independent clauses into a compound sentence without using any punctuation between them.
No punctuation between the two independent clauses causes them to "fuse" into an INCORRECT compound sentence.
Example of a fused sentence:
            
This sentence is also repaired in three ways:
    1.  by adding a comma and an appropriate coordinating conjunction
           
    2.  by placing a semicolon between the two clauses
           
    3.  by adding the needed punctuation and an appropriate conjunctive adverb
           
Another way to repair a comma splice or fused sentence is to make each independent clause into a simple sentence.
               

 

References :
http://wwwnew.towson.edu/ows/sentelmt.htm
        
     

Understanding about the characteristic of young learners

In the first meeting of TEYL class, i got the new thing about the TEYL subject. That is understanding characteristic of young learners. For the successful teaching of English in primary schools, it is really important for the teacher to understand the young learners’ characteristic, because it will play a crucial role in how the teacher build the lesson and how the teacher can reach the goal that is make all students involved in the learning proccess. Uderstanding characteristic of young learners divide into four part.

Firstly, the teachers should look at the physical side of the young learners. The physical world of the young learners are dominant and the young learners are actively engaged in making sense of their world. Young learners appear to be predisposed to acquire information. These biases toward certain types of learning should pave the way for competence in early schooling. They lack knowledge and experience, but not reasoning ability. Indeed, although young learners are inexperienced, they reason with the knowledge they have. Precocious knowledge may jump-start the learning process, but because of limited experience and underdeveloped systems of logical thinking, children’s knowledge contains misconceptions. So the teacher should have a visual agenda (board maker symbols) displayed low enough for children to touch and use it everyday. It will be affected the students to be familiar about what the teacher give.

Secondly, the social side of the young learner. The young learners are happy playing and working in company of others. They can’t work alone. They prefer having chat and playing with their group than they only sit in their own chair and listening the speech from the teacher. It will be great, the teacher can manage the class effectively. They can teach each key concepts associated with classroom activities, e.g. share, partner, line up, sit in circle, clean up, come here or use photos to illustrate the ideas.

Thirdly, the psychological side. The young learners have short concentration span. It means that they can’t give attention fully to the what the teacher said. And also they get bored easy.  So the teachers should vary their techniques to break the boredom. They should give varied activities such as handwriting, songs, games, etc.

The last, the characteristic of young learners is their first language is not fully develop and they need to develop their native language. According to Phillips (1995:7) in learning a language, young learners respond to the language, depending on what it does or what they can do with it rather than treating it as an intellectual game or abstract system. It means that the young learners will adopt easily to what the teacher do in class. So the teacher should give the best way how to deliver their lesson to them. There are a lot of ways, more of them are the teacher can use the statement “First”, “Then”, supported by boldmarker symbols to help children understand what is going to happen next,  the teacher can create bold maker sequences for routines. E.g. entry, snack time, etc, or the teacher use repetitive songs, chants, and rhymes to teach essential vocabulary and sentence forms.

REFERENCES 

• Chewy, The Characteristic of young learner, tersedia : http://educationchewy.blogspot.com/2011/03/characteristic-of-young-learner.html, diunduh : 2 April 2014 
•  Farwaniya, Characteristic of young learner, tersedia : http://farwaniya03.tripod.com/id6.html, diunduh : 2 April 2014
• Suggested Strategies for Teaching Young English Language Learners, unpublished material

Understanding of English Literature

In the first meeting of Literature class, i got the new thing about literature subject. What does literature mean? How is the way to understand it? According to wikipedia, literature is a word derived from a Latin word ‘Littera’ which means, ‘letter of the alphabet’. Literature introduces us to new world of experience. How can it be? We learn about books, we enjoy the comedies and the tragedies of poems, stories, and plays, and we may even grow and evolve through our literary journey with books. These are Literature. It means that literature is really close with our live.

Literature is known as any writing and verbal works of art. Another meaning we can say that literature is particular kind of printed materials, such as poem, short stories, and play. Literature is also known as art. Why does it call ‘art”? I understand it to mean first that a work we call “literarute” says something about issues, experiences, or ideas that are intense, ongoing interest to many people. Some of these definitions tend to describe literature as written works which has some of entertaining display provide pleasure in educating art using language.

We have known that literature simply means anything that is written. Such as time tables, dialogues, textbooks, travel brochures and so on. If you are thinking of buying gadget, computer or TV, you will probably want to see the literature about it. If you are students of teaching training and education department, you will have to read the literature about the teaching technique. So we may conclude all written materials like this general grouping : Historical Books, magazines, newspaper, dictionaries, novels, catalogues, plays, short stories, enclyclopedia etc. We can divide this large mass of material into two different groups. The first one mainly presents information and the next mainly give some entertainment.

Faizal Risdianto, S.S, M.Hum wrote in his article that literature divide into 2 ways : Informative Literature . Literature will be being informative if it tells us about facts, explanation, history, real ‘great’ life figure etc.It tells us the world, for instance, the life of Prophet Muhammad, The story of Soekarno, etc. It mains purpose is to offer knowledge.
Imaginative Literature Literature will be being imaginative if it aims to arouse thoughts and feelings. Its author express his ideas, his feelings, his attitude, he may talks of things ; people, etc. He wants to communicate feelings, not facts (emotion), not information only. Imaginative literature has fuller and deeper sense than informative literature.

According to another resource that i read about literature, Literature is generally divided into three groups, respectively prose, drama, and poetry. Prose uses language not in verse form, e.g., novels, short stories, novellas, etc. Drama is play with its act(s) and its scenes in dialogues, conversations, comedies, tragedies, tragic-comedies, etc. Poetry is the art of poets; poems, in verse form, e.g. ballads, epics, lyrical poetry, etc

Understanding literature is really important for us because literary works teach us about life. When we read some ideas, story, real ‘great’ life figure, it enriches our experience of life. Reading literature also sharpens our soul and make us wiser because literature offers us much knowledge.


REFERENCE :


Risdianto Faizal, Introduction to literature. Trust Media Publishing. 2011


www.wikipedia.com