Improving your vocabulary with vocabulary trees

Starting this week, I will be doing a series on how to improve your vocabulary. The first thing you need to do is to get your vocabulary book done. Buy any notebook but I would prefer to get one with a hardcover as it would last longer. It should be handy to carry around with you. This notebook will be your buddy for the rest of your academic year.

The next thing that you should do is to divide the vocabulary book into a few sections. I will be introducing the various sections of your vocabulary book as we go along, so make sure you come back to check it out. The first section will be called Vocabulary Trees. Some may prefer to call it Mind-maps.

Draw the word 'school' in the middle of the page. Draw branches out of the word 'school' and list down words that come to your mind as you think about school.



Vocabulary trees help students remember words thematically. These words will be more useful to you than individual words and their meanings. If you just keep a list of words and their meanings, 50% of these words are usually not used at all.

Now, do a vocabulary tree for the following themes
(a) vehicles
(b) Cameron Highlands
(c) Examinations
(d) Computers

Joining English Society

Many students shy away from joining the English Society in school because they feel that their English is not 'powerful' enough. I always encourage my students who are in my class to be a member by making those whom I teach as automatic members. So, if I teach 5 classes of English, nearly 100 over students are members. Whenever we organise any activity, we open it to other students too.
Last Saturday, we had a fun day with DZ's race. It's something like the Amazing Race. Students are given a set of instructions and they have to run around the whole school to complete the tasks.
When you take part in such activities, you are unconsciously learning English. There are many other interesting activities which are organized by teachers.

SONNET 18

In the SPM ENGLISH 1119, you are required to answer a stuctured question on one poem. You will be tested on your understanding of the poem and you are also required to give your opinion to issues raised. One way to prepare for the exam for poems is to paraphrase the poem, making sure you understand all the difficult words.
I found a useful paraphrase while surfing and I would like to share it with teachers and students alike.


SONNET 18 PARAPHRASE
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
You are more lovely and more delightful:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
Rough winds shake the much loved buds of May
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
And summer is far too short:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
At times the sun is too hot,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; Or often goes behind the clouds;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
And everything that is beautiful will lose its beauty,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
By chance or by nature's planned out course;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
But your youth shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor lose the beauty that you possess;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
Nor will death claim you for his
own,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
Because in my eternal verse you will forever:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long as there are people on this
earth,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
So long will this poem live
on, giving you immortality.
ANALYSIS

[Line 9]* - The friend's 'summer' or 'prime of life' will remain eternal because the poet immortalizes him in verse. Lines 10-14 confirm this reading. For more on this theme, see sonnet 55.

[Line 12]* - Because of the poet's verse the friend will actually grow as one with time ("to time thou growest"). For similar imagery, see sonnet 15, line 14.

Sonnet 18 is perhaps the best known and most well-loved of all 154 poems. It is also one of the most straightforward in language and intent. The stability of love and its power to immortalize the poetry and the subject of that poetry is the theme. The poet starts the praise of his dear friend without ostentation, but he slowly builds the image of his friend into that of a perfect being. His friend is first compared to summer in the octave, but, at the start of the third quatrain (9), he is summer, and thus, he has metamorphosed into the standard by which true beauty can and should be judged. The poet's only answer to such profound joy and beauty is to ensure that his friend be forever in human memory, saved from the ultimate oblivion that accompanies death. He achieves this through his verse, believing that, as history writes itself, his friend will become one with time (or, more informally, keep up to time). The couplet reaffirms the poet's hope that as long as there is breath in mankind, his poetry too will live on, and ensure the immortality of his muse.

Mabillard, Amanda. An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. Shakespeare Online. 2000. (day/month/year you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18detail.html >.

Another way to improve your English is to keep a vocabulary notebook. You can get a special alphabetised note book or you can make your own note book. Each time your teacher teaches and a new word crops up, copy the word and its meaning into your vocabulary book. Bring it along with you everywhere and while you are waiting for the bus or waiting for a tv programme to start, just take it out to review it. Look at the way the word is used and how it is spelt. Draw mind-maps and pictures to help you remember. Use colours creatively to make the notebook special.
The last tip in building vocabulary is to use the new words you have learnt in your essays or in your journal. Remember to look up new words in your dictionary. Jot down the correct usage and sentences. Begin to use these words in your composition.Before long, you will certainly notice that you have increased your vocab and your English has improved.

Journal your year

To the new form five students, this is your year. You are either all fired up about this year or you are rather apprehensive. Some of you have made new year resolutions to improve your English. There are several types of journals that you can do to kickstart your progress.



1 Keep a newspaper journal.
Cut an article and just paste it into your newspaper journal. Look up three new words and their meanings. Do this project for thirty days. Look out for advertisements, short texts, cartoon strips and letters.

2 Keep a journal or diary
Begin to write in your journal once a day. Keep a special time for this.. I prefer to write before I go to sleep. I just jot down everything in my mind, my worries, my problems, ideas and things to do. Just keep on writing until you feel sleepy.

3 Keep a journal of the happenings in school or blog about school. This will help you express yourself.

Happy journalling. Let me know your progress.

Past years' questions

Essays
Here are the past years' questions for your discussion.

Write a composition of about 350 words on one of the following topics.

2007

1 Describe an embarrassing experience of your life.

2 Teenagers today are only interested in entertainment. Do you agree? Support your opinion

3 My early years

4 Write a story beginning with:
Kim was nervous when the door opened...

5 Tomorrow


2006

1 Describe an enjoyable weekend you have experienced

2 Write a story ending with:
"If only I had been more careful, that wouldn't have happened."

3 What changes would you like to see in your life in the next ten years?

4 How can televsion help students in their studies?

5 Food

2005

1 Describe the biggest challenge in your life.

2 Write a story with the title: An Unexpected Visitor

3 How to keep oneself healthy

4 If you were given a chance to be anybody, who would you want to be and why?

5 Music

2004

1 Describe a festival celebrated in your area

2 End your story with: We had never laughed so much in our lives.

3 My ideal school

4 How to promote tourism in Malaysia?

5 Clothes

2003

1 A day you wished had never happened

2 You have been a chance to visit a country of your choice.
Which country would you choose and why?

3 An invention you cannot live without

4 Friends

5 Write a story that ends with:
"If only I had listened to his/her advice."

Excellent model essays

There are many excellent essays written by my students which might be helpful to you as you prepare for your exam.

Friends by Manu Menon

Friends are people whom we turn to when our spirits need a lift. They are always by our side through thick and thin. They stand beside us even when our disposition is not perfectly right and will fight for us if we are oppressed. Therefore, it is clear that friends play a vital role in shaping who we are today. But what qualities exactly do we need to look for in a friend?
A friend should always be caring towards you. He or she should take interest in your problems no matter how big or petty your problem may be. A friend should be able to sit beside you and encourage you to keep your chin up even when everyone else is against you. A friend’s empathy and lovingness will also replenish your worn-out soul and will make you realize how important a friend really is.
Apart from that, a friend should be an honest person. An honest friend will dissipate any worries that he or she is lying towards you. A friend’s honesty will enable you to trust his or she’s opinion when it comes to telling you the truth about yourself. For example, an honest friend will remand you on your declining grades and will ask you to work harder while a dishonest friend will see it with a blind eye. Therefore, an overall improvement in yourself will be noticeable if you have an honest friend.
Moreover, a friend should be generous both emotionally and knowledge wise. A friend who is generous ought to be able to connect with you and provide emotional support. He or she should also be generous when it comes to sharing knowledge. A true friend must be ever-ready to help you when you are inept in certain subjects. A friend can easily guide you towards understanding the subject matter better as he or she is often on the same page as you. The only difference is that you can’t quite grasp the content of the page per se.
Besides that, a friend must also be able to humour you. Humour plays a quintessential role in making your day more lively and enjoyable. Friends who pull your leg and mess about will indefinitely make life seem so much better. As they say, laughter is the best medicine and a little levity on rainy days is always welcomed.
In conclusion, friends are people we spend most of our time with. Thus, we have to be selective when it comes to choosing our friends.