Let's Study Speaking " How to Deliver Speech "

1. Approach the podium confidently and put your notes in a place where you can see them easily.

2.  Stand up straight with your feet shoulder-width apart. Look at the audience, pause and begin speaking. If there is no microphone, project from your diaphragm, not your throat.

3 . Set the tone in your introduction with appropriate facial expressions and diction, and a specific mood (such as folksy or hard-hitting).

4. Make eye contact with people in different parts of the audience, including the back row.

5. Pause briefly after you state key points to allow the audience time to absorb the information. Also, use natural and relaxed hand gestures and facial expressions to emphasize certain points.

6. Pronounce your words clearly and vary your rate, pitch and volume to keep the delivery lively.

7. Refresh your memory by periodically glancing at your notes, but avoid reading from your notes directly unless you are reading a long quotation.

8. Close your speech by thanking the audience and then confidently exiting the stage.

Let's Study Grammar " Tenses "

Present simple

We use the present simple to talk about actions we see as long term or permanent. It is a very common and very important tense.

Here, we are talking about regular actions or events.

·         They drive to the office every day.

·         She doesn't come here very often.

·         The news usually starts at 6.00 every evening.

·         Do you usually have bacon and eggs for breakfast?

Here, we are talking about facts.

·         We have two children.

·         Water freezes at 0° C or 32° F.

·         What does this expression mean?

·         The Thames flows through London.

Here, we are talking about future facts, usually found in a timetable or a chart.

·         Christmas Day falls on a Monday this year.

·         The plane leaves at 5.00 tomorrow morning.

·         Ramadan doesn't start for another 3 weeks.

·         Does the class begin at 10 or 11 this week?

Here, we are talking about our thoughts and feelings at the time of speaking. Although these feelings can be short-term, we use the present simple and not the present continuous.

·         They don't ever agree with us.

·         I think you are right.

Let's Study Writing 2 " Writing Process "

THE FIVE STEPS OF THE WRITING PROCESS

STEP 1:  PREWRITING

                   THINK

·         Decide on a topic to write about.

·         Consider who will read or listen to your written work.

·         Brainstorm ideas about the subject.

·         List places where you can research information.

·         Do your research.

STEP 2:  DRAFTING

                   WRITE

·         Put the information you researched into your own words.

·         Write sentences and paragraphs even if they are not perfect.

·         Read what you have written and judge if it says what you mean.

·         Show it to others and ask for suggestions.

STEP 3:  REVISING

                   MAKE IT BETTER

·         Read what you have written again.

·         Think about what others said about it.

·         Rearrange words or sentences.

·         Take out or add parts.

·         Replace overused or unclear words.

·         Read your writing aloud to be sure it flows smoothly.

STEP 4:  PROOFREADING

                   MAKE IT CORRECT

·         Be sure all sentences are complete.

·         Correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

·         Change words that are not used correctly.

·         Have someone check your work.

·         Recopy it correctly and neatly.

STEP 5:  PUBLISHING

                   SHARE THE FINISHED PRODUCT

·         Read your writing aloud to a group.

·         Create a book of your work.

·         Send a copy to a friend or relative.

·         Put your writing on display.

·         Illustrate, perform, or set your creation to music.

·         Congratulate yourself on a job well done!

Let's study Grammar " Passive voice "

The passive voice does exist for a reason, however, and its presence is not always to be despised. The passive is particularly useful (even recommended) in two situations:

• When it is more important to draw our attention to the person or thing acted upon: The unidentified victim was apparently struck during the early morning hours.
• When the actor in the situation is not important: The aurora borealis can be observed in the early morning hours.

The passive voice is especially helpful (and even regarded as mandatory) in scientific or technical writing or lab reports, where the actor is not really important but the process or principle being described is of ultimate importance. Instead of writing "I poured 20 cc of acid into the beaker," we would write "Twenty cc of acid is/was poured into the beaker." The passive voice is also useful when describing, say, a mechanical process in which the details of process are much more important than anyone's taking responsibility for the action: "The first coat of primer paint is applied immediately after the acid rinse."

We use the passive voice to good effect in a paragraph in which we wish to shift emphasis from what was the object in a first sentence to what becomes the subject in subsequent sentences.

The executive committee approved an entirely new policy for dealing with academic suspension and withdrawal. The policy had been written by a subcommittee on student behavior. If students withdraw from course work before suspension can take effect, the policy states, a mark of "IW" . . . .

The paragraph is clearly about this new policy so it is appropriate that policy move from being the object in the first sentence to being the subject of the second sentence. The passive voice allows for this transition.†

Passive Verb Formation

The passive forms of a verb are created by combining a form of the "to be verb" with the past participle of the main verb. Other helping verbs are also sometimes present: "The measure could have been killed in committee." The passive can be used, also, in various tenses. Let's take a look at the passive forms of "design."

Tense	Subject	Auxiliary		Past Participle
		Singular	Plural
Present	The car/cars	is	are	designed.
Present perfect	The car/cars	has been	have been	designed.
Past	The car/cars	was	were	designed.
Past perfect	The car/cars	had been	had been	designed.
Future	The car/cars	will be	will be	designed.
Future perfect	The car/cars	will have been	will have been	designed.
Present progressive	The car/cars	is being	are being	designed.
Past progressive	The car/cars	was being	were being	designed.

A sentence cast in the passive voice will not always include an agent of the action. For instance if a gorilla crushes a tin can, we could say "The tin can was crushed by the gorilla." But a perfectly good sentence would leave out the gorilla: "The tin can was crushed." Also, when an active sentence with an indirect object is recast in the passive, the indirect object can take on the role of subject in the passive sentence:

Active	Professor Villa gave Jorge an A.
Passive	An A was given to Jorge by Professor Villa.
Passive	Jorge was given an A.

Only transitive verbs (those that take objects) can be transformed into passive constructions. Furthermore, active sentences containing certain verbs cannot be transformed into passive structures. To have is the most important of these verbs. We can say "He has a new car," but we cannot say "A new car is had by him." We can say "Josefina lacked finesse," but we cannot say "Finesse was lacked." Here is a brief list of such verbs*:

resemble	look like	equal	agree with
mean	contain	hold	comprise
lack	suit	fit	become

Let's study grammar " Verb "

What is a Verb?

The verb is perhaps the most important part of the sentence. A verb or compound verb asserts something about the subject of the sentence and express actions, events, or states of being. The verb or compound verb is the critical element of the predicate of a sentence.
In each of the following sentences, the verb or compound verb is highlighted:

Dracula bites his victims on the neck.

The verb "bites" describes the action Dracula takes.

In early October, Giselle will plant twenty tulip bulbs.

Here the compound verb "will plant" describes an action that will take place in the future.

My first teacher was Miss Crawford, but I remember the janitor Mr. Weatherbee more vividly.

In this sentence, the verb "was" (the simple past tense of "is") identifies a particular person and the verb "remember" describes a mental action.

Karl Creelman bicycled around the world in 1899, but his diaries and his bicycle were destroyed.

In this sentence, the compound verb "were destroyed" describes an action which took place in the past.

 

Let's study grammar " Noun Phrase"

The Noun Phrase

Recognize a noun phrase when you see one.

A noun phrase includes a noun—a person, place, or thing—and the modifiers which distinguish it.

You can find the noun dog in a sentence, for example, but you don't know which canine the writer means until you consider the entire noun phrase: that dog, Aunt Audrey's dog, the dog on the sofa, the neighbor's dog that chases our cat, the dog digging in the new flower bed.

Modifiers can come before or after the noun. Ones that come before might include articles, possessive nouns, possessive pronouns, adjectives, and/or participles.

Articles: a dog, the dog

Possessive nouns: Aunt Audrey's dog, the neighbor's dog, the police officer's dog

Possessive pronouns: Our dog, her dog, their dog

Adjectives: That dog, the big dog, the spotted dog

Participles: The drooling dog, the barking dog, the well trained dog

Modifiers that come after the noun might include prepositional phrases, adjective clauses, participle phrases, and/or infinitives.

Prepositional phrases: A dog on the loose, the dog in the front seat, the dog behind the fence

Adjective clauses: The dog that chases cats, the dog that looks lost, the dog that won the championship

Participle phrases: The dog whining for a treat, the dog clipped at the grooming salon, the dog walked daily

Infinitives: The dog to catch, the dog to train, the dog to adopt

Less frequently, a noun phrase will have a pronoun as its base—a word like we, everybody, etc.—and the modifiers which distinguish it. Read these examples:

We who were green with envy

We = subject pronoun; who were green with envy = modifier.

Someone intelligent

Someone = indefinite pronoun; intelligent = modifier.

No one important

No one = indefinite pronoun; important = modifier.