Friday, December 20, 2019

Mother hen and chicks story



Our grade 2 kids tried their hands at very-short story writing. They were given no help. They had to create an 8-line sense out of the fragments given. They did a wonderful job this time. Here are their little gems:

Aditi:
One day, mumma hen and her chicks were very hungry. They saw rice on the ground. They started to eat.
While eating, the chicks got lost. Mumma hen was looking for them. She found them. They all carried rice and went back home. They ate carefully.
The chicks asked Mumma hen if they could play. Mumma hen said yes.  This time she went with them to keep an eye on them.

Jisha:
One day, the hen and her chicks wanted to meet their friends. The hen cooked food and left it outside the house. They went to their friends place then.
One hunter saw the food while passing by there. He kept the food in his bag and left. when the hen and her chicks returned, they saw that the food was not there. They became very sad. They went to the forest in search of food.
They found some grains. They became happy.

Rachit:
One day, mama hen and her chicks went to the market. When they came back, they were so hungry.
So mama hen went inside the kitchen. She saw there was nothing in the kitchen; it was empty. So they all went outside to look for food. Mama hen found a bag of grains. She called the chicks.
They made a hole in the bag of grains. They ate the grains.

Girl and the apple story

Image result for cartoon girl eating apple

Our grade 2 kids tried their hands at very-short story writing. They were given no help. They had to create a 4-line sense out of the fragments given. They did a good job at the pictorial gestalt and came up with these little gems:

Adethri:
One day, Tanya was very hungry. She saw an apple on the table. She wanted to eat it. But her mom gave her a banana. She ate the banana.

Maanya:
One day, Aanya was hungry. Her mother gave her an apple. She wanted to eat pizza. Her mother made her apple-pie. Aanya was so happy.

Avni:
Anvi wanted to eat apples. She went to her mother. Her mother didn't have apples. Anvi sadly went outside. She saw a table near the kitchen area. There was an apple on that table. She ate the apple.

Stress points in English


Stress-points

English is not a flat language. English speaking is all about stress-points (SPs): SPs inside the words and SPs inside the sentences. Without maintaining the SPs, meanings of the words as well as the sentences can change significantly. SPs decide the meanings as well as pronunciations.

Example:
‘Present’ is a 2-syllable word. Both syllables cannot be sounded at the same pitch; that is, the word cannot be monotone.

When the first syllable /pre/ is sounded with a higher pitch, it is used as a noun or an adjective. It’s pronounced as prezənt
Give me the presents. (noun)
In the present situation, you should save more. (adjective)

However, when the second syllable /sent/ is sounded with a higher pitch, it is used as a verb. It’s pronounced as prɪzent
I will present this award to her. (verb)

All words with more than 1 syllable follow SP rules. Without following the rules, either the pronunciation or the grammar or both will be wrong.

In a sentence, which word is stressed can change the entire meaning. Try saying these saying sentences with more volume at the words in bold and you’ll see:

I helped him yesterday.
I helped him yesterday.
I helped him yesterday.
I helped him yesterday.

Try saying this sentence:

It’s made of wood.

·      If you’ve said /it/ with high pitch, it’s wrong because if /it/ carried the significant intention in the sentence, it wouldn't be contracted with /is/
·      If you’ve said the word /of/ as complete /of/, it’s wrong, because in a sentence like this a preposition cannot carry the SP.
·      If you've said /made/ with high pitch, it’s wrong because if the writer meant to emphasize more on that aspect of being /made/, then /it/ and /is/ wouldn't be contracted together and /is/ would be the SP

Thus, /wood/ is the logical SP of the sentence and thus the sentence will be:
ɪtz meɪd əv wʊd

(Notice the pronunciation of /of/ in a sentence like this)

Stress-Points are very important. Without them, our spoken English may be completely wrong.