TIPS FOR LEARNING ENGLISH

Don't be afraid of grammar

·         Grammar is for communication

Sometimes students get obsessed with grammar. This is especially true for students who grew up with strict grammar schooling. Remember that you only study grammar in order to communicate. Practise with a few exercises, then write an essay or have a conversation and try to use your new tools.

·         Isolate your weak points

Don't waste time on grammar exercises that you already understand just because they are easier for you. Concentrate on grammar that is difficult for you. If you are unsure of where your problems are, write a few short essays or paragraphs and ask a teacher to circle repeated errors. Then you can look up your problem and practise it.

·         Teach grammar points to a friend

Find a friend who studies at a lower level than you. Teaching will force you to remember the rules and to understand them properly. Try preparing a worksheet for your friend.

      Useful Grammar links:

      EnglishClub.com English Grammar

      Gramar is your friend

      Grammar Safari

Improve your homework skills

·      Stay organized. Keep separate notebooks for exercises, writing, and vocabulary.

·      Use a pen that you love.

·      Study in short, regular periods.

·      Allow a short amount of time for review.

·      Study in a place where you feel happy and comfortable.

·      Don't allow distractions. Consider email, TV, and the telephone (unless in English) off limits while you are studying.

·      Have a drink and snack handy so that you don't have to get up.

·      If you study in pairs or groups, make an English-only rule.

Visit an English-Speaking Country

·      Take a language holiday.

·      Stay with a homestay family.

·      Learn from native English teachers.

·      Gain access to English culture.

·      Get a part-time job.

·      Volunteer.

·      Make native English friends.

·      Make friends with people from other countries.

·      Become more confident.

·      Hire a tutor.

·      Offer language lessons/swap in your own native tongue.

    * Useful links:

      Language Holidays

      Homestay

      English Schools Guide

Prepare for a standardized test such as TOEIC or TOEFL

·      Qualify for a better job in your country (TOEIC).

·      Get accepted to an American college or university (TOEFL).

·      Use guided-study text books.

·      Study a broad range of whole language.

·      Track your improvement easily (test scores).

·      Learn idiomatic language.

·      Learn business English (TOEIC).

·      Improve your vocabulary quickly.

·      Take classes and get access to many listening exercises.

·      Challenge yourself to improve your score.

·      Learn and practise proper essay format (TWE/NEW TOEFL).

·      Become a grammar expert.

·      Improve your general knowledge.

    * Useful links:

      ESL Exams

      TOEFL Tips and Practice

      TOEIC Tips and Practice

      Official Cambridge site

      Official TOEFL site

      Official TOEIC site

Fun with English Ideas

·      Have an English-only evening once a week. Cook in English (rewrite your recipe in English) or watch English movies.

·      Write an English love letter. (If your loved one doesn't understand English that's even better!)

·      Write English limericks. (These are excellent and simple for writing, pronunciation and rhythm practice.)

·      Rewrite fairytales, jokes or instructions in English.

·      Go out and pretend you don't understand your native language (try to get by in only English).

·      Go online and find the lyrics to your favourite English songs and sing along to them (use a search engine).

·      Learn the words to English national anthems. Sing along when you hear them on TV (sporting events).

·      Invent an English character for yourself (with job, family, etc). Write this person's biography.

·      Buy an English board game (like Monopoly or Scrabble).

·      Play cards in English.

·      Start up or join an English reading or conversation club.

·      Talk to yourself in English while you clean or do the dishes.

·      Go around the house and try to name everything in English (furniture, clothes etc). Look up words you don't know.

Ten Types of Grammar

So you think you know grammar? All well and good, but which type of grammar do you know?
Linguists are quick to remind us that there are different varieties of grammar--that is, different ways of describing and analyzing the structures and functions of language.
One basic distinction worth making is that between descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar (also called usage). Both are concerned with rules--but in different ways. Specialists in descriptive grammar examine the rules or patterns that underlie our use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. In contrast, prescriptive grammarians (such as most editors and teachers) try to enforce rules about what they believe to be the correct uses of language.
But that's just the beginning. Consider these ten varieties of grammar--and take your pick.

1. Comparative Grammar
   The analysis and comparison of the grammatical structures of related languages. Contemporary work in comparative grammar is concerned with "a faculty of language that provides an explanatory basis for how a human being can acquire a first language . . .. In this way, the theory of grammar is a theory of human language and hence establishes the relationship among all languages." (R. Freidin, Principles and Parameters in Comparative Grammar. MIT Press, 1991)


2. Generative Grammar
   The rules determining the structure and interpretation of sentences that speakers accept as belonging to the language. "Simply put, a generative grammar is a theory of competence: a model of the psychological system of unconscious knowledge that underlies a speaker's ability to produce and interpret utterances in a language." (F. Parker and K. Riley, Linguistics for Non-Linguists. Allyn and Bacon, 1994)


3. Mental Grammar
   The generative grammar stored in the brain that allows a speaker to produce language that other speakers can understand. "All humans are born with the capacity for constructing a Mental Grammar, given linguistic experience; this capacity for language is called the Language Faculty (Chomsky, 1965). A grammar formulated by a linguist is an idealized description of this Mental Grammar." (P. W. Culicover and A. Nowak, Dynamical Grammar: Foundations of Syntax II. Oxford Univ. Press, 2003)


4. Pedagogical Grammar
   Grammatical analysis and instruction designed for second-language students. "Pedaogical grammar is a slippery concept. The term is commonly used to denote (1) pedagogical process--the explicit treatment of elements of the target language systems as (part of) language teaching methodology; (2) pedagogical content--reference sources of one kind or another that present information about the target language system; and (3) combinations of process and content." (D. Little, "Words and Their Properties: Arguments for a Lexical Approach to Pedagaogical Grammar." Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar, ed. by T. Odlin. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994)


5. Performance Grammar
   A description of the syntax of English as it is actually used by speakers in dialogues. "[P]erformance grammar . . . centers attention on language production; it is my belief that the problem of production must be dealt with before problems of reception and comprehension can properly be investigated." (John Carroll, "Promoting Language Skills." Perspectives on School Learning: Selected Writings of John B. Carroll, ed. by L. W. Anderson. Erlbaum, 1985)


6. Reference Grammar
   A description of the grammar of a language, with explanations of the principles governing the construction of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. Examples of contemporary reference grammars in English include A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, by Randolph Quirk et al. (1985), the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999), and The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002).


7. Theoretical Grammar
   The study of the essential components of any human language. "Theoretical grammar or syntax is concerned with making completely explicit the formalisms of grammar, and in providing scientific arguments or explanations in favour of one account of grammar rather than another, in terms of a general theory of human language." (A. Renouf and A. Kehoe, The Changing Face of Corpus Linguistics. Rodopi, 2003)


8. Traditional Grammar
   The collection of prescriptive rules and concepts about the structure of the language. "We say that traditional grammar is prescriptive because it focuses on the distinction between what some people do with language and what they ought to do with it, according to a pre-established standard. . . . The chief goal of traditional grammar, therefore, is perpetuating a historical model of what supposedly constitutes proper language." (J. D. Williams, The Teacher's Grammar Book. Routledge, 2005)


9. Transformational Grammar
   A theory of grammar that accounts for the constructions of a language by linguistic transformations and phrase structures. "In transformational grammar, the term 'rule' is used not for a precept set down by an external authority but for a principle that is unconsciously yet regularly followed in the production and interpretation of sentences. A rule is a direction for forming a sentence or a part of a sentence, which has been internalized by the native speaker." (D. Bornstein, An Introduction to Transformational Grammar. Univ. Press of America, 1984)


10. Universal Grammar
    The system of categories, operations, and principles shared by all human languages and considered to be innate. "Taken together, the linguistic principles of Universal Grammar constitute a theory of the organization of the initial state of the mind/brain of the language learner--that is, a theory of the human faculty for language." (S. Crain and R. Thornton, Investigations in Universal Grammar. MIT Press, 2000)

If ten varieties of grammar aren't enough for you, rest assured that new grammars are emerging all the time. There's word grammar, for instance. And relational grammar. And that brings to mind arc pair grammar. Not to mention cognitive grammar, lexical functional grammar, head-driven phrase structure grammar . . . and many more.

Why Should We Study English Grammar

If you're reading this page, it's a safe bet that you know English grammar. That is, you know how to put words together in a sensible order and add the right endings. Whether or not you've ever opened a grammar book, you know how to produce combinations of sounds and letters that others can understand. After all, English was used for a thousand years before the first grammar books ever appeared.
But how much do you know about grammar? And, really, why should anybody bother to learn about grammar at all?
Knowing about grammar, says David Crystal in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (Cambridge University Press, 2003), means "being able to talk about what it is we are able to do when we construct sentences--to describe what the rules are, and what happens when they fail to apply."
In the Cambridge Encyclopedia (one of our Top 10 Reference Works for Writers and Editors), Crystal spends several hundred pages examining all aspects of the English language, including its history and vocabulary, regional and social variations, and the differences between spoken and written English.
But it's the chapters on English grammar that are central to his book, just as grammar itself is central to any study of language. Crystal opens his chapter on "Grammar Mythology" with a list of six reasons to study grammar--reasons worth pausing to think about.

• Accepting the Challenge
  "Because It's There." People are constantly curious about the world in which they live, and wish to understand it and (as with mountains) master it. Grammar is no different from any other domain of knowledge in this respect.


• Being Human
  But more than mountains, language is involved with almost everything we do as human beings. We cannot live without language. To understand the linguistic dimension of our existence would be no mean achievement. And grammar is the fundamental organizing principle of language.


• Exploring Our Creative Ability
  Our grammatical ability is extraordinary. It is probably the most creative ability we have. There is no limit to what we can say or write, yet all of this potential is controlled by a finite number of rules. How is this done?


• Solving Problems
  Nonetheless, our language can let us down. We encounter ambiguity, and unintelligible speech or writing. To deal with these problems, we need to put grammar under the microscope, and work out what went wrong. This is especially critical when children are learning to emulate the standards used by educated adult members of their community.


• Learning Other Languages
  Learning about English grammar provides a basis for learning other languages. Much of the apparatus we need to study English turns out to be of general usefulness. Other languages have clauses, tenses, and adjectives too. And the differences they display will be all the clearer if we have first grasped what is unique to our mother tongue.


• Increasing Our Awareness
  After studying grammar, we should be more alert to the strength, flexibility, and variety of our language, and thus be in a better position to use it and to evaluate others' use of it. Whether our own usage in fact improves, as a result, is less predictable. Our awareness must improve, but turning that awareness into better practice--by speaking and writing more effectively--requires an additional set of skills. Even after a course on car mechanics, we can still drive carelessly.

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, "Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language." If that sounds a bit too lofty, we might return to the simpler words of William Langland in his 14th century poem The Vision of Piers Plowman: "Grammer, the ground of al."

How to Improve Your Englsih

Learning English (or any language for that matter) is a process. You are continually improving your English and the following "How to" describes a strategy to make sure that you continue to improve effectively.

Difficulty: Average

Time Required: Varies

Here's How:

1. Remember that learning a language is a gradual process - it does not happen overnight.
2. Define your learning objectives early: What do you want to learn and why?
3. Make learning a habit. Try to learn something every day. It is much better to study (or read, or listen to English news, etc.) 10 minutes each day than to study for 2 hours once a week.
4. Remember to make learning a habit! If you study each day for 10 minutes English will be constantly in your head. If you study once a week, English will not be as present in your mind.
5. Choose your materials well. You will need reading, grammar, writing, speaking and listening materials
6. Vary your learning routine. It is best to do different things each day to help keep the various relationships between each area active. In other words, don't just study grammar.
7. Find friends to study and speak with. Learning English together can be very encouraging.
8. Choose listening and reading materials that relate to what you are interested in. Being interested in the subject will make learning more enjoyable - thus more effective.
9. Relate grammar to practical usage. Grammar by itself does not help you USE the language. You should practice what you are learning by employing it actively.
10. Move your mouth! Understanding something doesn't mean the muscles of your mouth can produce the sounds. Practice speaking what you are learning aloud. It may seem strange, but it is very effective.
11. Be patient with yourself. Remember learning is a process - speaking a language well takes time. It is not a computer that is either on or off!
12. Communicate! There is nothing like communicating in English and being successful. Grammar exercises are good - having your friend on the other side of the world understand your email is fantastic!
13. Use the Internet. The Internet is the most exciting, unlimited English resource that anyone could imagine and it is right at your finger tips.

Tips:

1. Remember that English learning is a process
2. Be patient with yourself
3. Practice, practice, practice

How to Learn English Effectively

There are many ways to study English, but many students ask which is the most effective. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a single answer that is right for every student. However ... I can certainly give advice I some helpful guidelines as to how to study that should help.
Warming-up to Study English
Just as there are exercises to help you warm up before you play some basketball or other sport, there are exercises which can help you warm up to study English. Here are some simple exercises to help you warm up.

• Study English I: Activating Your Vocabulary
  Activate your vocabulary by thinking or speaking briefly about the subject you are about to work on. For example, if you are going to study English on topics that focuses on vacations, take a moment to think about your last vacation, what you did, what you enjoyed, etc. This simple exercise will help your brain warm-up to vocabulary that you are likely to encounter as you study English about this particular subject.
  
• Study English II: Activating Your Grammar
  Activate your grammar by thinking about the general grammar area before you begin to study. For example, if you are going to study English grammar focusing on the past, stop to think about what you did last weekend, where you went, etc. to help activate what you already understand about using the past. As with activating vocabulary, you'll help your brain bring up what it knows about the past simple in an easy way before you begin to focus on studying English grammar in detail.
  
• Study English III: Singing a Song
  Before class begins, or before you sit down to study English sing a song in English to yourself. Make sure to use a song that you understand and know very well. This short and fun exercise will help your brain focus on the English language in a relaxing manner. It's important to be relaxed when you study English! Singing a song also helps activate the creative side of your brain which can help you come up with more examples as your practice conversation or do some creative writing.
  
• Study English IV: Typing e a Short Paragraph in English
  If you going to study English at your desk, begin by typing a simple paragraph in English. You can type about your day, your hobbies, your friends, etc. Anything will do. Typing helps activate the kinetic part of your brain that helps improve learning through physical activity. I also recommend typing while you study your English grammar. This will help solidify your knowledge with movement.
  
• Study English V: A Thousand Words ...
  As the saying goes in English: A picture is worth a thousand words. Help activate the creative side of your brain by trying to describe a photo or other image. You can combine use this also to activate your vocabulary by choosing a picture that has something to do with the subject your are going to study in English.
  

Study English - Tips for Success Here are some tips for success to help you as you study English.

• Study English Every Day
  It's important to study English every day. However, don't exaggerate! Study for thirty minutes every day instead of two hours once a week. Short, steady practice is much better for learning than long periods on an irregular basis. This habit of studying English every day will help keep English in your brain fresh.
  
• Study English Using Different Methods to Learn Don't just use one way to study English. Use a variety of methods which will help all the parts of your brain (multiple intelligences) help you. For example, if you are learning new vocabulary, create a word map, describe a picture, make a list and study that, type out the words five times. All of these methods together help to reinforce your learning.
  
• Study English by Finding some Friends
  There is nothing like having a few friends to study English together. You can practice the exercises together, have conversations together (in English!), and, as you study English together, help each other with exercises you may not understand.
  
• Study English by Choosing Topics that Interest You One of the most important things to do is to study English using topics that you like. This will help motivate you because you will also be learning about a topic you find interesting while you study English.
  

Mengapa Kemampuan Bahasa Inggris Saya Kurang Berkembang?

By Swara Bhaskara on May 14, 2009 • 00:15 126 Comments

Saya telah diajar/belajar bahasa Inggris sejak SMP (atau mungkin sejak TK), tapi mengapa Kemampuan Bahasa Inggris Saya Kurang Berkembang? What’s wrong with me? Pertanyaan ini mungkin sering menggerogoti fikiran anda karena bahasa Inggris anda masih mentok di situ dan tidak kunjung meningkat. Jika memang demikian adanya, anda semestinya perlu bersyukur karena dengan adanya pertanyaan seperti itu, di dada anda masih ada gelora untuk bisa. You just keep on trying! Walaupun bahasa Inggris memang kompleks (i.e. karena vocab yang banyak, pronunciation yang tidak konsinten, banyak perkecualian, etc.) but jika orang lain bisa kenapa anda tidak? Yang perlu dicaritahu sekarang adalah apa yang salah; apakah metodenya, tingkat keseriusan, ataukah mungkin karena alasan lainnya? Setelah diketahui penyebabnya, barulah kemudian dicari solusinya.

4 Penyebab Kemampuan Bahasa Inggris Sulit Meningkat

Menurut hemat saya, penyebab utama kenapa kemampuan berbahasa Inggris kita sulit meningkat hanya ada 4.

1. Kebiasaan berbahasa Indonesia yang (maaf) jelek.

Kalau kita ngomong atau nulis, pada umumnya kita suka muter-muter (not to the point) dan tidak terstruktur, sehingga sering kita tidak tahu mana main subject, main verb, dan seterusnya. Lho, apa hubungannya dengan bahasa Inggris? Jawabannya ada di poin berikut!

2. Karena kita menggunakan lebih dari satu partisi.

Ketika berbahasa Inggris, baik via speaking maupun writing, kita umumnya mempartisi otak kita menjadi 2, yaitu partisi A untuk bahasa Indonesia dan partisi B untuk bahasa Inggris. Pertama-tama kalimat dibuat dulu di partisi A, baru kemudian diekspor dan ditranslate di partisi B sebelum akhirnya diekspresikan lewat speaking or writing. Efeknya adalah pola atau grammar yang sudah susah-payah dipelajari sejak SMP menjadi terlupakan karena partisi B terlalu sibuk mentraslate kata demi kata yang dibuat di partisi A. Dan, karena kalimat bahasa Indonesianya muter-muter dan tidak terstruktur, partisi B menjadi tambah pusing dalam melakukan translasi. Akibatnya, partisi B sering hang (macet) dan no output yang dihasilkan. Kalau pun partisi B menghasilkan output, output tersebut umumnya masih jauh di bawah standar, alias bahasa Inggris yang jelek. Selain itu, lawan bicara biasanya sudah tertidur dimakan nyamuk karena kelamaan nunggu.

3. Motivasi yang tidak konsisten. Bagi pelajar, motivasi untuk belajar bahasa Inggris pada umumnya hanya karena ingin mendapat nilai bagus. Artinya, bahasa Inggris hanya dipelajari waktu mau ujian, dan setelah ujian selesai bukunya sudah mengendap entah dimana.

4. Metode belajar bahasa Inggris yang kurang tepat. Jika hanya mengandalkan daya hafal, your English will not get better.

Lantas apa solusinya?

Gunakan partisi B saja dan lupakan partisi A.

Dengan menggunakan satu partisi, grammar anda tidak akan terkontaminasi oleh struktur bahasa Indonesia anda yang jelek (jika misalnya memang jelek) dan komunikasi akan menjadi lebih lancar karena berkurangnya birokrasi di dalam otak anda. Dengan bermodalkan struktur bahasa dan vocabs yang telah dipelajari sejak SMP sebenarnya kita sudah dapat berkomunikasi dengan santai. Believe or not? Kalau tidak percaya, silakan buat list dulu! Kelompokkan words yang sudah anda tahu ke dalam nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, dan articles, kemudian total. Saya yakin vocabs anda sudah jauh di atas 1000. And you know what? Dengan menguasai 1000 words saja, kita sebenarnya sudah dapat komunikasi dengan lancar, baik di sekolah, di rumah, di mall, di bar, atau bahkan di dalam mimpi. Dengan catatan, jika anda merasa menemui jalan buntu, revisi saja kalimatnya dengan menggunakan words yang lain. Ingat, ketika komunikasi dalam bahasa inggris, just use what you’ve got dan lupakan bahasa Indonesia. Anda akan rasakan bedanya.

Keep your motivation steadily high.

Dengan motivasi yang tinggi, anda akan merasa enjoy (tidak merasa terpaksa) untuk menghabiskan waktu berjam-jam membaca atau menghafal grammar, membuka dictionary, dan praktek bahasa inggris. Jika anda cepat merasa bosan, itu berarti motivasi anda belum cukup tinggi. Kalau saya dulu, sekedar contoh, motivasi itu tinggi karena saya sangat ingin sekolah gratis di luar negeri. Lalu, apa motivasi anda belajar bahasa Inggris?

Karena bahasa Inggris sangat kompleks, tentu saja butuh waktu untuk mempelajarinya. Banyak teman kita menyerah di tengah jalan karena kurang sabaran, karena terlalu ingin tiba di garis finish dalam waktu yang singkat. Saran saya, don’t be too ambitious to touch the finish line in a very short time! Hal ini selain akan membuat fondasi grammar anda tidak kokoh, juga dapat mematahkan motivasi anda. Rileks saja, sooner or later you will get there.

Use good learning media that fit you.

Media belajar yang tepat tergantung pada karakter dan lifestyle seseorang. Media yang tepat untuk orang lain belum tentu tepat untuk anda, begitu juga sebaliknya. Berikut adalah beberapa saran saya dalam memilih dan memanfaatkan media yang ada:

1. Jangan gunakan kamus yang hanya berisikan arti kata saja (i.e. can = dapat, month = bulan, plough = membajak, etc). Why? Karena kalimat-kalimat yang anda buat biasanya salah. Coba perhatikan ke-3 contoh kalimat berikut, yang salahnya kemungkinan besar akibat dari penggunaan kamus seperti itu:

• You must can (Kamu harus bisa)
• The month goes round the earth (Bulan mengitari bumi)
• Three people ploughed the airplane (Tiga orang membajak pesawat itu).

2. Jika anda suka dengarkan lagu-lagu barat then keep doing so, dan jika anda tidak dapat nangkap lirycs-nya, silakan cari di internet. Berikut adalah manfaat dari mendengarkan lagu berbahasa Inggris:

• Dapat meningkatkan listening skill anda.
• Dapat mengetahui how a certain word is pronounced.
• Dapat membantu membangun vocabs anda karena kata-kata di dalam lagu lebih lama melengket di dalam memori anda, apalagi lagu-lagu tersebut bertemakan love.
• Dapat membantu mengingat pola-pola kalimat tertetu. Misalnya, dari lagunya the Corrs berjudul “What can I do” dapat kita jadikan acuan tentang penggunaan modal candalam kalimat tanya. Dan pola apa yang anda dapatkan dari lagu “It Must’ve Been Love” oleh Roxette berikut ini?
  
• Ketika anda bersenandung kecil di kamar mandi, anda sesungguhnya sedang practice speaking, membentuk pola, etc.

3. Jika anda suka nonton DVD, then watch DVD movies. Sub-title dari DVD movies tersebut akan membantu anda memahami bagaimana kata-kata tertentu dilafalkan. Pilihlah movies yang paling bagus menurut anda sehingga anda tidak merasa bosan untuk mutarnya lagi.

4. Gunakan fasilitas chatting, email, or whatever that uses English.

5. Visit Swara Bhaskara’s English or other English learning sites regularly untuk mendiskusikan English problems you just encountered. Dan ketika berdiskusi,  sebaiknya comment ditulis dalam bahasa Inggris. The more often you write in English, the better, karena:

Practice makes perfect.

Sekedar ilustrasi, dua dara manis ini adalah peserta Special Olympics yang  IQ-nya di bawah rata-rata tapi kenapa bahasa Inggris kedua dara  ini lebih baik dari kita? Anda pasti sudah tahu jawabannya. Yupers, karena mereka menggunakan bahasa Inggris jauh lebih sering dibandingkan dengan kita. Dengan kata lain, karena they practice English much more frequently than we do.

That’s all and good luck.http://swarabhaskara.com/miscellaneous/mengapa-kemampuan-bahasa-inggris-saya-kurang-berkembang/

ISTILAH-ISTILAH DALAM BAHASA INGGRIS

Relative Clause            : Anak Kalimat
Relative Adverb            : Kata Ganti Keterangan
Relative Pronoun        : Kata ganti penghubung
Compound word        : Kata majemuk
Pronoun                     : Kata ganti
Possessive pronoun        : Kata ganti kepunyaan
Reflective pronoun        : Kata ganti refleksif
Introgative pronoun        : kata ganti Tanya
Demonstrative pronoun        :Kata ganti tunjuk
Personal pronoun        : Kata ganti orang
Possessive adjective        : Kata sifat milik
Preposition            : Kata depan
Singular                : Bentuk tunggal
Singular noun            : Kata benda tunggal
Plural                : Bentuk jamak
Plural noun            : Benda jamak
Plural form            : Bentuk jamak
Countable noun            : Benda yang dapat dihitung
Uncountable noun        : Benda yang tidak dapat dihitung
Substitute            : Pengganti
Auxiliary verb            : Kata kerja bantu
Conditional clause        : Anak kalimat pengandaian

CAUSATIVE

Causative
Causative adalah Kalimat yang menyatakan bahwa orang lain lah yang melakukan pekerjaan untuk subjek kalimat. Bentuk Causative ini beraneka ragam. Anda dapat menggunakan salah satu dari penjelasan di bawah ini:

1.    Active Causative
a.    Causative "Have"

Rumus: Subject + have/has + someone + kata kerja Bentuk I

Contoh:

1.    I have him clean my shoes (saya menyuruhnya membersihkan sepatuku)
2.    Mary has George climbs the tree
3.    You must have Susie study hard

b.    Causative "Get"

Rumus: Subject + Get + someone + to infinitive

Contoh:

1.    He gets John to brush the shoes
2.    They get me to wash the clothes
3.    She will get Anne to accompany her to the party tomorrow

2.    Passive Causative

Rumus: Subject + have/get + object + kata kerja Bentuk III

Contoh:

1.    The government got the bridge built quickly
2.    We must have the floor cleaned as soon as possible

Tambahan:

a.    Causative "Make"

Penggunaannya sama dengan causative di atas, namun perintahnya lebih keras (sedikit memaksa)

Rumus: Subject + Make + someone + Kata kerja bentuk I

Contoh:

1.    The teacher always makes the students stay in their own seats
2.    Bob made his son be quiet in the library

b.    Causative "Want"

Rumus: Subject + Want + object + Kata Kerja Bentuk III

Contoh:

1.    I  want  this chairs painted (saya mau kursi-kursi ini dicat)
2.    He wants the cars repaired

CAUSATIVE

HAVE & GET

Causative adalah kalimat yang digunakan untuk menyuruh orang lain untuk mengerjakan sesuatu. Bentuk suruhan ini ada dua macam, yaitu menggunakan bentuk “have(has/had) dan get (gets/got).

Tiga bentuk Causative menggunakan “Get” dan “Have”

1.    Causative Menggunakan Get dengan obyek orang/manusia

Bentuk kalimat :

S + get(gets/got) + orang + to infinitive

Contoh :
Yesterday, he got the woman to wash the shirt.

2.    Causative Menggunakan Have dengan Obyek orang/manusia
Bentuk kalimat :

S + have (has/had) + orang + Verb1

Contoh :
Yesterday, he had the woman wash the shirt.

3.    Causative Menggunakan Get atau Have dengan Obyek Benda
Apabila have/get diikuti obyek pasif(benda), maka bentuk kalimat :

S + have /Get + benda + Verb3

Contoh :
I get my motorcycle repaired.

Catatan :
Bentuk Have dam get bisa berubah tenses menjadi had, will have, got dan sebagainya, tanpa mengubah verb(kata kerja) yang mengikutinya.
Hal yang pertama dilihat dari Causative adalah obyek yang mengikuti have/get. Jika obyek yang mengikuti adalah benda, maka bisa dipastikan Verb nya ada pada bentuk ketiga (V3). Sedangkan jika orang/manusia maka tergantung yang digunakan, jika Get pasti menggunakan to infinitive kalau Have menggunakan Verb1

How to Teach English For Different Learning Styles

How to Teach English For Different Learning Styles

You come into class to teach a lesson on the simple present tense, or maybe it's a vocabulary lesson or conversation practice. You follow your textbook and give great examples to illustrate your points and have plenty of practice worksheets – but no matter what you do there are always two or three students who just don't get it. What is going wrong? Why aren't you getting through? The answer may well lie in your students' learning styles. 
Learning styles have been studied for decades and there are several models that have been proposed by various researchers. While the finer distinctions are still debated, most authorities in the field generally agree upon four basic learning styles: auditory learners, visual learners, kinesthetic learners, and tactile learners. There is a great deal of overlap between the kinesthetic and tactile learning styles, and they will be treated together here. 
As a teacher, what do learning styles mean for you? First of all, you need to find your main teaching style. Whether you lecture or do role-plays or worksheets, you need to figure out your own style so that you can supplement it to fit your students' learning styles. Of course, in order to supplement you need materials and activities. You need flexibility and ideally you want to add some fun. That is where English games come in. The variety of games, as well as their integration of different ways of learning makes them the perfect supplements for you your usual teaching style. 
Auditory Learners 
Students who get a lot out of lectures, verbal explanations, tapes and oral instruction are generally classed as auditory learners. Language games for this type of learner are mainly listening based. They include games that involve repetition, dictation, and listening for clues.
Recitation games – These games are any games that involve students repeating language they have had demonstrated or written down for them. Chinese Whispers, Jazz Chants, and Karaoke Night are good examples of these kinds of games. Karaoke Night is an especially good game in Japan, where most students will be used to the idea of singing for workmates. It's not unusual to have a student ask you for help with preparing a song in English for a business party. 
If you are you teach adults who are more conservative, use a variation of Jazz Chants with a short rhythmic dialog and a metronome, or hand clapping, and emphasize the fluency practice. You might also teach a lesson on the history of jazz in the United States. That kind of lesson works very well in classes where students are studying English as a hobby, or for travel.
Listening games – EFL Students studying English in their own country often express concern that they can understand their teacher but not other native speakers. In the language classroom you can practice listening by using tapes or videos with short dialogs for listening games like Vocabulary Scavenger Hunt, which involves trying to locate the necessary vocabulary words on multiple tapes at different listening stations. 
There are also Cloze Passages where the students listen to a prepared tape while reading a transcription and filling in any blanks with words they have just heard, and Jigsaw Listening. Jigsaw listening is also an excellent team building game, as the teams send representatives to different listening stations, and then try to reconstruct the story when all the listeners have returned to the team. These kinds of games also help students learn how to make use of TV and radio broadcasts in English to practice on their own.
Quiz and story building games – Quiz games like Jeopardy, grammar knockout type games and listening memory games are great for auditory learners of any level, since you can go from basic questions like spelling and definitions, to more challenging ones like asking for a word to be used in a sentence, explanation of grammar rules, or cultural trivia. 
Another set of games to teach auditory learners are story and sentence building games like Madlibs, either the store bought variety, or homemade, where the students fill in words to make funny and nonsensical stories. These types of games require excellent listening skills as the student keeps track of what will be required in the next turn, plus they usually end with a verbal recap of the finished story or sentence allowing students to check their understanding. 
All these games are included in the English Language Games Digital Book for adults, a gold mine of games and activities for teens and adults! Visual Learners 
Visual learners prefer to read silently and make good use of any illustrations that go with the text. They will generally prefer you to teach with written instructions and will benefit from you acting out situations, watching a demonstration or presenting scenarios in videos. If you have a student who seems to retain what they read better than what they hear then that student is a perfect example of someone who prefers visual learning. There are many readily available language games that work with this kind of student, as well as helping non-visual learners make the most of visual cues that can help them with learning and using English.
Board games – There are plenty of commercial board games that can be used in the classroom, but you can also make your own. "Folder games" involve making a game board, often based on commercial boards, and using them to practice grammar, vocabulary, phonics, and spelling. The boards can be laminated onto a manila folder and then the pieces and cards needed for the game stuck in a baggie stapled to the inside. Grammatical Chutes and Ladders, Parts of Speech Path Finding (based on the Candy Land Board), and A Day in the Life (based on the game Life) where students participate in mini-role-plays generated by the roll of the die and scenario cards are all fun to play. The boards should not be decorated in a childish way, since that will turn off your adult students, but they can still be colorful.
Picture games – These games include anything played with pictures as their main starting point. Playing games with picture flashcards, or adapting Jeopardy to use picture prompts is one example. Another one that is a lot of fun with advanced students is picture captioning or comic strip re-writes. If you use comics from different countries, you can get into some very sophisticated discussions about what constitutes humor in different countries. Many students get to a certain level of advanced English, and then plateau. One reason for this is that they have a difficult time taking their English outside of academic or basic survival situations. Studying humor through these visual games can help to bridge that gap.
Reading games – Reading is an essential skill for all students and will work especially well with visual learners. Language games like Reading Treasure Hunts with color-coded pencils, where the students look for particular parts of speech or vocabulary, teaches skimming as well as reviewing grammar and/or vocabulary. Ten Important Sentences with Watermelon, where teams send a representative to put sentences in order, helps with summarizing, working under pressure, and team building. This game has the added bonus of fitting tactile learners as well. 
All these games are included in the English Language Games Digital Book for adults with 175 games and activities with printable appendix of ready-made accessories!
Tactile and Kinesthetic Learners 
Tactile and Kinesthetic learners are often the students who just don't get what you're trying to teach in a traditional lecture or worksheet based lesson. Kinesthetic learners take in information best when they use their whole bodies to complete practice exercises. Tactile learners are also physical learners, but they are more likely to learn things form model building and hands on instruction. 
Interestingly, there was a study done in the late 1980s (Reid, 1987) that found the self-reported preference among English Language Learners for language lessons was Tactile/Kinesthetic by a wide margin. This just goes to show how important it is to try and integrate more physical and experiential elements into our English lessons. 
What makes a game kinesthetic or tactile? Look for games that involve whole body responses, or have the students touching and moving things around as part of the game activity. Games with these elements are associating physical activity and touch with specific meanings. They can be divided into three broad groups: Touch Games, Spatial Games, and Craft Games.
Touch Games – The most common games involving touch are those based around having real items inside a bag, so that students have to touch the items and then perform certain tasks. These tasks are what differentiate the level of difficulty. The easiest version simply has students identify the objects that they touch in the bag. This is often a vocabulary game. To make it more difficult, the students have to describe what they are feeling, while the rest of the class tries to guess what it is.
Spatial Games – These games involve rearranging items or people and can be both kinesthetic and tactile. They include traditional games like charades and less traditional games, like Population Punctuation, where all but one person in class has a card with words or punctuation on it and the one person who is 'it' tries to arrange the people at the front of the class so that the cards make a correctly punctuated sentence using as many people as possible. 
Craft Games – Any game where the students have to actually assemble something, like Lego Negotiations where students have to negotiate with other teams for certain pieces to create their Lego creature according to the directions they've been given. This can be done with home made tangrams if you don't have access to Legos. Map drawing is another good example, and it can also combine elements of auditory learning since the teacher will tell the students what to draw on their map. 
Variety Brings Success Language games are the single easiest way to address different learning styles in the classroom. By putting students at ease, and stimulating their senses, you create a wealth of learning opportunities. These opportunities aren't just for learning language, but also for broadening the students' learning styles to include those that aren't the first choice. 
Will paying attention to learning styles solve all your classroom problems? No, of course not. But using games to diversify your teaching style will allow you to reach more of your students more effectively than ever before. It will cut down on boredom as it increases student interest, and it will give students essential practice in integrating different learning styles into their own style. Students will be doing more than just expanding their English when they play games. They will be expanding their minds.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Shelley Vernon promotes learning through English language games and activities.  Go to: 175 ESL Games and Activities for Teens and Adults

Developing Teachers

Is it a Challenge Teaching English to Students in Vocational Schools?

This article appeared in the ELT News, Issue 42, October, 2000, published by Teachers of English in Austria/The British Council, Vienna
Having worked for the past 10 years in the training of vocational school teachers, I felt this question should be addressed in order to define appropriate methodology used to prepare teachers for their work in vocational schools. Training of teachers takes part at both the 'Berufspädogogishe Akademie' (BPA) and the 'Pädagogisches Institut', implying the necessity to discover which methods should be incorporated into a training module at the BPA. Unlike other educational facilities in Austria for modern secondary schools and grammar schools, there is no clear definition of pre-service and in-service training for the vocational school teachers who teach English. Because vocational school teachers are not actually 'English teachers', the majority of teachers who attend the 'Vorbereitungslehrgang' at the BPA had already had some experience in teaching English although most of them have not received any formal training as English teachers.
Therefore with the beginning of a new 'Lehrgang', we decided to make some changes in our goals and subsequently the structure of the training module in order to bring the training more in line with the reality of the school day. In order to find out what happens in schools I interviewed several English teachers by asking them several questions. The questions and the answers I received are printed below.

1) Are your students motivated? How can you help their motivation?

• At the beginning of the year they were not motivated. I tried to motivate them by answering the question, 'Why should I learn a foreign language at all?'

• English is fun for most students; they see it as necessary to understand pop music and for their holidays. I motivate them by using authentic situations that come up in shops or workshops. Part of the lessons are held in the 'training shop' at school and we teach some of the specialized subjects, such as sales techniques in English.

• Most students are not motivated. We can motivate them by teaching only general topics because they feel this is the English they need.

• Older students who have already completed an apprenticeship in another field ask for more job-related topics in English.
2) How do you teach to different levels of students?

• Sometimes I divide the group into beginners and advanced students (if there are about 50% in each group).

• We form mixed ability groups - we provide different tasks for different levels.

• We give advanced students extra work and have them help the beginners.

• We prepare the topics differently for different levels.

• I use almost the same methods, but gear them to different levels. For example, a game can be used to teach various grammar structures or vocabulary to different levels of students.
3) Do you teach differently to different learner types?

• We try to prepare our lessons so that every type of learner is involved.

• We have been aware for a long time that each pupil learns differently and we create lessons to accommodate these differences.

• I try to offer different types of learners (visual, auditory and kinesthetic types) a chance to understand the material in the form in which they prefer it.

4) Is there support for English from school authorities, companies, the BPA and the PI?

• Teachers must be pro-active, take advantage of courses, seminars, offers, etc.

• Teachers must be ready to make suggestions as well.

• Yes, there is a little help from the P.I.

• We get help from our colleagues.

5) What types of teaching materials are available in your school? Do you need a lot of supplementary material or do you have what you need?

• Most schools have a budget for materials - teachers can make recommendations concerning what should be bought for the school.

• We have a library and a collection of grammar materials.

• We have videos, songs, cooperative games
SThe supplementary material we use are magazines, the internet, material we collected on trips to the U.K.
6) What would you say is one of the most challenging things about your job?

• Motivating my students.

• Making sure that students enjoy learning.

• Most of the students don't want to be in school. It is our task to make them understand the importance of what they learn with us and how it can help them to be successful in their future careers.
When looking directly at the problems faced in this field, it is clear that we teacher trainers have an even greater challenge to face. It is absolutely necessary for us to present more possibilities and materials which teachers can use, give teachers ideas which they can adapt to their particular teaching situation and work on helping teachers build their own self-confidence.