Lesson 3

Lesson 3

Simple Present Tense ----->  Verb to be

Singular                                             Plural

I               am                                    We  

You           are                                    You                   are

He                           

She           is                                      They        

It

Name:    

        Male                                                  Female

        Ali   Ahmad  Bob  Ben                         Alice   Alina  Betty  Becky

        Kalvin   David  Hassan                                May  Mary  Jill  Jean   Joan

        James  Jack  Joe                                Helen  Helena 

Gender:     

        Male                                                  Female

        brother                                              sister

        father                                                mother

        grandfather                                       grandmother

        boy                                                   girl

        man                                                  woman

        son                                                   daughter

        uncle                                                 aunt

        husband                                            wife

nephew                                             niece

        actor                                                 actress

        sir                                                     madam

        Mr                                                    Mrs / Ms

        waiter                                                waitress

        bull                                                   cow

cock                                                  hen

        dog                                                   bitch

Occupations:

barber          butcher          carpenter      chef       clerk         dentist           doctor          factory worker  farmer    fishmonger     florist        fireman        grocer              greengrocer       hairdresser      headmaster      hawker          miner       nurse           pilot          policeman      sailor shepherd       tailor        teacher          typist            

Adjectives:

angry – pleased         alive – dead               asleep – awake         

beautiful – ugly          big – small                 bent – straight  

black – white              blunt – sharp             bright – dull              

cheap – dear              clean - dirty                clever – stupid

cold – hot                  dark – bright              deep - shallow

dry – wet                  early – late                 empty - full

fair – dark                  fresh – stale               fat – thin  

happy – sad               hard – soft                 heavy – light

high – low                  inside – outside          kind – cruel

large – small              lazy – hardworking     little – much

long – short               loud – soft                 noisy – quiet

open – shut               north – south             old – new

polite – rude              poor – rich                         quick – slow

right – left / wrong      rough – smooth         safe – dangerous

same – different         strong – weak            straight – crooked

sweet – sour              tame – wild                tall – short

thick – thin                tight – loose               tiny – huge

top – bottom              true – false                        wide – narrow

well – ill                     young - old               

You use Verb-to-be “am / is / are” when you want to Introduce yourself,  talk about Age,  Gender/ Relationship and Occupations.    You use Adjectives  when you describe a person, an animal, thing or place.  

In the English language, the verb decides the sentence pattern.   So attention is needed for the [Subject /P1] and Verb.

I  am Jean.          I am a girl.  I am 5 years old.  I am in Kinder One.  Joan is my sister.  She is 7 years old.  James is my brother.  He is 9 years old.  They  are pupils in a Chinese Primary school.  We are polite and hardworking.  We are happy and jovial every day.

For Time,  Place and Event/Festival, we use “It is”

Oh!  It is 6:30 a.m. now.   It is time for breakfast.  It is Monday today.  It Mid-winter Festival tomorrow.   I shall have glutinous rice balls for breakfast tomorrow.  To be honest, I never like glutinous rice balls.  But it is the tradition of my family.  We have to eat them whether you like them or not.

Note:

They may learn Adjectives through creating a story with pictures/ draw cartoons/ using multimedia.  Make the story as interesting as possible.    For vocabulary, you have to learn in meaningful contexts to remember them.   For example:

For the words: 

lazy – hardworking;  polite – rude;  noisy – quiet;

        clean – dirty;   fat – thin;   asleep - awake

         

        Jinzie was a seven years old boy.  He was fat and he was a lazy boy.   He never cared to do his work properly.  He  seldom did his homework.  He never cared to help his parents.  He never cared to keep himself clean.  He seldom took a bath.  Thus he was dirty and smelly. 

Besides, he was rude.  He always shouted at people and teased others.  He was noisy as he always made a lot of noise.   As a result, he had no friends in school and in his neighbourhood.  He was lonely and sad.

        One day,  he felt itchy all over his body.   He felt uncomfortable all the time.  That night, he had a bad dream.  He dreamt that there were worms all over his body.  They bored holes in his body and ate his skin.  He was so frightened that he screamed and woke up from his dream.

        Jinzie decided to change his bad habits.  First, he should learn to eat less.  Second, he did his homework and helped his parents whenever he could.  He took a bath every day.  He brushed his teeth twice a day.  He washed his face every morning before he went to school.  He was clean and neat.

        He learnt to be polite and helpful.   He no longer made noise in class to disturb others.  Slowly, he made friends.  He was no longer lonely and sad.  He was happy and had many friends.

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Note:

Some may think that it is too hard for Kinders.  Well, I believe they have learnt all these adjectives in their mother tongue.  I believe they can understand the story easily.  So the only task is to view the forms of all these adjectives in another language.  Reading aloud the story to them is a good practice for listening.  Of course, there must be enough repetition and rehearsal until they can read aloud themselves. 

        You may even ask them to retell the story in bits for fun and practice.  You don’t need to explain grammar at all.  The focus is knowing the adjectives in English forms and pronunciation to learn the language by hearing.