Grammar Exercise 1

What do you think of Grammar?

Is it important to study it?

      Yes, of course. It is very important, especially for those who want to study abroad in English speaking country. Here are some questions on Grammar that were given by my dear lecturer, Mr. Martono. He is a lecturer in UNS. Let's try to do them :)

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1.       Though sporadic interest in regional dialects _____ for centuries, the first large-scale systematic studies did not take place until the nineteenth century.

(A) has existed                              

(B) it existed

(C) has it existed                          

(D) existing with it

2.        __________irritating effect on humans, the use of phenol as a general antiseptic has been largely discontinued.

(A) Its                                         

(B) Because of its   

(C) Since its                                 

(D) Where its

The Importance of Pronunciation in English School Books

Primanda Dewanti

Abstract

Pronunciation is one of the most important language elements for students in studying English. Ideally, teachers should provide activities which can improve students’ pronunciation. However, most of the school teachers nowadays do not pay much attention to it, so that they rarely provide pronunciation-improving activities. Pronunciation is merely inserted in the school curriculum in the speaking skill. Furthermore, only a few school books provide it. This article will attempt to see about (1) the definition of pronunciation and its aspects, (2) why English teachers neglect it, (3) how to solve the problem, and (4) what activities can be involved in school books. Hopefully, the article provides enough information for students, teachers, and the policy maker of curriculum that pronunciation is very important in English learning.

Keywords: pronunciation, school books.

Tenses

Assalamu'alaikum.
Good morning, everyone! I hope you're doing well.

This is my first post in Ramadhan. In this post, I want to write about tenses.

Some people say that tenses are very difficult to learn. Indeed, they are right. Tenses are difficult. However, we can learn it easily by breaking down the aspects of each component in a tense.

Psycholinguistics: Language Acquisition

Today we will present our short presentation about Psycholinguistics in Linguistics class.  I have been studying for two days to understand it. I have read books about Linguistics, but I get a problem to understand the book. It is easier for me to google it since I will meet some articles which are easier to understand.

Psycholinguistics is the psychology of language. From the name we will conclude that it is a combination between Psychology and Linguistics. Yes, it is an interdisciplinary between them. However, it is not a study of the language employed in Psychology field, but the study of psychological factors that enable human to acquire, use, understand, and even produce a language. It concerns with the relatioship between the human mind and the language. It examines the process in our brain while we are receiving and producing language both in written and spoken.

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ GRAMMAR IN WRITING USING PEER-CORRECTION METHOD

Primanda Dewanti

English is taught in Junior High School in Indonesia as a foreign language. It has four skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Writing skill is an important part of communication. It is also an important part to learn for a seventh grader at the junior high school. Sometimes it becomes a big matter for some students to write something effectively. Most of them say that they cannot do it well. However, McKay in his article entitled Why Writing Skills Are Important says that writing effectively is a skill that can be learned. It is quite very different from writing literary works such as poetry, prose, or drama which are said talent-based writing. It is just a matter for the teacher to find the right method to teach it well. Teaching writing in junior high school, especially in the seventh grade, can be started by applying the simple words and structure. It is quite necessary for the teacher to use almost the same words and structure with the ones in the conversation. From the quotation above, it can be concluded that it is possible to teach writing effectively in the school especially using the easy and affordable materials. If the words or sentence structure are not convenient to speak, it is better for us to use another one in writing.

Educational Statistics

I'm not good in Math.

I decided to study in English Education program some years ago since I imagined that I would not meet any subject  related to Math. In the first, second, third, and fourth semester I was right. I didn't meet it. However, in my fifth semester, everything changed. I met Math again although in different subject title: Statistics. 

DEVELOPING ENGLISH PHONEMIC CHART MULTIMEDIA TO TEACH PRONUNCIATION

Primanda Dewanti

English is taught in junior high school in Indonesia. One of the elements is pronunciation. Pronunciation takes an important role in communication because it is a useful basis for a person to understand what other people say. Ideally, in their first year of junior high school, the students are able to pronounce every single word they have learned correctly. It is based on some reasons. First, incorrect pronunciation may lead into a misunderstanding. Kelly (2000: 11) says that a learner who consistently mispronounces a range of phonemic can be extremely difficult for a speaker from another language community to understand. Second, pronunciation is the first elements for someone to know how good our English is. A person will be considered as a good English speaker in the first impression from his pronunciation. Grammar and vocabulary usually become secondarily noticed. From the things mentioned above, it is now clear that pronunciation is very significant in English. It is strongly suggested for every single student to master it well from the very beginning they learn the language.