Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term - Senior Secondary School 1

TERM: FIRST TERM

SUBJECT: ENGLISH LANGUAGE

CLASS: SS 1

REFERENCES

• Effective English Book .1-Michael Montgomery et al.
• Countdown English – O. Ogunsanwo et al.
• Goodbye to Failure in English, Book 3 Ken Mebele et al.
• Communication in English – Blessing Dupe el al.

WEEK ONE

TOPIC: GENERAL REVISION OF LAST TERM’S EXAMINATION; REVIEW OF PARTS OF SPEECH- NOUN, PRONOUN, VERB ADJECTIVE, SPELLING; DOUBLING OF CONSONANTS

CONTENT 

A:  General revision of the last term’s work and examination: The teacher goes over the questions with the students and offers expected solution 

Reading Assignment:

Lexis and structure questions from WASSCE/NECO past questions

1. Review of Word Class- Parts of Speech

Noun- A noun is a naming word. It is a name of a person, animal, place, thing or and idea. Nouns also cover names like those of institutions, months and days, and abstract ideas. Below are examples of nouns:

Names of people: Uche, Peterson, Adebisi, Falase 

Names of places: Beijing, Meiran, Atan Ota, London, Sweden, Canada

Names of things: table, chair, house, lap top, radio etc

Names of Institutions: family, tribe, Christianity, Islam, university etc

Names of months and days: January, February, December, Sunday, Thursday, Friday.

Names of Abstract ideas: beauty, knowledge, emotion, hope, courage, wisdom, empathy etc.

FEATURES OF NOUNS:

1. Most nouns form their plurals with ending – ‘s’ or –‘es’: girl - girls, box - boxes, church – churches
2. Nouns are often used with articles, demonstratives and adjectives, e.g  a cup, an hour , a church, that house, black girl, some people.
3. Words that end with the following morphemes are usually often nouns-

• age- e,g damage, grainage, homage, image, stoppage.
• al-  e.g arrival, cabbinal, dismissal, mammal, refusal.
• tion- e.g action,option, association, imagination, admonition, composition.
• er- e,g adviser, marker, player, teacher, worker
• ery- machinery, slavery, stationery,
• titude- e.g servitude, solitude
• hood- boyhood, girlhood, childhood, womanhood
• like- childlike,
• ist- bicyclist, evangelist, motorist, socialist
• ity- ability brevity equity, impunity
• ment- arrangement, comment, establishment, government
• ness- firmess, fairness, laziness, 
• cy-  proficiency, ascendancy, profligacy, legacy, papacy
• ocracy- democracy, aristocracy, autocracy
• ism- Zionism, Feudalism, Nazism, Communism
• ship- scholarship, fellowship, followership, membership
• ster- gangster, trickster, youngster.

Types of Nouns

Proper Nouns: These name a SPECIFIC person, place or thing. Note that the first letter of every proper noun must be written in capital letter regardless of its position in a sentence. E.g  We will travel to Atan-Ota on Monday in the month of August. Proper nouns in the sentence above are: Atan-Ota, Monday and August.   

Examples of proper nouns are:

Names of persons- Ade, Obi, Chike,  

Names of places/countries- Ottawa in Canada, Oslo-Norway, Oshodi, Ado-Ekiti, Ibadan,

Days of the week and months of the years-January, December, Monday, Friday.

Note: The first letter of the proper noun must be written in capital letter regardless of its position in a sentence. 

Common Noun: This is the opposite of concrete noun. It is used to name things/person/places which are of general kinds. E.g boy, man, lady, church, mosque, boxes,  table, knives.

Concrete Noun: This type of noun can be seen and touched. It is the opposite of abstract noun. Examples of concrete nouns are: books, tables, bag etc.

Abstract Nouns: These only exist in names. They can neither be seen nor touched. These can only be felt. E.g hatred, hunger, pains, intelligence, etc

Count nouns: These are nouns that can be counted. They usually have singular and plural forms, E.g one man- five men, one orange-several oranges,  a book-five books.

Non count or mass nouns: These cannot be counted, and they therefore have only singular form. Sand , soap, rice, homework,  water. Although, they may be counted when converted to units of measurement. E,g, three bags of rice, a bar of soap, some loaves of bread,  

OTHER types of uncountable nouns are: equipment, jewelry, stationery, information, baggage, luggage, machinery, furniture, baggage, damage, -NOTE- These uncountable nouns must not attract –s- to form their plurals. 

E.g All the students were instructed to take their baggage. Not baggages

We have got information/some pieces of information about them. Not ‘an information’ or ‘informations’.

The rain wrecked serious damage to the building. Not ‘damages’. Note –The word damages means a fine imposed on someone. E,g He was ordered by the court of law to pay damages for the damage to his car. 

Collective nouns: These name a group of people or things. E.g 

A troupe of dancers

A troup of soldiers

A band of thieves

A bevy of ladies

A class of students.

Possessive noun/ genitive: These indicate possession. E.g Dr Oyeyemi’s car. Mrs. Alalade’s dress. Mr Jayeola’s house, Adebisi’s radio, The Chief Justice’s pen etc. 

NUMBER: There are two numbers in English- singular and plural. This singular relates to one, while the plural relates to more than one. Countable nouns have both singular and plural forms, uncountable nouns have only the singular form. 

REGULAR PLURALS- s and es 

IRREGULAR PLURAL

PLURALS IN COMPOUND NOUNS-

ZERO PLURALS

OTHERS

machinery

information

equipment

advice

jewelry

stationery

furniture

baggage

luggage

NOTE: THESE ARE IN PLURAL FORMS

aircraft(pl)   - aircraft

cattle(pl) – cattle

THESE NATURALLY ‘GO’ WITH ‘S’ OR ‘ES’

goods

remains (a body of a dead person)

ashes

headquarters

quarters

congratulations

manners

surroundings

wages

arms 

works - (Public works such as road construction) 

MORE ON REVIEW OF PARTS OF SPEECH

PRONOUNS AND ADJECTIVES

Pronouns- Pronouns are words which are used to replace nouns in a sentence. They are mostly used in order to avoid unnecessary repetition of nouns in a sentence.  Both nouns and pronouns are used interchangeably in a sentence, therefore they both perform the same function. Examples are: he, they, we etc.

TYPES OF PRONOUNS

Personal pronouns: Examples I, we, they , us etc.

Possessive pronouns: yours, his, hers, theirs, its, yours etc.

Demonstrative pronouns: this that these those.

Interrogative pronouns: who which, whom, whose, etc.

Reflexive pronouns: myself, themselves, yourselves/yourself, ourselves, oneself etc. 

Reciprocal pronouns: each other and one another.

Relative pronoun: which, whom, whose, who, that etc. 

Indefinite pronouns: someone, somebody, anything, anyone, everything, everyone, nobody, nothing etc.

ADJECTIVES

These are words that describe or qualify nouns. Adjectives are said to perform attributive functions when they are placed before noun. E.g, A red shirt, a gentle lady. 

However, an adjective performs a predicative function if it is placed after a link verb. E.g the shirt is red,   the lady is gentle.

Kind of Adjectives 

Adjectives of Colour: red, green, black – a red shirt, a green basket    

Adjectives of Size - e.g big , small, long 

Adjectives of Age - old young

Adjectives of Shape - rectangular, circular, round, spherical

Adjectives of Origin - Nigerian, Ghanaian, Canadian 

Adjectives of Number- one , two, three, twenty

Demonstrative Adjectives - this, these, that, those

Possessive Adjectives - your, my, her, their

Distributive Adjectives - each, some, every , any

FORMATION OF ADJECTIVES

- cal     - grammatical, classical, 

- ic     - authentic historic, workaholic

- eous advantageous     

- ious- melodious, odious, copious, superstitious

- uous   - promiscuous, continuous, conspicuous

- ive    - meditative, sedative, curative

- able   - edible, curable, sensible, marketable

- al   - illegal, regal, digital, rural, brutal

- ial  - social, crucial, essential, commercial  

READING ASSIGNMENT: Countdown page 240 - 241 

Differentiate between – works and work, damages and damage, stationery and stationary.

VERB

A verb expresses action and a state of being. Examples of verbs are sing, dance, jump, is, are, am, etc.

TYPES OF VERBS

Lexical Verb: This type of verb expresses action. It can stand on its own without depending on other type of verb. Another name for lexical verb is ‘main verb’. Examples are: speak, pray, write etc.

Auxiliary verbs: There are two types of auxiliary verbs. Those that are not capable of independent existence, and those that can stand on their own while they express a state. Those that can stand on their own and function like main verbs are called PRIMARY AUXILIARY VERBS- E.g  be, am, is , are, was, were, being, been. While those that can stand on their own are called MODAL AUXILIARY VERBS-E.g can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would. Others are ought to, dare, need.

Finite and Non-Finite Verbs

Finite verb agrees with the subject in terms of person, tense and number. E.g She works hard – Present tense.   She worked hard- Past tense.

Olu speaks good English Language- Singular subject + singular verb

Olu and Bola speak good English Language- Plural subject + plural verb.

Non-Finite Verbs- They do not agree with the subject in terms of person, number and tense. They belong to the following group. Infinitive- ‘to work’, ‘to eat’, ‘to dance’. They usually have –ing- ending. E.g dancing, singing, praying, cooking, etc.

Transitive Verb: This type of verb receives object. E.g He killed a snake.[ a snake is the dirtect object of the verb killed].

Intransitive Verb: This type of verb does not require an object. E.g She died, They cooked, We prayed.      

C: Spelling: Doubling of Consonants. Rules of Spelling 

Words of one syllable with one vowel and a consonant at the end double the consonant before adding suffixes beginning with a vowel.

Examples:

big –bigger

bat –batting 

drop –dropped 

drum –drummer 

When the vowel is doubled (o,a) ,do not double the consonant.

Examples:

boat – boating 

boil – boiled

cheap –cheapest

sweet – sweeter 

Exception: wool – woollen 

Words of more than one syllable (ad/mit) –i-vowel, t-consonant 

Double the final consonant when the accent is on the last syllable:

Examples:

admit –admittance 

begin –beginning 

forget –forgetting

occur –occurrence  

Words of more than one syllable not accented on the last syllable.

Do not double the consonant if you add an ending that begins with a vowel 

Examples 

enter – entering 

happen –happened 

inhabit – inhabitant 

refer – reference 

Note – A final “p” is doubled 

Examples:

Handicap –Handicapped 

Kidnap –kidnapped 

Worship - Worshipped  

Exception : Develop – Developed

In words ending with “c” add “k” before the suffix 

Examples:

frolic  - frolicked 

mimic – mimicked 

panic – panicky 

Evaluation 

Write five words where consonants are doubled. 

READING ASSIGNMENT 

Read page 273 of the Effective English.

GENERAL EVALUATION/REVISION QUESTION

Give the correct spelling for following words: libary, envinronment, milenium, writting, maneuver, continious, optamologist, neccessary, duely. 

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT

What are monophthongs?

State at least four types of essay and define them.