posted
I am probably showing my stupidity here, but-
I have gotten "Intermediate Language Lessons" by Emma Serl to use with Matthew this year. One task I don't understand it when it says to "make a rule for...".
For example, in Lesson 2, it says "Make a rule for this use of the capital letter." A. two countries B. five boys C. two celebrated men
(etc)
I don't want to spend hours googling to find out what they want, I just want to know what it means.
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posted
"Make a rule for the use of this, that, these, and those." (looking for others, it doesn't show up very often)
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posted
I googled it and it seems she's using a technique to teach English that is usually used to teach foreign languages. What she wants is just a statement of "when A, then B." "When you are writing the name of a person, place, or thing, you use a capital letter at the beginning."
posted
That's what I thought- but I don't get why she asks for say, two countries, or five boys. Is the answer "Use a capital letter to start both countries"? "Capitalize the names of all five boys"?
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posted
I think the answer is, "When you write the names of places or people, capitalize the first letter of each name." She wants an answer that applies to all the examples given.
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posted
For the record, I think people need to know about words not to capitalize more than they need to know which words to capitalize. Errors almost always are on the side of capitalizing too much.
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posted
That's a horrendously unclear exercise. Are you making a rule for what's actually in the list items, or for what they're describing? What in the world does "make a rule" mean?
I suggest finding a better book. Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by advice for robots: That's a horrendously unclear exercise. Are you making a rule for what's actually in the list items, or for what they're describing? What in the world does "make a rule" mean?
posted
I actually like the book on the whole. I sat and read the whole thing and it's pretty rigourous. The "make a rule" thing comes up three times in the whole first year, and it's the only thing that's unclear to me. I'm wondering if I should just ignore it.
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