The smell...

When writing, we are required to write with good descriptive adjectives and phrases.  We are also reminded to write using the five senses to help in writing.

Here is a collection of some to do with 'SMELL':
- strange smell wafting in the atmosphere
- mysterious whiff of an odour permeated the entire house and invaded my nostrils
- the pungent scent of perfume enveloped me
- the malodorous stench pervaded the air
- inhaled the fragrance from my mother's Christian Dior perfume
- the acrid smoke clogged up the room
- the offensive pungent gas stunk the whole flat
- smelt ten times worse than the smelliest garbage dump of the face of Earth!
- sniffed with enlarged nostrils, as if I were a German Shepherd on a mission with the police to scour for hidden drugs
- I was a goldfish, using only my mouth to take in precious gasps of air
- held my breath like an underwater diver without his oxygen tank
- pinched my nose hard and my face contorted like sour plum
- my breakfast of century-egg porridge threatened to bolt upwards in my windpipe
- felt nauseous and dazed, like the whole world was spinning before my eyes
- I gasped for valuable fresh air - an essence of life which I had often taken for granted

Commonly misspelt words

Here are some commonly misspelt words uncovered as I mark my students' writing (each correct version is in parenthesis):

- reffered, refered (referred)
- momment (moment)
- develope (develop)
- imediately, immediatly (immediately)
- anouncement, annoucement (announcement)
- permernent (permanent)
- goverment (government)
- enviroment (environment)
- embarass (embarrass)
- neccessary, neseccary (necessary)

I will add more as I go along...

Types of phobias!

A phobia is "a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation, that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it' (dictionary.com).

I came across this listing of types of phobias on http://www.phobia-fear-release.com/types-of-phobia.html.

Among those, the common ones would be acrophobia (listed as altophobia) (heights), arachnophobia (spiders), claustrophobia (confined spaces), etc.

I thought there were more common ones?

The mysterious silent letters

There are instances where the letters are written, but not pronounced in words.  It is a mystery why they are there then.  Nevertheless, here are some examples of words with silent letters:


SILENT 'B'
- climb
- doubt
- dumb
- comb
- crumb
- debt (added 20 Aug 12)

SILENT 'H'
- heir
- herb, herbal
- honest
- honour, honorable, honoraray
- wheel
- whether

SILENT 'K'
- knee
- kneel
- knife
- knob
- knock
- knot
- know, knew, known, knowledge
- knuckle

SILENT 'L'
- calm
- half
- salmon

SILENT 'P"
- physic
- physical, physique
- physics
- pneumonia
- psychiatry, psychotic, psychotherapy, psychiatrist, psychic

SILENT 'S'
- aisle
- Arkansas
- debris
- Illinois
- island
- isle

SILENT 'T' (added on 20 Aug 12)
- beret
- buffet
- castle
- chestnut
- Christmas
- depot
- ditch
- fasten
- kitchen
- listen
- merlot
- mistletoe
- mortgage
- often
- stitch
- valet
- witch

SILENT 'W'
- answer
- sword
- who, whom, whose
- whore
- wrap
- wreath
- wreck
- wrestle
- wrist
- write
- wring
- writ


Do let me know if you come across more words with silent letters!

Verbs and their noun forms

This list is not exhaustive.

There are some words the noun and verb forms that are often mixed up (nouns, verbs):

1.   advice, advise
e.g.  What advice did you give him?
e.g.  The teacher gave good advice.
e.g.  Grandfather advises me to work hard from time to time whenever he comes over to visit.

2.  complaint, complain
e.g.  Mother lodged/filed a complaint against our neighbours for their fortnightly late-night parties.
e.g.  "Ah Boy hit me again," Sally complains to Teacher Susan.

3.  practice, practise
e.g.  I attended volleyball practice after school yesterday for primary four students.
e.g.  "If you want to improve in Math, you need to practise, practise and practise..." Brother Bob advised.

4.  device, devise (added 19 Aug 12)
e,g,  This is a clever device to catch unsuspecting thieves!
e.g  We can devise a way to stop theft in the neighbourhood by working hand-in-hand.

I will continue to add more when I can think of more...

Words to do with ageing

Found this new word - 'Octogenarian' - today.  Found that it meant a person from the age of eighty-something to ninety.  It sparked off my dormant interest in vocabulary words.  I know it is tough to differentiate and it could be tested: words like toddler, teenager, adolescents, and such.

I did a search and thanks to answers.com, I finally found the exact words - look under the sub-header "Dividing the lifespan".

Quite an enriching read!

Composition writing in PSLE

1.      It is imperative to write a relatively good story!  Of the ‘200’ marks for English, we are always harping on getting the main bulk, i.e. – ‘Paper 2’, as high as we can.  But if you look at the every grammar / vocabulary / cloze question and say that it is important, is it not the same that you have ‘lost’ ten to fifteen questions wrong if you score ‘30’ or ‘25’ for continuous writing?

2.      Opening – The normal openings are ‘sound’ and ‘dialogue’.  You can use a question, an adage, or just a statement of exclamation.  E.g.  That had to be the worst day of my life! / I had to score that penalty in the last minute of normal time! / I would never go on a trip to the zoological gardens again! as a hook, and explain.

3.      Plotting – Whenever possible, design your plot to have a climax near the end.  Lead the reader on an emotional roller-coaster ride.  Skilful writers are able to lead the reader to think that the story is destined for an expected ending before reining them in to an unexpected, pleasant closure. 

4.      Ending – Never end the story immediately after the climax; have a (few) paragraph(s) to explain the feelings after the climax and what the story you wrote meant to the main character.  The reader might ask: “So what does this mean to the main character?”  Be sure to answer that!

5.      Flashback - For a flashback, conclude by bringing the story back to the start of your story (present situation).  Your last paragraph could entail your main character snapping out of his/her thoughts back to the present situation with a grin, a shudder, etc.

6.      Language – It is possible to score for language!  Try your utmost to use different terms to mean the same people / things.  E.g. Police = men in blue = capable crook-catchers (notice alliteration!) = law-enforcers.  Ensure that you use a few instances of a particular creative writing technique taught.  This could be deliberately thought of but used subtly.  Techniques include:  creative similes, alliteration, idioms, good phrases, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, personification, rhyme, question, etc.

7.      Describe characters / actions / setting – Consider these: [The girl cried in the canteen.  No one cared about her.]  vs [Curling pitifully in a heap at the secluded corner of the school canteen, the primary three girl sat alone.  The shoulder-length haired girl wailed pitifully.  It must have been a hundred-decibel loud – louder than the noise emanated by a subway train.   Something was apparently wrong.  Yet, no one seemed to take any notice of her.]  Which did you prefer reading?

8.      Feelings – Write about your characters’ feelings!  We experience many different feelings within the space of an hour.  Your characters should too.  Make the feelings explicit!  Tell your readers how they felt at different points in your story.

9.      Proofread – Students feel they have nothing to check after writing.  They choose to lay on the desk and sleep.  How wrong they are!  Make use of the invaluable time to reread your story as a reader, not an author.  You might have spelt words wrongly in haste to get your writing done!  Check for possible errors used in tenses.  See if you can add any description, feeling, anything!  Improve upon your writing!

Hope these help!  Next, I will try to consolidate some examples of good phrases and creative writing,  I wish you all the best in writing!

Non-conforming plurals

We know a lot of singular nouns are changed to plural using an addition of 's' or 'es' at the end of the noun.  There are a few that do not conform to this rule.  What are they?

1.  man -> men; woman -> women; gentleman -> gentlemen; ox -> oxen
2.  child -> children
3.  tooth -> teeth; foot -> feet; goose -> geese
4.  half -> halves; life -> lives; wolf -> wolves; leaf -> leaves
5.  baby -> babies; fly -> flies; army -> armies; puppy -> puppies; berry -> berries
6. passer-by -> passers-by; son-in-law -> sons-in-law; bride-to-be to brides-to-be
7.  forum -> fora
8.  phenomenon -> phenomena
9.  criterion -> criteria
10. mouse -> mice

These words are the same for singular or plural:
bison; sheep; fish (some argument here); deer; moose; advice; salmon; bread (and all uncountable nouns)

Some words, however, have two plural forms:
hoof -> hoofs or hooves; dwarf -> dwarfs or dwarves; zero -> zeros or zeroes

Finally, there are some words that seem plural but are really singular:
news; sunglasses; trousers; scissors; spectacles; clothes; goggles; jeans; pliers; binoculars; pyjamas; sandals; stockings; sneakers; slippers; shorts

Anymore non-conformists that we can add on to the list?

Pair words

Some words often appear as a pair (as a phrase).  Do you know them?

1.  ins and outs
2.  ups and downs
3.  dos and don'ts
4.  hustle and bustle
5.  ebb and flow
6.  round and round

Pronunciation

We are nearing oral for the P6 students.  Hence, let us begin a little collection of words that are pronounced differently.  Many of these words have a different pronunciation from what they seem as they are borrowed from foreign languages (e.g. French, Spanish, etc.).

Words with different pronunciation than what is spelt:

NOTE: I am not following IPA or any convention of phonics especially here; am just sounding them out using familiar words)
1.  Alkali (al-ka-lie)
2.  Alibi (a-ler-by)
3.  Facade (fe-sard)
4.  Subpoena (sub-pee-na)
5.  Rendezvous (ron-day-voo)
6.  Quay (key)
7.  Parquet (par-kay)
8.  Suite (sweet)
9.  Photographer (Fer-to-grapher)

Usage of short forms, informal words

Students somehow do not understand that short forms of words and contractions (I'm, didn't, can't, etc.) should not be used for proper writing.  If they are to appear, they should always appear within quotes.

If you were to abbreviate a term, you should write it out in full the first time it is mentioned and provide its abbreviation in brackets.  For example, I had been to the United States of America (the USA).  The USA is a very very big country.

You simply should not use words like 'didn't', 'couldn't', etc., in proper writing, lest you are writing them in dialogue.

Also, the usage of informal words should be shunned.  I am not sure if there is a proper stand on this but when I was teaching in school, words like 'mom', 'dad', etc., are always marked as spelling errors.  True, even the tuition centre that I teach in has its model compositions using 'mom' and dad' outside quotes.  However, I always caution the children that I teach that I believe that school teachers frown upon the usage of those words in proper writing.

Last but not least, I do not like to use the word 'kids' to meant 'children'.  Check in the dictionary if you do not know what I mean!

Different spellings for different forms of the word

There are some words coming from the same root word that have different spellings when the forms are changed.

1 - curious -> curiosity
2 - vigour -> vigorous
3 - pronounce -> pronunciation
4 - explain -> explanation
5 - furious -> ferocity
6 - monster -> montrous
7 - generous -> generosity
8 - four -> forty (but nine -> ninety)
9 - labour -> laborious

Are there any others?

Common errors

This starts my collection of common errors of words mixed up by many of my students in their writing:

respond (verb) vs response (noun)
WRONG:  I had no respond from my father when I asked him for permission to go out.
CORRECT:  I had no response from my father when I asked him for permission to go out.

advise (verb) vs advice (noun)
WRONG: Father adviced me to study hard for the upcoming examinations.
CORRECT: Father advised me to study hard for the upcoming examinations.

save (verb) vs safe (noun)
WRONG: I tried to safe my neighbour whose house was on fire.
CORRECT: I tried to save my neighbour whose house was on fire.

relieve (verb) vs relief (noun)
WRONG: I heaved a great sigh of relieve when he got down safe.
CORRECT: I heaved a great sigh of relief when he got down safe.

letter vs alphabet
WRONG: 'A' is an alphabet.
CORRECT: 'A' is a letter in the alphabet.

horn is a noun, not a verb!
WRONG: Father horned at the inconsiderate driver who changed lanes suddenly.
CORRECT: Father sounded his horn at the inconsiderate driver who changed lanes suddenly.

Commonly mis-spelt words:
embarrassed; referred vs offered; stifle a yawn, immediately, curiosity (no 'u' after 'o'), continuous, refrigerator (no 'd')

Vocabulary: Ways of saying 'praised' or 'scolded'

When students are younger(primary three and four), many like to end compositions with the fact that their main characters are praised or scolded in the end.  What other ways can we express the same feelings, without using those two words over and over again?

Well, we can say that elders commended the person for doing the right thing, or that parents / a parent (either father or mother) complimented the person for doing well.  Another way is to say that he /she was given a pat on the back, or lauded for doing the right thing.

On the other hand, they could be berated for being mischievous (note the spelling of this word!), chided, castigated, rebuked, admonished or reprimanded.  We could say that someone was given the cold shoulder or rebuffed too.

Why are there more words to scold than to praise?  Beats me!  It is just so 'world-ly' that we nit-pick than to praise others, isn't it so?

Vocabulary - Restaurants

Let me attempt to do a little vocabulary work here.  It is, no doubt, all there is to what I list; or what they say - the list is non-exhausive.

I was thinking of doing this over the weekend when I was buying food for my family and pondering if we could ever understand and write well on the stated topic, with the many terms already around.  Do we understand them all??  I am not sure.  We live, we learn.  Oh yes, not forgetting that we eat too.

There are many types of restaurants.  The familiar ones we have are our fast-food restaurants, hawker centres and coffee shops.  The working class and younger generation will be able to associate with cafes and bistros better.  To get a little reading on the types of restaurants, visit this page from Wikipedia.

We will discuss a few common types here.  Fine-dining restaurants offer dedicated full-course meals (think appetizer, main-course, dessert).  They are visually appealing - from decoration to cutlery and crockery - and aim to provide diners with good ambience.  Even their waiters and waitresses are supposed to be specially dressed and trained.  Some of these fine-dining restaurants have al fresco dining - an area that has tables and seats for customers to sit around the restaurant with enjoying their food.

Most of these restaurants offer a-la-carte orders.  You can choose different dishes instead of the courses of meals offered.  Some of these belong to a franchise - the brand name is established and separate individuals purchase rights to set up restaurants under that brand.  For example, Kenny Rogers.  Another example, crossing over to the fast food arena, are your McDonald's, KFC, Long John Silver, etc.  Buffets are quite commonplace too.  Diners pay a flat-amount and take all they can from the food lay out.

Hawker centres do not spring up as commonly these days.  My impression of them is that they are beside wet-markets.  They have many stalls lined up side-by-side, offering a variety of local delicacies.  Prices of dishes sold there are definitely more affordable compared to fine-dining restaurants.

Then we have coffee shops.  No, not coffee houses that offer coffee with perhaps one of two other types of light refreshments.  I mean those that we find commonly in the vicinity of housing board estates.  In one such shop, we have a handful of stalls offering a smaller variety of food choices.

Then we talk about the words to describe the food we eat.  The food could be sweet, sugary, spicy, bitter, sour, salty, cheesy, tangy (having a pungent, fresh, or briny flavour or aroma), etc.  I hope you do not get rotten or uncooked food.

The smell could be fresh, aromatic, sweet-scented or having a frangrance.  It better not have an odour (American-spelling is odor) or some stench!

How can our food taste, overall?  The meat can be succulent, juicy and tender.  Good experiences will leave comments like tasty, delicious, scrumptious, delightful, appetising, delectable, palatable, mouth-watering.  Informal words (can be used, but have to be restricted to dialogue or within quotes) are 'yummy' and 'heavenly'.

Try describing the food that you eat during your next meal.  With a vast vocabulary on food and all, you might become a food critic or connoisseur in the field.  Bon appetit (French: I wish you a hearty appetite)!

Composition - The juicy inside

After writing an introduction, you need to, in your next few paragraphs, tell a good story. You need to make sure that the story makes sense.  Many times, students will also mix up the presence of 'I' in the story and do not bother to reread the story through after writing it.  If only they had read their own writing like reading someone else's story, they would have noticed some of their own errors!

How then, can we write a story that has a 'good' plot?  Well, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.  I can only use my own version of how I see work as a gauge.

'Safe' stories that are not well developed, but may just pass the mark.  For the use of discussion, I have 'lifted' this picture from another website that discusses composition writing.

How would you plan for a story based on this picture?  A 'safe' one that just makes it would write about two friends going to play at a park / near a lake or pond with their kite.  The kite was blow and got tangled up with a tree's branches, and one of the boys climbed the tree to get it down.

A story that is a little better would write about a lesson learn at the end.  One even better would write about how they got there, why they were there.

I suggest a few other point of views:

- Think out of the ordinary.  Instead of the boys playing with the kite, they may happen to be there and notice a young child crying for a kite that got tangled on a tree.  The boys then played 'hero' and tried to get it down for the child.  Climax / Complication arise when the boy fell (normal) or tore the kite (did you expect that!).

- A prank.  The child asked them to help get the kite down, but upon climbing the tree and getting to the kite, found sticky 'stuff' on the kite, plus many insects getting onto their bodies from the tree.  It was a prank by their class 'joker', teaming up with his younger sibling.  Or it may be a plot to get back at them for having ruined the 'joker''s plan in school.

- Have an unexpected 'twist'.  Boys' teacher / parent appears on the scene, berating them for forgetting to attend a 'make-up' tuition class, and playing in the park instead.

- It was a staged effect for part of a show.  The boys were going home after school / tuition together.  Walking through the neighbourhood park, they noticed a 'fighter kite', one that they had always wanted, perched high up in a tree.  Overcome by greed, they decided to get it and make it their own.  It was during this that they realised that this was a set-up by 'Gotcha!' to see how Singaporeans may react to seeing an expensive kite on a tree.

  See how I have come out with four possible plots out of the ordinary, just like that.  You can too!  Just think of the possible, and veer from it!  Introduce one of two characters to help you twist the story!  Be wary though.  Introducing too many characters may also give you a problem that you are unable to concentrate on the story and fail to comprehend what you are writing.  For that, you need a clear mind and a distinct personality for each of your characters!

Comparative adjectives

Most of us know how the comparative adjectives work.  When there is no comparison, we use the 'base form' of the adjective.  For example: Richie is rich.  There is no comparison.  One person.

When we want to say that two people have the same quality of a thing, we can use 'as ... as'.   For example:  Mary is as tall as June.  The car is as fast as the motorcycle.

Enter a better quality.  We will us the 'er' form or with the word 'more'.  In both cases, we add 'than'.  We use 'than' when we 'compare'.  Do not mix up with 'then'.  'The Harley is faster than the Honda.'  (Is it true?  Not sure!)  'My father is more handsome than that ugly man.'

In the case of three or more people, we use the 'est' form or with the word 'most'.  This time, we do not use 'than', but we insert 'the' in front of the comparison.  For example: Mickey is the smartest of the cartoon characters in 'Mickey Mouse Clubhouse'.  Micky is tall.  Donald is taller.  Goofy is the tallest of them all.  Simple stuff.

The complication comes when there are some irregular words that do not follow the guidelines I have listed above.  For example: good-better-best; bad-worse-worst; much-more-most; little-less-least.

Another complication is comparing an individual and a group.  When comparing a boy and a group of boys, we are actually comparing two entities.  For example:  Ali is shorter than most of the boys in the class (one group).  Timmy is older than the animals in the class (one group).  We are comparing two things in both examples, hence, we use 'er' and 'than'.

Also, do not be fooled by the use of the word 'the'.  It is NOT ALWAYS an indicator to use the 'est' form!  It merely points to things, sometimes.  For example:  Donald is the noisier of the two characters.  The red pen is the cheaper of the pens I have.  (implies that I have only two pens)

Last but not least, a common mistake made by students is to 'double use' the 'er' form with 'more'.  Some tend to say: 'I am more taller than Frank.'  'Taller' has already been added with 'er', so there is no need for 'more' to be added.  It is weird to hear 'more tall' too!

Composition: Paragraphing

It dawned upon me when I was teaching this week that students might know what a new paragraph is, but not when it is appropriate to start one.

I was teaching this primary six girl and was speaking to her before the lesson commenced, that she should keep in mind her paragraphs in her Situational Writing piece.  She replied by telling me that she was not sure when to begin one...

I stopped to think.  It seems easy for us to tell students to have paragraphs; do they know exactly when one is needed?  Hmmm...

When we were doing writing in lower primary, writing began by answering simple sentences.  We were told to repeat parts of the sentences in our answers.  If the question went: "Why did John kick the ball?", the answer had to be "John kicked the ball because..."  These days, answers have to be to-the-point.  It should be "He was feeling bored(reason)."  No need to repeat the question.  Copy wrongly and get marks deducted.  NIE's teacher training did not teach me this.  I had to find this out through my stint in tuition teaching about a year into it.  PSLE marking confirmed this fact I found out.

Then composition-writing set its roots in our primary school lives.  We were told to write in three paragraphs, with at least eighty words.  It seemed like a daunting task, but fortunately, we had the help of three or four pictures.

Moving on, it became four pictures, with a minimum of a hundred and twenty words.  At least four paragraphs are needed.  When do you start new paragraphs?  A guide would be to open a new paragraph with a new picture.  Fail to match the number of words?  You'll fail on content, which will carry ten or twelve out of your twenty mark total.

It was a blur for me in upper primary and I cannot seem to recall what it was like in writing then.  These days, primary five and six students write to a single picture, or a short one paragraph description of the situation / gist they are to write about.  The four paragraph minimum remains, but stakes are raised.  Content and language components take twenty marks each for a forty-mark piece of writing.  Students have to write with beautiful language to score well in laguage (more will be written on this part later).

So for a primary five / six student, it means four paragraphs, right?  Can they write less?  NO.  What about writing more paragraphs?  Definately possible!  I mean, you do not have teachers who penalise you for writing 'Too MANY paragraphs", do you?  When do they start new paragraphs then, without the aid of the four pictures??

I did a little search on the Internet and found this article by The Learning Centre too difficult to comprehend for young children.  For myself, I have a few 'cues' to move to a new paragraph when I write.

1.  Length.  There are approxiamtely thirty lines or so on a piece of foolscap.  You leave lines after every line that you write.  That makes it about fifteen writable lines.  Does your paragraph take eight lines?  That is almost half the page!  This is a trap, especially easy to fall into for students with handwriting as messy and big as an unkempt Bid Bird on his bad-hair-day.  Keep paragraphs to at most five or six lines (that is a lot already!).  That can translate into about five to eight reasonably long sentences.

2.  New scene/place/situation.  You are writing about being excited for a trip to the beach.  You write about the things we prepared.  A whole laundry-list of it.  You are going to write about reaching your destination next.  Use a new paragraph.

Or you are writing about falling asleep in class.  E.g.

      "Kerry...  Kerry!"  Miss Maria's shrill-pitched voice suddenly pierced the air and rang like a fire-alarm in my ears.  I shot up in my chair almost instantly, rubbing my bleary eyes while mustering only a meek reply.  Students from 'Primary 6A' tried their hardest to stifle their laughter when they spied drool hanging by a thin thread at the left corner of my mouth.

      "Sleeping in class...  again!"  I was 'sentenced' to detention without trial for committing one of the most vicious crimes in our form teacher's rulebook.  Sigh!  I had to go for recess ten minutes late.  Queues would have long formed by then.  It meant lining in queues as long as the River Nile, and only getting your food two minutes before the bell rang again for the end of recess.

      The ten minutes spent writing lines of "I promise not to fall asleep in class again" seemed like eternity.  Once the signal was given to me by my class monitor for the end of the ten minutes, I sprang, like a spring recoiled to its fullest and released, out of the classroom and cruised down the empty aisles towards canteen.  Determined, I wanted to join the queues at the earliest opportunity and still have enough time for a game of 'Ice-and-Freeze' with my buddies, Frank and Chad.

      The canteen was bursting at its seams. (End of example)

I kept number of lines in check as I write and start new paragraphs when I wanted to explore on a new area in my writing.  Especially the last paragraph in my example, when I reached a new place.

3.  Dialogue.  Some teachers make it a point that dialogue starts on new paragraphs.  Read commercial storybooks and they are written in that way too.  Helps to get you 'out-of-jail' if you forget where to begin a new paragraph after writing a little too much.

4.  Dramatic effect.  You are writing on a cookie stolen from the cookie jar.  You think of possibilities and weigh them in your mind.  Something then catches your attention.  A trail of crumbs.  You decide to follow the lead.  You come to a room and see a shadow on the wall.  You are about to disclose who the culprit is. 

You might wish to start a new paragraph at this point.  Let the reader catch his breath.  Let him predict who it may be.  Your new paragraph can reveal the culprit.  Or you may skilfully write that it was actually some misunderstanding and throw your reader off his feet.  Scores better on content.

Do pick up more books and read.  At each paragraph, ask yourself why there was a need for a new one.  See if they fall under my list of 'cues'.  If you can understand the 'cues' well and use them appropiately, I think you may be on the way to better pensmanship.  Happy writing!

Subject-Verb Agreement (basic)

"He have a blue ball."
"The boys has to go home for dinner as it is late."

Looks wrong, isn't it? Their errors occur in the area where we call 'Subject-Verb agreement'. This is were the verb in the sentence does not match with the subject (or their do-ers).

Take for example: "Malek is a footballer."
The subject is Malek, therefore we use 'is'. Simply put - we are talking about one person - Malek - in the sentence. The verb changes if the number of people change.
"Malek and Fandi are footballers."
The verb changes due to the increase in the number of people and the noun 'footballer' that follows in the sentence have to be changed too. This should be simple stuff, chicken feed.

A level of difficulty when they refer to one person or item in a group.
Example: "One of the boys ___ (kick) now."
In this case, the word 'now' tells us it is happening, so we have to use the present continuous form. So we say 'is kicking'. We are referring to a single 'one' of the boys. I always use this rule 'One person is lonely. So one person has a friend, called 'S'' with my students.

Whenever we see 'One __ of the ___', we can safely say we shall pick the singular form as our answer. The problem is that we have to tell between using present or past tense. We have to look for clues from the rest of the question.
"One of the girls ______ (clap) her hands. The other girls looked at her, astounded." Answer here is 'clapped', clue is 'looked'.

Then we have the items or people being grouped together. Example: 'The bouquet of flowers ______ (sit) beautifully on the table." 'Bouquet' refers to a single 'bunch' (nicely wrapped). Do not look at the words 'of flowers' when you answer the question. They are there to trick you.

The words 'Each', 'Every', 'Everybody', and 'Everyone' are all to be taken as singular nouns too. The verbs that follow them in the sentence all take the singular form. These sentences are correct:

a. Each of you is unique. (It changes when you say 'All' - 'All of you are unique.')
b. Every student has to work hard towards scoring well.
c. Everybody reads a book when they come to school in the morning. (It'll be good, but not every student does that...)
d. Everyone sings the National Anthem during flag raising.  (Really?)

The last tricky part is that there are some nouns that end with a letter 's'; they DO NOT take the plural form!  For example: 'Mathematics is my favourite subject.' or 'Chess is a game I always lose at.'
Or 'The news shows a man singing to his dog to rouse it from its deep slumber.'  Some nouns, however, may take the plural form, even though there is no 's'.  Example:  'The cattle are grazing the large green field.'  or 'Police are looking for the suspect, whom they believe is a tall Chinese male."

There are quite a few more examples, but I shall not attempt to list everything here.  Read and ask yourself questions as you do.  "Why is this written in this way?"  "Shouldn't this be (the other way) instead?"

Have fun trying to make sense of this mysterious language.  While you are at it, you might wish to try these to see how much you have understood:

a.  One of the babies ____ (be) crying loudly.

b.  A few of the boys _____ (be) being punished now for playing truant yesterday.

c.  Each student ______ (borrow) a book from the library later.

d.  None of the dwarves ________ (drink) the poisoned water that is being passed to them.

e.  Billards _______ (be) a game Joe likes to play.

Forming singular to plural nouns

I am boldly assuming that you have no problem with the basic rules of changing singular nouns to its plural forms as I write this.  You know the drills - adding 's' behind most words, changing 'y' to 'ies', adding 'es' to words ending with 'o', etc.

Did a little search on youtube today and found a video that is an idea for lower primary English teachers, to add some interest to your lessons when you are at this topic.  All of us should have no problems clearing the words in the video.  Go ahead, try it:

video for teaching lower primary:

What I have here is a little extra information.  We know that there are always some nouns that are always singular?  Can you think of a few?  Example: Gold

They are silver, wheat, corn, cotton, sugar, copper, etc.

What about words that may mean singular or plural?  This is easier, right?  Example: Sheep

They are cod, deer, salmon, bison, moose, fish, etc.

Fish?  I know this will create some contention.  Now, I learnt it as one fish, two fish, three fish...  It is only when there are more than one type (i.e. two types of fishes) that we use the word 'fishes'.  Then again, as I went through NIE's teacher training, the lecturers say that the boundaries have been blurred along the way and teachers started to accept fishes for as long as there is more than one fish, so I guess it is alright.

The final two points I'll bring up today deals with the unconventional types of plural forms.  No, I'm not going to touch on the 'foot' to 'feet' type.  I am highlighting this one about not adding the letter 's' at the end of the last word to form plurals.  Examples are passers-by, brothers-in-law, parents-in-law, etc.

The last one is on words that end with 'o', but not taking the 'es' form.  We simply put a letter 's' at the end of the word, just like the conventional ones.  They include:

piano, albino, zoo, sirocco, lasso, kangaroo, halo, momento, vidoe, portfolio, folio, cameo, studio, etc.

These final two examples take the last form of adding an 's' to it, but I have to remind students that these are words in short forms and should only be used within quotes (for example dialogues).  Know what I am referring to?  Well, they are much used by adults and children alike: memo and photo.  =)