ENGLISH SENIOR 3 NOTES

ENGLISH SENIOR 3

Before we start our lesson, do not forget that COVID19 is a disease affecting every country in the world:

We are advised:

• not touch our soft parts (eyes, nose, mouth) because the virus can pass through them and enter the body
• to wash our hands thoroughly with soap and water
• not to spit anywhere
• to cover our mouth with a tissue when we are coughing
  •
  to use a tissue for our nose when sneezing.
  

LESSON 1

LESSON OUTCOMES: By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

1. use demonstratives as pronouns and as determiners
2. identify demonstratives from the given passage.

TOPIC:
USE OF DEMONSTRATIVES

INTRODUCTION

Demonstratives are words that identify someone or something. A demonstrative word separates one thing from others or describes a noun. They tell who or what you may be referring to. There are four demonstratives: this, that, these and those. Demonstratives can be used as pronouns or determiners.

Examples of demonstratives as determiners. Here the demonstratives identify nouns.

1. Who brought this marker here?
2. Take that book to the library.
3. We were advised not to watch those programmes.
4. Take these clothes to the tailor.

Examples of demonstratives as pronouns. Here the demonstratives take the position of nouns. a.
Do you want to eat this?

1. Can you clean that!
2. Hang these up.
3. Give those to the electrician.

Activity 1

Read and enjoy the passage below.

Battle Against Televisions

Recently, I visited my sister who lives in Jinja. I arrived at about 3.00 o’clock in the afternoon. After asking around I was directed to her house. I knocked on the door for quite some time but no one answered. However, I could hear some music playing inside the house. I got frustrated, and being very tired, I decided to sit on the beautiful lawn that made up the large compound. I must have dosed off because the next thing I heard was my sister’s voice waking me up.

‘Mukisa, how can you travel all the way from Kagulu to come and sleep on the lawn? Let’s go inside,’ she said as she led me into the house.

I was surprised when we got inside the house only to find four children glued to the TV. My greetings were answered with sullen grunts. Only one or two looked up briefly to see who the stranger was.

My sister excitedly introduced me to the children as their uncle. They shouted and screamed, but I was scandalised to realise that I was not the cause of their excitement. Their pop star had just taken the stage in the music program they were watching, causing all the excitement. This infuriated me.

For the next three days I witnessed the children wake up early in the morning and watch TV till late into the night. I observed that during prayers for meals, all the children did was to mute the sound on the TV and then pretend to be praying while they continued to watch the TV. I heard very little conversation either among themselves or their mother. These children had become ‘TV zombies’.

On the last evening of my visit I decided to intervene. After supper I demanded that they switch off the TV. This was met with disbelief and open hostility. Nobody made any effort to switch off the TV, but I was not going to relent. So I took the remote control unit and switched off the TV.

‘What is wrong with watching TV?’ the eldest girl protested, looking at me with murderous eyes.

‘The TV itself is not the problem,’ I said firmly, ‘but the way you use it’.

At least I now had their attention. The house was deadly silent. This was the first time in three days that the children were talking with me, albeit in a hostile environment.

I explained to them that television was a positive tool only to a certain extent. First, it is certainly a good source of education. There are many well researched documentary programmes which viewers can benefit from. Second, TV is a good source of entertainment. There are numerous sports and drama programmes which are quite entertaining.

On the other hand, TV can be a negative force. When you sit for hours on end watching every programme without discrimination, thus this is very dangerous. Some of the programmes may not be appropriate and may corrupt your morals. You also run the risk of becoming a zombie.

‘Since I came here three days ago none of you has had time to talk with me, yet I am your only maternal uncle’ I reasoned with now attentive children. ‘I am leaving tomorrow morning but none of you even knows my name!’ I continued.

‘I am sorry, uncle,’ the youngest child pleaded.

‘I am not against your watching TV, but you need to plan your time properly so that you don’t end up watching TV the whole day. You must select the programmes you are going to watch carefully; otherwise you’ll end up watching all the programmes, including those meant for adults only!’ I concluded.

As I went to sleep that evening, all the children followed suit. The next morning, as my sister and her four children escorted me to the bus station, I told her that she needed to create time to discuss with the children what they watched on TV.

Activity 2

Reread the passage and write down the demonstrative pronouns used.

Activity 3

Write two sentences using each of the demonstratives as determinants and as pronouns.

Activity 4

In a paragraph of about 50 words, summarise the effect that unlimited watching of TV has had on the children and the entire family.

LESSON 2

LESSON OUTCOMES:

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

1. identify derived nouns used in the passage.
2. derive nouns from nouns
3. derive nouns from verbs
4. derive nouns from adjectives

TOPIC:
USE OF DERIVED NOUNS

INTRODUCTION

What are derived nouns? They are nouns formed from other words. To derive is to form/obtain/get/create something from another. Therefore, these are nouns obtained from other words that could be other nouns, verbs or adjectives. For example:

• Motherhood is a noun derived from another noun, mother
• Information is a noun derived from the verb, inform
• Popularity is a noun derived from the adjective, popular

Activity 1

Read and enjoy the passage below.

The Man with Loud Hiccups

When little children know terror, it usually comes in forms that, as they learn later in life, are harmless. As a little boy, Pamba’s terror came in the form of an old man who had a terrifying condition of loud hiccups.

It was said that since he was a boy, the old man had hiccups that progressively grew louder and became more frightening as he grew older. As a grandfather, the hiccups were loud and pronounced. They popped out in loud bursts so that he seemed to purr like a motorcycle, as he walked.

The hiccups came in phases. At one time the man would have the calmness of a swimming pool. At other times he would break out in loud, sporadic hiccups that would bring contortions to the old man’s face that one would have thought was pain. When he was in that state, he could not talk. His face, already furrowed with old age, would become rough and unpleasant to look at. The old man never minded his hiccups. In fact, he seemed to enjoy them, and he was never bothered when people wondered why he would occasionally explode into loud sounds.

Sometimes he used the hiccup to tease and scare children. For good measure, parents used him to terrorize wayward children. The man’s hiccups were easily the worst form of terror that many little children had ever encountered in their lives.

Pamba first encountered the terror of the man’s hiccups one fine morning. The old man was headed for the garden. From a distance, the hiccups started rolling out like muted gunshots: ‘hic, hic, hic, hic, hic,’ the man went. As he hiccupped, he grimaced in a way that made him look subhuman. The hiccups gathered speed as they rolled out so that the time lapse between one and the next became almost non-existent.

Pamba had heard stories of people who ate others. He was convinced that this old man was one of the man-eaters that he had heard about. As the man drew closer, the hiccups grew louder and more rapid in their frequency. The man sounded like a machine that was stirring to life.

Pamba looked back hoping there would be some people to rescue him from the man whom he was convinced would now devour him. He looked behind. There was no one there. He looked sideways, there was no one either, though there was a small path he could sneak into. Pamba could not understand the old man’s excitement at his fear. The man rejoiced at seeing terror in small boys. He approached Pamba theatrically. This, as Pamba learnt later, was what used to give the man the energy to go on with his life. The terror that formed on children’s brows rekindled his energy and rejuvenated him. Since he knew that he was essentially harmless, he used terror as the only connection between him and the children. The children feared him. In their minds, he was the representation of all that was terrible.

The old man knew this and he used it to his own advantage. First was as if he had entered into a secret pact with parents whereby he would be used as a whip to beat back to line wayward children. So when Pamba saw the man coming at him he started to run away. The man went after him, hiccupping louder and louder as he ran. Pamba had never known that kind of terror. He ran as fast as he could, but he could still hear the man behind him. When he realised that the man would catch up with him anyway, he started wailing, but he did not stop running.

When he reached home, he realised that the man was not behind him. Unbeknown to him, the man had branched off into another path and gone on with his business. Pamba’s brother later told him that it was not only his eyes that were wet, but his pants too. They say that if you see a child wetting his pants, he must have been in an acute state of fear. Shortly afterwards, Pamba went to bed, wondering how he was expected to live with the man with loud hiccups always appearing on his way.

Today, Pamba looks at the whole episode as a moment of stupidity in his growing up. But he also realises that little children can be knocked into shape by something as harmless as an old man with hiccups.

Activity 2

Go through the passage above and write down all the derived nouns that have been used.

Activity 3

Write two sentences using each of the derived nouns you have written down in your note book.

Activity 4

Re-read the passage above, identify the words and expressions that are new to you. Study how they have been used and explain their meaning.

Follow up Activity

Create sentences using the new words and expressions identified above.

LESSON 3

LESSON OUTCOMES:

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

1. differentiate between the subjective and objective cases.
2. identify the subjective and objective cases from the given passage.
3. compose sentences using the two cases.

TOPIC:
USE OF PRONOUNS AND CASE

INTRODUCTION

A case is the function that a pronoun performs in a sentence. Therefore, the pronouns used to refer to the same person or people differ because of the function the pronouns have in those sentences. A pronoun can be either a subjective case or objective case. In the subjective case the pronoun acts as the subject of the sentence while in the objective case the pronoun takes the place of objects. For example:

1. She likes Mathematics. She is the subject. It is in the subjective case.
2. The policeman arrested them. Them is the object. It is in the objective case.

Activity 1

Read and enjoy the following passage.

A Careless Cook

It was the satisfied ducklings of chickens finishing the remains of a great feast that reminded me of the groundnuts. Yes, every nut was gone. How stupid I had been to leave them uncovered with the kitchen door wide open. But such self-reproach did not occur to me at the time, for I was filled with a terrible anger and an overwhelming desire to punish the greedy offenders. I seized a pestle and raised it high above my head. By this time, they had seen me and were flying in disorder all over the kitchen. They tumbled over each other through the doorway. I let down my powerful weapon just in time to hit the last one right on the head. I did hit! It was the most active hen of the lot and therefore my bitterest enemy. ‘Got you this time!’ I gasped in triumph as it croaked painfully. But my victory song did not last, for in a minute the poor thing was staggering about the kitchen, and after a while it fell lifeless just near the fire. I leapt to rescue it from the eager flames. I shook it, examined it, shook it again and then tried to open its closed eyes with my finger. It would not move.

I raced with it to the house, got hold of the baby’s Vaseline and rubbed a lump on the wound. No response. I put it down to try and make it walk but it gave a feeble ‘coo’ and fell over. I applied another lump of Vaseline, and carried it to the quiet part of the garden, rocking it like a baby. Seeing this had no effect I put it down and fanned it with a banana leaf.

All this time I was dreading what my father would do to me. Of course the hen had offended and deserved a punishment, I told myself. Mother would be angry with me because of the groundnuts which were to make up the sauce for supper. But then punishing or killing the hen would not make her less angry with me. In short I was going to bring both my mother’s and, worse still, my father’s anger against me by my foolish action. After five minutes’ vigorous fanning without any change, a thought struck me. Back to the kitchen I raced and returned with a basin of water in which I dipped the poor thing. At long last, I was rewarded. Having drunk some water, the hen became normal again although it showed great disgust at my conduct especially at being wetted ruthlessly.

‘I could have sworn there were no groundnuts in that source last night,’ said my mother the next morning. ‘One could detect the tomatoes and eggplant all right, but no groundnuts.’ I kept quiet.

Activity 2

Go through the passage again and write down all the subjective and objective cases which have been used. Activity 3

Write three sentences using each of the cases that you have listed in your notebook.

Follow Up Activity

Imagine your classmate has lost his father and you are the leader of a group of five representing your class for burial. Write a condolence message that you will read out at the funeral.