Are you able to ask for information politely?

Are you polite and friendly when making enquiries?

1. Write down two questions that Marcus might have asked the Fair Committee when he decided to display his goods.

2. Give the answers of the Chairman of the Committee . . .

Agreeing:

Disagreeing:

3. Imagine you are bartering some items in exchange for others.

In play-form, write down suitable, relevant questions and answers.

4. Marcus started making enquiries in his town about selling his product.

What are some of the enquiries he might have made?

5. Marcus needed some important information before he set up his stalls. Write down three questions he was likely to ask his uncle.

Now that you have heard some of the questions that your fellow classmates have asked, do you notice what tense and what tone of voice are used.

Work out some short plays and present them orally, where you are . . .

1. asking simple questions + receiving replies from another person,e.g. an office situation / a playground situation / a home situation.

2. making enquiries + receiving a satisfactory / unsatisfactory reply

3. asking permission to attend a party and receiving permission under certain conditions/ receiving a refusal.

4. asking directions and receiving a clear / an unclear answer. You will realise that you can ask any question you like but that there is a polite way of doing this. This skill can be used wherever you are – especially when you are on holiday or if you are lost. Practise it daily until it becomes habit.

Now play a few short games:

1 Give instructions on how to use a simple household / kitchen item, without actually producing it to see whether the class can guess what it is.

2 Let the class roughly draw a few squares about 4 centimetres square.

The learner in front will have a picture in the square to describe to the class, without repeating himself AND without using his hands. If the class manages to draw it accurately, then the instructions have been clear.

Select a character from History and write an imaginative narrative essay about him and an important moment in his life (you can, of course, also choose a young girl). You do not need to write about his whole life history – just about a moment in time or the experiences of a few days or a few weeks.

You will need to do a bit of research to find out details of the period in which s/he lived so that your facts are convincing e.g. a boy living during the Apartheid years who wanted to study but could find no institution that would accept him; a boy living on Robben Island in the leper colony that used to be there; a young girl travelling with her parents on the Groot Trek . . . or choose a character from European or American History . . .

Try to have a point to your story: The story can have a moral; the character can reach some new understanding of himself or his parents or his brother or his friend; the story can have a surprise twist to it . . .

It is, of course, important for you to PLAN your essay as you have been taught.

THINK about the topic, the main character, the main idea BEFORE you start writing down anything. Then work out your story-line and consider your opening and closing paragraphs: Try to make them memorable and impactful.

Then add some clever punctuation (but do not overdo it!) and add some colourful images by using the figures of speech that you know (again, do not overdo it!)

and finally, you do need to GO OVER the whole essay to edit it: To get rid of any language or punctuation errors; to check that you have full sentences and that you have some style.

Remember the following aspects of good narrative writing:

CHECKLIST