Secondary English News
16th June 2023
With only a few weeks left in the 2022-2023 school year, the academic year is quickly coming to an end! For all the English classes this year, the objective is not just to continue honing writing skills, but the grammar and vocabulary learnt should become a part of students’ working vocabulary for improved writing and comprehension. Grammar exercises focused on correcting and improving writing, emphasising sentence structure and punctuation.
Year 10: For Literature this term, the Y10 students read a variety of poems from their textbook, explored and critiqued several genres of poetry, then analysed the elements of poetry in in-class essays. Additionally, students had the opportunity to explore and research their own career interests and then practiced letter-writing skills through formal application letters written to various firms in Mombasa applying for work experience placements. The aim of this exercise was not just to continue honing critical thinking and writing skills, but also to help the Y10 students take the next steps in developing future plans that best benefit their personal career needs and interests.
Year 9 : To complete the Literature unit, the Y9 students were introduced to the IGCSE syllabus, read poems, and learned how to compare the styles of various authors, the themes used, and the effectiveness of each author’s message. They were exposed to different forms of poetry, including narrative, lyric, and concrete poems. With writing as the focus area that needs the most improvement, students were introduced to the writing of formal essays related to the literature we are reading and how to write basic five-paragraph argumentative and personal perspective essays.
Year 8 : The practice of grammar and vocabulary exercises continued in Year 8, and we launched an extensive review of vocabulary. Grammar exercises focused on correcting and improving writing, emphasising sentence structure and punctuation. The Grammar mechanics learned were to be utilised in all student writing assignments as they were required to apply these principles to their personal writing. They also learned how to interpret figurative language. Our writing and language activities have been centered around Myths and after researching them, they wrote some narrative pieces related to myths from different cultures.
The students have also shown interest in some of the books shared by their classmates and have in turn, decided to read them for themselves. For instance, they requested to watch ‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, ’ a movie based on a book some of their peers had previously read and shared with them. The topics of discussion, as we watched the movie, were our value systems and how we determine right from wrong.
Year 7 : In language study, the Year 7 students have been focusing on adjectives and adverbs and not only were students able to identify these words as we read texts, but they learned to use them to improve and make their own writing more interesting. We have been reading the Literature text “Millions” and discussed how we are to respond to the themes of faith, family, trust, and wealth.
Finally, it is the end of the year, and the students kept everything we have worked on this year ready to study for the final end-of-year English examinations. The written examinations were done in their respective classrooms before proceeding to the ICT suite for the online English progress test (PTE) at the end of the week. For most of the students, this was a new yet interesting experience that they enjoyed very much.
BY L. MKOK
English Department
