Science and Technology

ELATE PHASE II

“JOB-MARK INITIATIVE”

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Authors: Mr. Peter Songa, Ms Rose Nakalanzi

Mr. Ismail Magezi, Mr. Paul Lwere

Unit Three

TOPIC : SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

SUB-TOPIC : 1) The use of active voice in scientific instruction

2) The use of passive voice in procedural instruction

SKILLS : READING/WRITING/SPEAKING/LISTENING

SUB-SKILLS: Description of a process/critical thinking/problem solving/note making/ minute writing/role play-appropriate behavior

CLASS : S.4

CLASS SIZE : 60

Objectives: i) To equip the learner with the language appropriate to the observation and reporting of processes in science and technology.

ii) To equip the learner with the appropriate use of language in a business setting.

iii)

Brief Description:

Following instructions is a core requirement for any learner especially one in a candidate class. This unit explores the use of the active and passive voice in procedural instruction and reporting of processes where one is expected to expeditiously follow step by step the guidelines given. A student is expected to give a feedback on what he has learnt using the passive voice. The question is: what is the active voice and what is the passive voice?

In grammar, the voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments- i.e. the subject, object e.t.c. When the subject is the agent or actor of the verb (what has been elementarily expressed as the ‘doer’), the verb is in the active voice. When the subject is the patient, target or undergoer of the action, it is said to be in the passive voice.

For example, in the sentence:

The cat ate the mouse.

The verb ‘ate’ is in the active voice, but in the sentence:

The mouse was eaten by the cat.

The verbal phrase ‘was eaten’ is passive.

In a transformation from an active-voice clause to an equivalent passive–voice construction, the subject and the direct object switch grammatical roles. The direct object gets promoted to subject and the subject demoted to an optional status. In the examples above, the mouse serves as the direct object in the active-voice version, but becomes the subject in the passive version. The subject of the active-voice version, the cat, becomes part of a prepositional phrase in the passive version of the sentence and could be left out entirely.

The passive voice is not a single word form but is made up of a form of the auxiliary to be and the past participle of the main verb.

With the active voice, the action is expressed by the verb.

Tools of thumb:

• Active verbs move the action and reveal the actors
• Passive verbs emphasize the receiver, the victim.
• The verb to be links words and ideas.

Web link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(grammar)

Lesson duration:

Activities:

Activity One

Exercise A

Instruct the students over a music lesson….following the instructions in learning to play a piano.

The piano has a pattern of black and white keys which guide us on how to place our fingers when starting to play one. To get started, place your right hand thumb on the left hand side of the two black keys in the middle of the keyboard. Place the rest of your fingers on the white keys that are next to that key as you move to the right. Each finger should be placed on a separate key. Press the keys one after the other beginning with the thumb to the small finger as you listen to the sound produced. You have just played the dominant sounds of a major scale in music on the piano.

NB. This only applies if you have access to a piano or keyboard-but if you do not have one then try and use any local melodic instrument like a tube fiddle, lyre or a set of xylophones.

Now instruct the students to tell some one else what is done to play the dominant sounds of a major scale.

Exercise B

1. Find a list of common experiments students of S.3 and S.4 have carried out recently from teachers of Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Make a list of actual apparatus used and provide these to the class to help them recall vocabulary they can use to fill in the descriptive text.
2. Guide learners on observation, recording and note-making skills.

Complete the following description of an experiment you carried out in class. Prepositions of time, place, and movement are provided. You have to find suitable verbs and nouns to fill the blanks. For words in brackets, choose the most appropriate one.

First, we ………… (a, some) …………. .in the………… and a………..at the ……..of the………. Having ……….the………., we ………..the …………into (to, above, under) the …….. Then we ………………..the ……..to the …………..by means of a (flexible……………………….).

The next step was to………….the ………… (through, into,……..) and …….it to the………….of the …….. We adjusted the position of the ……… so that its………..was……… We then…………..the ……….with …………..up to …………………( above, below, the middle/top) of the ………….

The whole apparatus was then………….. The purpose of this was to………….of the ………..by ……….the ………..with…………. We ………..other ………..and ……….

After …………,we ………..the …………and …………As the ………….(through, into, out of) the ………., there was a …………..of …………. This was the result we had been waiting for.

Now report the experiment without focusing on the actors or “doers” but on the actions and the instruments used. For example: “First, some … acid was poured in the test-tube and the top closed…” instead of: “First, we poured some acid in the test-tube and closed the top ….”

Activity two

Reading Comprehension:

Prepare the students for reading using the strategy of scanning the paragraphs and subtopics of the passage. Before the learners answer the comprehension questions, pose some key questions.

Passage:

So you want to make some money?

How do you make money? There are many ways of making money, but with a few exceptions they all boil down to two. One is to become an employee and to trust your ability and luck to get you ahead as an executive, working with and through other people. The other is to become an entrepreneur - an independent operator who takes charge of the risk and management of his or her own business. Fair warning: your chances are mathematically small in both instances. The question is not which one guarantees you big money promptly, but which offers you the better chances for it. Suppose you decide to take the latter course to become an entrepreneur, the person whose reward is determined not by any system of formal compensation but by the energy, resourcefulness and ingenuity he or she puts into doing or making something people are willing to pay a price for………

What kind of business should a young person get into? One well-known auto executive has remarked that if he were a youth again he would get a Chevrolet franchise in a medium size growing town, work it diligently and end up richer than he could ever be working for an auto-manufacturing company. But it takes money to set up a dealership, and it would almost take this executive himself to get a franchise. Thus his advice can plainly be followed only by a lucky few.

The advice nevertheless makes a point. There’s no one thing that even a few hundred entrepreneurially minded graduates can get into. But what can you get into? ……. The world bristles with excellent opportunities …… in selling, in running shops and restaurants, in advertising, in real estate (property), in marketing gadgets and innovations, in speculating, in building houses and motels, in special farming deals, and so on. Generally speaking, your chances are better if you pick something whose sales will be large compared to plant investment; otherwise your financing problem may become very difficult. It is a temptation to say that your chances will be improved if you have some money. Actually they will be only if you have the traits and abilities that make the entrepreneur. For if you have them, you will sooner or later get the right people to back you; if you do not, all the money in the world won’t help you. What are they?

1. A sense of the opportune. Given energy, ambition, and an unashamed longing for money, the overriding characteristic you need is a resourceful, aggressive sense of the opportune, perhaps accompanied sometimes by a little opportunism.
2. Intelligence, of a special kind. You need above all an intuitive, almost feminine ability to size up (weigh) situations and people that ‘great’ minds have often lacked. An intellectual named Max Beerbohm seems to have had an inkling of this. “Men of genius,” he remarked, “are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt this trivial instinct by which you and I size people up.”

This does not mean that the entrepreneur is uneducated or incapable of reasoning closely. Almost invariably he has a great capacity for absorbing and retaining practical knowledge. Aptitude tests have demonstrated that he has a large vocabulary though he doesn’t show it off. Unlike many who have been formally educated, entrepreneurs do not let their knowledge get the upper hand, but are ready and happy to ask basic questions even when they think they know the answers.

3. The common touch. The entrepreneur is an unaffected, down-to-earth democrat - that is, he or she naturally understands and recognizes the traits that are common to the greatest number of people. What the people like, he or she likes; what the people desire, he or she desires; what the people need therefore, he or she knows how to supply.
4. Self - confidence that is tangible and genuine. It must be backed not merely by a show of enthusiasm but by a relentlessly thorough knowledge of the demerits as well as the merits of his or her ‘proposition’.
5. A mechanical bent, if not a downright aptitude for mechanics, will be useful. Many recent successes, such as the Paper Mate pen and Copper Brite cleaner sprung from a simple little idea or innovation. The wise enterpriser, however, usually does not try to handle an invention or product that needs a lot of development expenses and thus let the government share the burden.
6. Optimistic visualization; Let us define this special blend of imagination and resourcefulness as a faith in the nation’s future, combined with the capacity to see a commercial opportunity in anything imperfect. The entrepreneur who has it can imagine doughnuts that don’t fatten, socks that never develop holes, buttons that never pop, suits that never need cleaning. He or she can see a great suburban development replacing a filling station.
7. A talent for risks. This, the classic trait of the entrepreneur, is here given last place because its successful application depends on the possession of most of the other traits. Any fool can merely gamble. The successful entrepreneur does not merely gamble. Precisely because of his or her knowledge, intuition, instinct for the opportune and capacity for visualization, he or she approaches a risk with more than a vague hunch that it is worth taking and generally ends up with a high record of success.

If you have all these traits, plus a normal endowment of luck, it is hard to see how you can fail to make money. As a matter of fact, they would almost certainly guarantee you success either as an entrepreneur or employee, for they would drive you to seek the job where you could use them to best advantage.

From Gilbert Burck ‘Fortune magazine’ (June, 1953)

Questions:

1. Explain in two or three sentences what two ways there are of making money.
2. Which one does the writer say offers more chances of making a lot of money?
3. Define an entrepreneur briefly.
4. What could make your financing of a business difficult?
5. What else do you need besides some money to start a business?
6. Explain ‘opportunism’ in your own words within the context of the passage.
7. Explain the statement ‘entrepreneurs do not let their knowledge get the upper hand.’
8. What do you understand by ‘demerits and merits’ of a proposition?
9. How does the wise entrepreneur usually avoid large expenses on a product?
10. Explain the full meaning of these sentences:

‘Any fool can gamble. The successful entrepreneur does not merely gamble.’

Activity Three

As a follow up to the comprehension exercise, let the learners use their knowledge to do the summary writing task

Summary Writing

Without enumerating them, make a summary of the seven traits and abilities that make an entrepreneur in about 100 words.

Activity Four

Designing an Experiment or Project

Before giving the assignment:

1. Guide the learners on finding out from their community environment what experiment or project is feasible for them to design an experiment or project on.
2. Gather information from newspapers, magazines or reference sources that the learners can read. Include pictures.
3. Instruct the learners to name and describe what they have observed in their surroundings that they will concentrate on. Give the words relating to seeing, touching, smelling, hearing and (where it is safe) tasting (not chemicals).
4. Guide them to recognize unusual situations – is there anything different or unusual about people (affected), a setting or an object?
5. Instruct them to take on their observations to aid their memory before coming to class. They should ask questions to categorise their observations e.g. Who? What? \Where? When? Why? How?, recording the facts as they are.

Assignment

Design an experiment or project on one of these topics:

1. Using biogas in a home or a farm.
2. Using solar in the home for heating water for both (not solar panels; using the principles of heat absorption and transfer on different surfaces).
3. Waste disposal using one of these:
   1. Coffee husks
   2. Wood shavings / saw dust
   3. Banana stems
   4. Millet sorghum head waste
   5. Sunflower seed husks
4. Preventing / reducing chemical pollution of a water source.

6. Guide the learners on comprehensive report-writing.
7. Assess the individual and group work.

Activity Five

• Guide the interviewees and interviewers on types of questions normally asked in interviews.

1. Questions seeking information (e.g. current status of the interviewee – background and experience, interest and goals).
2. Probing questions (meant to find out more about answers given; challenging statements seeking reasons for actions).
3. Questions checking understanding (to clarify their own understanding of interviewee’s answers).
4. Questions requiring interviewee to take a stand (to see how interviewee responds under pressure – e.g. Why do you want to work for this organization?)

Activity Six

Group work:

Role play: Interview schedule for a job

• Guide the learners on writing a better application for a job or a place in a school.
• Organize the learners into groups of 5 to simulate an interview in which four members will play the roles of members of the interview panel and the remaining member is the interviewee.
• Guide the learners on some key points on preparing for an interview. Some of these may help:

1. Mental preparation

Asking the organization inviting the interviewee for details around the job (position) – job-description; how long the interview could be; size of the interviewing board; whether a test will part of the interview.

2. Homework on the organization

Knowledge of organization’s products, policies, plans, motto and structure. Getting information from brochures, website, newspapers or friends with contacts there.

3. Appropriate dress and appearance

Personal presentation should be at least one’s best; clean and appropriate preferably dark coloured clothes, white shirt, dark socks and shoes. Clean-shaven and well groomed look.

4. Appropriate posture and poise

Sitting up with feet firmly on the ground. No fidgeting or shifting of position. Being confident and assured – not showing nervousness.

5. Punctuality

Being there before time – and checking oneself for readiness in every way. Inform board ahead of interview if there is an inevitable delay.

6. Documents ready

Personal certificates and other required documents arranged ahead of the interview and presented when asked for.

7. Focus during interview

Don’t rehearse (partly adapted from: info@careerconnections) prior answers to questions. Focus on individual questions asked.

Answer fully.

Chairman…….

Activity Seven

Functional writing and oral presentation

(a) Letter writing

• Guide the learners on the format for writing a formal letter before they write the letter.

Write a letter to a factory manager or head of a family or community business project seeking permission for your class to visit the factory or production plant to observe the process of making one of these: (a) sugar; (b) fruit juice; (c) cooking or medicinal oil; (d) a local brew or mild drink; (e) soap; (f) if, bark-cloth or other textile; (g) ghee.

(b) Report – writing

• Guide the learners on writing a report on a process. Use of the passive voice, correct prepositions, the past tense and appropriate vocabulary and spelling should be stressed.

Your class did visit the factory or plant. Make a report on what you observed. Describe the key parts and equipment or tools of the factory or plant, the raw materials and how they were used, and the process of making the product. Give further information on how the product is marketed before and after production.

(c) Oral presentation

• Let some members of the class present the reports orally after you have assessed them and selected a representative sample of good reports. Individual reports should be considered as compositions and receive appropriate assessment comments before the presentation.

Activity Eight

Section A

Composition writing

• Guide the learners on the rubric given by the examination body on the compulsory and free choice sections.

Write an account of about 300 to 400 words on the subject of how you earned your first wage or salary. Cover the following points in your composition:

1. why you wanted to earn money;
2. how you came to know about and eventually got the job;
3. what you actually did in the job;
4. how you felt about the job;
5. how you felt when you received the first payment for your work;
6. When and why you left that particular job.

Section B

Choose one of these topics and write a composition of between 500 and 700 words on it.

1. Describe the traditional bee-hive which has just been used in your area for a long time and the newly designed bee hive recommended by The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. How does the new one improve the harvesting of honey?

2. Climate change is influencing policies in agriculture and farming. Explain the changes that are already being felt in this part of Africa and how farming policies and practices can be adjusted.

3. What simple water-catching and conservation technologies can be employed to address climate change in your area?

4. “There is too much superstition and fear of the unknown in Uganda today”. How do you think science can help fight superstition and fear in society?

5. ‘Science helps us to apply theoretical knowledge’ Demonstrate how this can be done.

6. Which subject in the secondary school curriculum do you think could enable you to be self-employed after leaving school or college? How would it enable you to do so?

7. Modern milk-handling has improved the quality of milk and its products in the market. How has this been down in recent years in Uganda?

8. Describe an experience about your efforts to become an entrepreneur

SAMPLE LESSON PLAN

DATE	CLASS	SUBJECT	DURATION	No. in Class
…./…./…….	S4	English	80 mins	60

Topic: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Sub-Topic: The use of active voice in scientific instruction.

Skills: Reading / Writing / Spreading / Listening

Sub-Skills: Critical thinking / Description of a process.

Objectives: i) To enable the learners to use the active voice as they communicate practical subjects/ experimental exercises.

ii) To equip learners with the language appropriate to the observation and reporting of the processes in science and technology.

Method of Approach: Class Discussion, Group work….

TIME	STEP	CONTENT	TEACHER’S ACTIVITY	LEARNERS’ ACTIVITY
5-10 mins	Introduction	Ice breaker	Teacher greets the learners and instructs them to respond to their names as he takes roll call.	Learners do as instructed. Any one who doesn’t answer stands up.
10 mins	Step I	Writing notes on active voice.	The teacher writes notes on the active voice on a writing board giving examples.	Learners write their notes in their note books.
20 mins	Step II	Practice using the active voice	Teacher instructs learners to get in groups of 5 and give them instructional tasks for each group member.	Learners get into groups and practice using the active voice as instructed.
15 mins	Step III	Reviewing of group work	Teacher gets feed back from a sample of the groups.	Learners give their verbal feedbacks.
25 mins	Step IV	Writing down the active voice instruction	Teacher gives a ‘fill in the gap’ exercise for the active voice.	Learners write down the exercise in their notebooks
10 mins	Step V	conclusion	Teacher gives examples to the answers and corrects work or collects books	Learners correct their work and hand in books