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原帖由 neiahyeah 於 2006-8-20 02:22 AM 發表
When we were young, we learnt gramma in school. Since 1973, if i remember right,  schools started not to teach gramma and the English level of the students dropped gradually. Our Grade D in English ...

For your information, it is not "schools started not to teach gramma ..."  but Education Department implemented a change in teaching English of dropping grammar and emphasising on the use of conversational English instead.  

Who is to blame ... the  Education Department  

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原帖由 大田英明 於 2006-8-20 09:27 AM 發表
This is a casual forum and everybody is supposed to feel free to express himself/herself in English, so please don't mind to make mistakes and you will not be "corrected" at once unless r ...

版主大田英明英明 .....

Does any body know if the book " A pen and a man ... " is still being used as English textbook in primary school ...

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原帖由 FOX 於 2006-8-22 12:12 發表
d-graded or grade d? which one is correct or both?

Without a sentence and considering from only words, grade d is correct ...

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原帖由 neiahyeah 於 2006-8-22 16:28 發表
You must be an oldie.... I studied "a pen and a man... this is a pen and this is a man..." more than 50 years ago.

Correct, absolutely correct ...

I may be old but still feel young at heart, haha ...

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原帖由 dd05ng 於 2006-8-24 20:17 發表



Ha Ha! Those were the days!!

I can still remember the text :
"A man. A pan.
A man and a pan. This is a man. This is a pan.
The man is holding the pan.
What is the man holding?  ...

Thank you brother dd05ng ...

You have a good memory or you may still have this book now ...  

This book was used by a majority of primary schools in late 50s and early 60s while we used another typical English book, John & Mary, in government primary schools.  

Yes, those were the days when we were too young to understand all kind of problems in life ... cheers to that...

Hi brother dd05ng,

There's a lot that we can talk about those good old days.

I started to study English at P.3 with a very nicely printed English story book "John & Mary". I have not come across "A Pen and A Man" then.

I was really serious in studying English when I was in my secondary schooling at a Taiwanese English secondary school standing notably opposite to China Light & Power at Argyle street.

My the then school master implemented a weekly lesson of English recitation in all classes from Form 1 to Form 5. His experience told him that it was an effective way to learn English well for Chinese students.

So, throughout all those 5 years of my secondary schooling, all students in a class had to be prepared to be picked to recite a piece of English essay chosen in advance by the teacher, the school master himself.

I would not my English is good but I worked for two foreign companies for almost 25 years and did not encounter difficulty in our daily communication.

Since I have longer leisure now than in the past, I like to share my past experience with everybody here.

I think brother dd05ng will not be different !

Welcome aboard and cheers to that ...

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原帖由 neiahyeah 於 2006-8-25 13:14 發表
Hi Brothers taurus & dd05ng,

We are the oldies and we do have somethings in common, for sure.
I would very much like to share the past experience, either in school or society, with anybody  ...

Hi neiahyeah,

Having read your message I have a strong feeling of meeting old friend and am sure you know which school I have referred to. Yes, teddy boys, tight-sleeve trousers and strapped text-books were popular by then.

I had a collection of all Beatles long-play plastic discs which were unfortunately lost through changes of my residence.

You are now doing very well with your English ! Let's see how we can keep up this lively exchange of messages to hopefully encourage more members of this forum to join in !

Cheers to this in advance ...

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原帖由 dd05ng 於 2006-8-25 16:44 發表
Brother taurus and brother eiahyeah

Yes. We are the old ones in this forum.

In school, my English standard was only about average. I think we had a better English learning environment (in ter ...

Hi brother dd05ng,

In spite of my white hair and my hair-line being pushed more and more backwards than before, I have not considered myself being an old man until you and brother neiahyeah brought it up. Just like Clinton said recently " I hate being sixty ..." even though I'm not yet sixty, still many many weeks to go.  

Five hundred miles, five hundred miles, five hundred miles, five hundred miles, Lord I walked five hundred miles away from home .... simple lyrics like these with the sound of strumming guitar chords were favourites in a lazy holiday afternoon.  

To be fair, let's not criticize our younger generation that much because they are in fact the victim of this century. Let's take a constructive and positive approach to help answering their questions with our best ...

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原帖由 happycamel 於 2006-8-25 20:45 發表
May I join in? Brother Taurus, if you don;t mind me calling you so.

Come on brother happycamel, let's be casual and drop all kinds of formality in this forum, you're by all means welcome and , in fact, anybody and everybody, are welcome ...

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原帖由 neiahyeah 於 2006-8-25 22:21 發表
Hi brother TAURUS.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Brother Taurus, happy birthday to you..."

The party was held in the hall of St. John .. ...

  What's happening ?

I enjoy a party as well as the last part of your sentence but I'm afraid I'm unfortunately not your classmate. Even so, it does not affect the friendship we have built through exchange of our feelings and memories. Let's keep it up, brother neiahyeah ...

By the way, my name tells you when I was born ... ha ha ... no secret la

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原帖由 MovieMonster 於 2006-8-25 21:07 發表
Grammar had been taught years ago even to school children in England, remember the various grammar schools.  There are complains from employers, university lecturers on poor English from younger pe ...

I wonder when our Chief Executive visited to Singapore, did he explore whether English grammar was taught in schools there or elsewhere in other countries ? Can anybody tell us ?

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原帖由 SKT174 於 2006-8-31 06:53 發表
Grammar wasn't taught in NZ when I attended high school.  I can speak day to day English fluently but when it comes down to business lettering and the like, I probably made a lot of grammatical err ...

Yes, you are very correct, brother SKT174 ...

Without grammar as a foundation of your language, you will STILL be able to manage conversation without problem because body language will help in this type of communication.

But when you sit down to write, it is a different matter.

Sometimes, the vice versa is also true. Some people can write very well but may have difficulty in expressing themselves by words of mouth.

It's hard to be perfect in all respect, unfortunately !

[ 本帖最後由 taurus 於 2006-8-31 10:05 PM 編輯 ]

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原帖由 neiahyeah 於 2006-8-31 22:01 發表

Hi Brother Luar

Welcome to join in.  What you write is precise and laconic.

I have been engaged in the use of English language for years and i opine:

First, only about 2000 differe ...

Buon giorno ! Buona sera ! Signor Neiahyeah,

Seeing you saying ciao, so I greet you in Italian ! That's all I know ... haha ...

Arrivederci, ciao !

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原帖由 neiahyeah 於 2006-8-31 22:42 發表

Buon giorno ! Buona sera ! Signor Taurus

Arrivederci, ciao

I dont know Italian but I am sure my return is correct, :

Hi Brother Neiahyeah,

You REALLY is full of wisdom !

Both Buon giorno & Buona sera are greetings, in Chinese 你好嗎. Buon giorno is used in the morning whereas Buona sera is used in the evening.

For the time being, I try to stay away from strangers in the afternoon because I don't know how to greet them ... haha

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原帖由 SKT174 於 2006-8-31 06:53 發表
Grammar wasn't taught in NZ when I attended high school.  I can speak day to day English fluently but when it comes down to business lettering and the like, I probably made a lot of grammatical err ...

Hi Brother SKT174,

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

As our mother tongue "Cantonese", we do not have to study Cantonese Grammar as well.

But English as a second language to us or to anybody, I cannot imagine how one can use the language without knowing its grammar.

Take, for example, French or Italian or even Spanish, you can learn a few day-to-day short sentences or even only words to help you while you are there as a tourist. But to use them to express yourself in writing, I really cannot imagine how it will work.

So, we know in NZ that Grammar is not taught as school.

Thanks again to Brother SKT174. Otherwise, it will be difficult to know situation like this !                                       

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原帖由 oldfella 於 2006-9-10 18:38 發表
Unexpectedly bumped into this thread and see a few old nostalgic guys chatting happily, without knowing that their long windedness has scared away those younger ones who are in desperate need of he ...

Thank you Brother Oldfella for your reminder. I hope we have not done it yet. We start a fire here to share its warmth with every visitor.

Welcome on board !  

[ 本帖最後由 taurus 於 2006-9-11 01:12 AM 編輯 ]

Dear Brother Oldfella,

I cannot remember when EMB implemented its policy of eliminating teaching English Grammar in local schools as I have already casted my no-confidence vote to the authorities since 1990 by sending my two children to study abroad.

At my primary education, I studied at government primary school and had my first English book at P.3 . I still remembered now how it looked then. It was a colourful story book named "John and Mary" being taught in Great Britain at that time.

But my memory was blurred as to when I started being taught English Grammar. As far as I can remember, English Grammar was taught throughout my 5-year secondary education. I did not read too many books or magazines outside school curiculum.

It was after I have started to work that I became aware of the importance of writing and speaking correct English. I then put into practice of the following simple method :

IPUT - read as many articles and as frequent as I want to;

SAVE TO MEMORY - memorize as many words, phrases, clauses, sentences and nicely written articles as I can;

OUTPUT - from my memory, search for appropriate  words, phrases, clauses and sentences , put them in my writings.

Unfortunately, there are always problems with RAMs in my memory and output mechanism somewhere inside my body that either the materials stored just fade away and cannot be restored or the searching mechanism in findling appropriate wordings simply fails frequently. As a result, my output is generally not satisfactory ! Therefore, please excuse me, brothers !  

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原帖由 koolaar 於 2006-9-16 21:57 發表

It was very well said, and I would like to join and follow your good deeds to help whenever the occasion deems feasible and appropriate.



You have such a right attitude  ...

Welcome on board then ...