Writing a Grammar-Rich Text for Primary Students: WOU EED209/05 TMA2

This assignment showcases a grammar-rich text written for primary school students in Malaysia. The text, a short story titled "The Strange Charmed Life of a Bad Boy," incorporates various grammatical features as requested by the assignment brief. The student-authored text includes phrasal verbs, imperative verbs, infinitive forms, zero conditional sentences, stative verbs, finite adverbial clauses, relative clauses, discourse markers, and passive sentences. The assignment aims to create an engaging story that introduces students to different grammatical concepts and expands their vocabulary. The document also includes a list of the 10 grammar items used in the text and references used for the assignment.

Running Head: ENGLISH 1
grammar and usage
Author's Name
Institutional Affiliation

ENGLISH 2
Introduction
Schools in Malaysia follow the Malay language as the main language of instruction. The
Malaysia Ministry of Education emphasizes on increasing bilingual proficiency and motivates all
Schools to use the English language as it is an international language of communication (Lim,
2013). As a textbook writer for Primary / Secondary students in educational institutions in
Malaysia, one should keep in mind the procedural, factual, descriptive and expository texts that
can be useful for the students and help them in their English language subject. The focus should
be on creating a grammar-rich text that employs a variety of grammar features. The English
language textbook should work as a useful tool for the Malaysian school teachers to raise the
proficiency level of the students in English. Primary / Secondary level textbooks should be
proficiency and grade-level-appropriate.
The purpose of writing an original text for the English textbooks for the primary level
students in Malaysia, aged seven to twelve is to make to raise their grammar level. The teachers
should be able to integrate their reading and to write instructions when using the text. The
content of the textbook should be interesting and appropriate for the learners. As the target
audience of the text is aged seven to twelve years old, the content of the text can be an exciting
story.
The objective is to raise the vocabulary level of the students and introduce them to the
grammatical structures. Vocabulary plays an integral part in learning to read and to understand
what is read. The primary level students should be aware of different types of verbs and how to
use the tenses appropriately (Wawasan Open University, 2016a). Along with the verbs, the
students should be aware of the basic sentence types and the categories in the English language,
such as noun, verb, preposition, and adjective (Wawasan Open University, 2016b). The
expansion of vocabulary improves reading comprehension and helps the child to understand the
text better.
Past research gives clear indications that most non-native speakers of English need to
know the majority of the words in a text to gain adequate comprehension. The learners rather
than learning to read will focus more on reading to learn (Stoffelsma, 2019). The only way to

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prepare them well is by helping them acquire a sufficient level of English vocabulary and
grammar. According to Khan, Majoka & Ashfaq (2013), students who are learning to read in the
second language should have an expanded vocabulary.
Interesting and animated stories can be an effective way to teach English to young
learners. The teachers can use audiovisual input with the story narration when teaching as a
Foreign Language. As asserted by Yildirim & Torun (2014), the students maintain a positive
attitude and their motivation towards learning English. The teachers get plenty of opportunities
to present and recycle vocabulary and grammar of the target language.
An interesting short story would be written for the English textbooks for the primary
level students in Malaysia. The objective would be to raise their vocabulary level and introduce
them to grammar structure followed in the language. It is essential to keep the length of the story
in mind as younger children tend to get bored with lengthy stories. The language should be easy
to follow and incorporate different grammatical aspects like verbs, different forms of verbs and
sentence types in English. The idea is to make the students aware of simple and complex
sentences and expose them to different notion of tense. Any new story introduces new words and
thus is an effective way of introducing the students to new words and thus expand their
vocabulary.
Genre- short story (500 words)
The Strange Charmed Life of a Bad Boy
Once there was a little boy whose name was Tim. He was like any other boy but bad and
wicked in his ways. And his life was strange indeed.
Once Tim stole the key of the pantry and helped himself to some plum jam. He loved
plums and could not resist the freshly made jam by his mother. Now that the jam was almost
finished by him 10, he filled up the bottle with tar so that his mother would not be able to know 5
the difference. No inner voice whispered to him, - Say sorry to your mother. This is wrong 2.
Not once did Tim kneel down and promise himself not to repeat such a thing. The thought did
not occur to him that he could simply go to his mother, tell her about his deed and ask for
forgiveness. When his mother came across 1 tar in the jam bottle, she asked Tim about the jam.

ENGLISH 4
Tim denied knowing anything, and that was the end of the matter. Also 8, his mother had more
important tasks on hand than to ponder over a bottle of plum jam.
Once Tim climbed up the apple-tree of his neighbor to steal 3 apples. His eyes could not
resist the sight of those juicy red apples hanging from the tree. So, he went up the tree and stole
as many apples as he wanted. Nothing terrible happened to him. He didn’t fall down from the
tree and break his leg or arm, or the neighbor’s dog did not come running after him, and the
neighbor did not complain. No one missed those missing apples on the tree and no one pointed
out at Tim that this is the boy who stole the apples.7
Once he stole his teacher’s new pen as he got fascinated by it. Now that he had stolen the
pen from the teacher’s bag, he was afraid it would be found out. So 9, he slipped the pen in
Christopher Williams bag. Poor Christopher. He was the good little boy of the whole village and
the apple of his teacher’s’ eye. When the teacher started looking for her lost pen and found the
pen in Christopher’s bag, all that good little boy could do was to hang his head in shame. Even
the teacher was disturbed to see the blush of guilt on Christopher’s face and his trembling
shoulders. And all Tim did was smile at the incident and feel pleased with himself.
Nothing bad happened to Tim, even though his ways were bad 6. Even when he went
boating on Sunday in a raging river, he didn’t get drowned, or when he was fishing out in the
storm, he didn’t get struck by lightning. It was indeed strange as Tim escaped every time. It
seemed like nothing could hurt Tim, and he bore a charmed life. Even when he grew and got
wealthy by all means of cheating, he still enjoyed a respectable position in town. And now he is
married and has a wife who is obedient and doesn’t question his ways. As for his children, he
doesn’t care much if they are bad or good, but they are good to him.
Isn’t it strange indeed when the moral books have always advocated – If you do bad
things, bad things will happen to you? 4 Well, Tim must be an exception to those rules and has
been living his strange life all these years.
List of 10 grammar items

ENGLISH 5
Grammar feature Grammar item Line
1 Phrasal verbs came across 9
2 Imperative verb Say sorry to your
mother. This is wrong
6
3 Infinitive form of verb to steal 11
4 zero conditional sentence If you do bad things,
bad things will
happen to you
33
5 stative verb know 5
6 Finite adverbial clauses even though his ways
were bad
25
7 a relative clause who stole the apples 17
8 a discourse marker used to add
something
Also 10
9 discourse marker used to show
causes and results
so 19
10 a passive sentence the jam was almost
finished by him
4

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References
Khan, K., Majoka, M. I., & Ashfaq, U. (2013). The effect of vocabulary building on students
academic achievement in English language at elementary level. Language In India, (1),
192.
Lim, T.D. (2013). Analyzing Malaysian English Classrooms: Reading, Writing, Speaking and
Listening Teaching Strategies. University of Washington, 1(1), 1–59.
Stoffelsma, L. (2019). English vocabulary exposure in South African township schools: Pitfalls
and opportunities. Reading & Writing, (1). Retrieved from
http://lib-proxy.sunywcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.577599414&site=eds-live
Wawasan Open University. (2016a). Verbs, Phrasal Verbs, Multiword Verbal Expressions and
Tenses Unit 3. Wawasan Open University, 1(1), 1–55.
Wawasan Open University. (2016b). Grammar and Usage Unit 4. Wawasan Open University,
1(1), 1–45.
Yildirim, R., & Torun, F. P. (2014). Exploring the Value of Animated Stories with Young
English Language Learners. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology - TOJET,
13(4), 47–60.

ENGLISH 7