Why Learning Grammar is Important?

Simple Present Tense

THE SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE IS USED:

• To express habits, general truths, repeated actions or unchanging situations, emotions and wishes:
  I smoke (habit); I work in London (unchanging situation); London is a large city (general truth)
• To give instructions or directions:
  You walk for two hundred meters, then you turn left.
• To express fixed arrangements, present or future:
  Your exam starts at 09.00
• To express future time, after some conjunctions: after, when, before, as soon as, until:
  He'll give it to you when you come next Saturday.

FORMING THE SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE: TO THINK

Affirmative	Interrogative	Negative
I think	Do I think?	I do not think
You think	Do you think?	You do not think
He thinks	Does he think?	He does not think
She thinks	Does she think?	She does not think
It thinks	Does it think?	It does not think
We think	Do we think?	We do not think.
They think	Do they think?	They do not think.

NOTES ON THE SIMPLE PRESENT, THIRD PERSON SINGULAR

• In the third person singular the verb always ends in -s:
  he wants, she needs, he gives, she thinks.
• Negative and question forms use DOES (= the third person of the auxiliary 'DO') + the infinitive of the verb.
  He wants ice cream. Does he want strawberry? He does not want vanilla.
• Verbs ending in -y : the third person changes the -y to -ies:
  fly --> flies, cry --> cries
  Exception: if there is a vowel before the -y:
  play --> plays, pray --> prays
• Add -es to verbs ending in:-ss, -x, -sh, -ch:
  he passes, she catches, he fixes, it pushes

reference: http://www.ef.com/english-resources/english-grammar/simple-present-tense/

Diary Writing Affects Students’ Writing Skills and Language Ability

Different with any other skills, writing is a complex skill to learn and to teach. Some students are afraid to start writing because they afraid make mistake. Sometimes, they can’t express and communicate their idea effectively because they focus on the rules of paragraph.The one solution improving writing skills is through writing constantly. Thus, ‘writing diary’ comes to replace traditional method on improving writing skills that only focus on the rule and product. In short, it can be said that diary writing affects students’ writing skills and language ability.

First, according to Bagheri & Pourgharib (2013) teachers should respond to the message but do not correct linguistic errors. By that, learners have the freedom of writing without worrying about mistake. Diaries can be an effective method to help student writing constantly without think the linguistic errors. When students write a diary, they write about their daily life and what happen on them every day. The more learners have choices to decide, the more learners are motivated and interested in the writing activity. By this activity, students don’t feel forced by “difficult writing task”.

Next, according to McDonough & McDonough (1997) and Rubin (2003) students feel better when they improve fluency in the writing activity. When students writing diary they will write using daily life vocabulary, when they don’t know about the new vocabulary they will check the dictionary. Later on, if they often check the dictionary they will familiar with their new vocabulary. This activity can help students to improve fluency because they write using almost same vocabulary every day. I have experience when I was in junior high school grade seven. My English teacher asked my class to write about diary in English every day and she will check when we had class meeting. At the first time I think “why I should do this? These works only waste my time”. In several days later, my teacher gives me positive feedback on my diary writing. That little thing makes me challenged to write more and more without afraid to being corrected. The result is I fluency in a fun way, without memorize difficultly.

In conclusion, freedom and constant writing by writing diary affects students’ writing skills and language ability. Based on those facts that I have mentioned before, now it’s clear that writing diaries have great impact on writing skill and language ability. Thus, diary writing should be try as a method to improving students’ writing skill and language ability.