SCHOOL

EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE
SOME MEASURES TO IMPROVE HOW TO TRANSFORM
SENTENCES ACCURATELY FOR THE 10TH FORM
STUDENTS
(MỘT SỐ BIỆN PHÁP NHẰM CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG VIẾT
LẠI CÂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10)

Teacher: PHAN THI QUYNH MAI
Group: FOREIGN LANGUAGE


Thanh Hoa, June 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Reasons for choosing the topic …………………………………….1
2. Aims of the study ………………………………………………….1
3. Scope of the study ………………………………………………….2
4. Methods of the study ……………………………………………….2
PART II: CONTENTS
1.Theoretical background……………………………………………...3
1.1. Communicative language teaching ……………………………….3
1.2. The importance of sentence transformation in communication
in particular and in English in general ………………………………...4
1.3. Types of sentence transformation in English……………….4
1.3.1. According to their meanings……………………………...5
1.3.1.1.Affirmative to negative…………………………...5
1.3.1.2.Exclamatory sentence to assertive sentence……...5

1.3.1.3.Assertive to interrogative ……………………….5
1.3.2.According to their types of sentences……………………..6
2. The actual situation ………………………………………………....7
3. Patterns of English sentence transformation made by the
10th form students at high school. ……………………………………..8
3.1.Description of subject ……………………………………………..8
3.2.Data collection and procedure …………………………………….8
3.3.Data analysis ……………………………………………………...9
3.3.1.Common errors ……………………………………………9
3.3.1.1.Wrong words used ……………………………….9
3.3.1.2.Errors in word order / word choice ……………...10
3.3.1.3.Errors in concord ………………………………...10


3.3.1.4.Errors in sequence of tenses……………………...11
3.3.1.5.Faulty Parallelism ………………………………..11
3.3.1.6.Pronoun errors …………………………………...11
3.3.1.7.Other errors ………………………………………11
3.3.2.Reasons for making errors ……………………………….12
3.3.2.1.Mother tonguge interference …………………….12
3.3.2.2.Over-generalization of rules ……………………..12
3.3.2.3.Faulty teaching and materials ……………………13
4. Some suggestions for helping 11th form students to transform
sentences effectively ………………………………………………….13
4.1. Suggestions for teachers to improve students’ ability to
transform sentences in the classroom in the process of teaching
English …………………………………………………………………13
4.2. Practical activities for students to practise transforming
sentences accurately …………………………………………………15
4.2.1. Practice with multiple choice questions…………………..15

4.2.2. Practice with sentence transformation exercises………….16
5.2. Reached results …………………………………………………...18
PART III: CONCLUSION ………………………………………………...20

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Reasons for choosing the topic
We are living in a developing society, therefore exchanging information in
communication becomes very crucial. Particularly, English plays an important part in
our socio-economic life of human beings. It seems to be the golden key to open
relationship between different nations in the world. Today people have a lot of
opportunities to study English to enlarge and enrich their background knowledge
about their surrounding world.
However, how to master English successfully? We must study many aspects of
English, one of which is writing English accurately. As we can see it, in our daily life,
wirting skills are needed when communicating in both formal and informal contexts


for some reasons. First of all, writing skills enables us to give information to some
people we want to. Secondly, writing skills become inportant when we would like to
write a letters, a poster, an advertisement, an annoucement or express our ideas about
a certain topic and so on. Thirdly, one of the compulsory parts in the National General
Certificate Examination is writing part which requires students’ competence in both
sentence transformation and paragraph writing. Nevertheless, few of people
apprehend the knowledge of writing skills properly and they do not know how to
write English accurately. At high school, many students always make mistakes related
to writing sentences as well as paragraphs in the process of learning English as well as
in daily communication.
For those above, I would like to find out some common errors made by students
when they transform sentences and then suggest some solutions to help 10 th form
students at high school to avoid them. As a result, I am really interested in choosing

the topic: “Some suggestions to improve how to transform English sentences
accurately for the 10th grade students.”
2. Aims of the study
The aims of this study are:
• To systematically classify transformation sentences in English
( kinds of transformation sentences)
• To help learners to distinguish subtypes of transformation sentences
in order to write them accurately.
• To find out some common errors that students at high school often
make when transforming sentences.
• To mainly give out some suggestions for helping 10 th form students at
high school to transform English sentences accurately not only in
their classroom but also in daily life.
3. Scope of the study
The study confines one item of English grammar: Sentences in English. I also
focus on the classification of sentence transformation with the definition and features
of each type. Also, in the study, I mainly concentrate on offering some suggestions to
improve how to transform English sentences accurately for 10th grade students.
4. Method of study
To conduct the study, a lot of methods are used. However, the main ones are
descriptive statistics, observation and analytical method.


PART II: DEVELOPMENT
1. Theoretical background
1.1.Communicative language teaching
There are many methods used in the process of teaching foreign language in
general and in grammar in particular. Grammar – translation is one of the most
popular methods that dominated foreign language teaching from the 1800s to the
1940s and in modified form it continues to be used in several part of the world today.

Grammar-translation approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its
grammar rules, followed by application of these rules to the task of translating
sentences and text into and out of the target language. The grammar rules are
memorized because learners study grammar rules first, which are then practised
through translation exercises. In other words, grammar is taught deductively. In
grammar translation method, reading and writing are the major focuses, whereas it


pays no systematic attention to speaking and listening. However, in fact, students
learning grammar very well can be unsuccessful in communication. They have
difficulties in speaking and writing. The most important goal of learning language is
to effectively communicate with other people. Therefore, the communicative
approach have been applied in different nations in different parts of the world.
Communicative proficiency is more focused than mere mastery of structures.
According to the American and British proponents, communicative language
teaching is an approach, which emphasizes the social interaction activities and the
functional communication activities. Social interaction activities consist of tasks such
as comparing sets of pictures and pointing out the similarities and differences,
discovering missing features in a map or a picture, giving introductions on how to do
something...In grammar translation method, accuracy is emphasized and students are
expected to attain high standards, Unlike grammar translation method, no text and
grammar rules are presented in this approach in this approach. Classroom
arrangement is non-standard; students are expected to interact with each other rather
than with teachers and correction of errors may be absent or infrequent.
Communicative language teaching requires teachers’ two main roles. Teacher plays an
important part not only in facilitating the communicatin process among all
participants in the classroom but also in acting as an independent participant. Teachers
have to be organizers of resources, researchers and learners, contributors in terms of
appropriate knowledge, abilities and experience; counselors and group process
managers.

1.2. The importance of sentence transformation in communication in particular
and in English in general.
As can be seen, both speaking anh writing are vital skills in cimmunication.
However, many people ignore the importance of writing skills. Especially, most of
students have not focused on learning writing skills. As a result, they are not able to
express their ideas, thoughts ... when they write a letter, an e-mail or a paragraph or
sometimes they can do but not really successfully. In 2015, when the National
General Certificate Examination was first applied, almost every students are
extremely nervous about their writing ability. The reason for their nervousness is that
they mainly pay attention to Mutiple Choice Questions and do not take enough notice
of writing sentences and paragraphs.
Sentence transformation is a good tool to help you speak English better as well
as write English more effectively. If you are good at paraphrasing, you will be more
successful in not only daily communication but also paragraph writing because the


use of different structures and vocabulary makes you find it easy to express your
opinions and your writing more diverse and more persuasive but not boring.
The ability to rewrite sentences so that they have the same meaning as the
original is often required for many English Exams such as Cambridge's FCE. It is also
an important skill which can help you improve your understanding of similar English
expressions and vocabulary.
Sentence transformation is a compusory part in the National General Certificate
Examination which requires students to rewrite the sentences given without changing
its original meanings. This part only makes up 5% of the total mark of the test but
without it, students can fail the examination or can not get good mark to be admitted
to good universities in our country. On the other hand, the proficiency of sentence
transforming can enable you to choose the best options in Mutiple Choice Questions
more correctly and help you gain a stock of English vocabulary and structures, which
offer you better opportunity to get better mark in all examinations from semester

exams to final exams...
However, being an effective writer a lot to do with how to transfrom a sentence.
Once the purpose of the sentence transformation exercise has been established, we
ourselves should take the following things into account: What types of sentence
transformation can be? How to do each type successfully?
1.3. Types of sentence transformations in English
Transformation is changing the form of a sentence without changing its
meaning. In the exams, transformation should be done according to the direction
given in the question paper. In doing transformation a student should have a fairly
well knowledge about the kinds of sentence and their formation.
1.3.1. According to their meanings:
Sentences can be classified into affirmative, negative, interrogative or assertive,
imperative and exclamatory sentences. They can be transformed into different kinds
of sentences without changing the meanings of the sentences.
1.3.1.1.Affirmative to negative:
An affirmative sentence and a negative sentence can be interchanged.
Sometimes affirmative sentence can be changed into negative by using opposite
words ( before the word, of course “not” is used.)
e.g: Remember to lock the door before going to bed. ( affirmative)
Don’t forget to lock the door before going to bed. ( negative)
An affirmative sentence can be converted into a negative sentence by removing
“too” and replacing by “so.... that .... can not / could not....”
e.g: He is too weak to walk. ( affirmative)


He is so weak that he can not walk. ( negative)
Affirmative and negative sentences can be interchanged using degrees of
comparisons. ( superlative degree replaced by “no other + ...+ so / as + adjective +
as + subject”)
e.g: Dhala is the biggest city in Bangladesh. ( affirmative)

No other city in Bangladesh is as big as Dhala. ( negative)
1.3.1.2. Exclamatory sentence to assertive sentence
Exclamatory sentence and assertive sentence can be interchanged without
changing the meaning of the sentences .
To convert exclamations into statements, the following changes are made:
-All the words such as “ what” or “ how” used at the beginning of the
exclamatory sentence” are replaced by “very”
-Words “Oh” , “Oh what” , “If only” are replaced by “Subject wish”
followed by a full clause.
-The exclamatory mark must be removed.
e.g: What a splendid day!
It is a very splendid day.
1.3.1.3. Assertive to interrogative
To interchange the assertive and interrogative sentences, we make the following
changes:
-the verb or the auxiliary verb is placed before the subject.
-the negative is put if it is not mentioned in the sentence or left out if it is
there
- The mark of interrogation is placed at the end of the sentence
e.g: He was very gentle.
Wasn’t he very gentle?
1.3.2. According to their types of sentences
When we transform a sentence from a structure to another structure without
changing its meaning, it is called transformation.
Transformation is a method of expressing the same idea, concept or meaning in
different grammatical forms. Transformation of sentences helps us bring variety in
spoken and written language.
In English, there are mainly three types of sentences:
• Simple sentenc



• Compound sentence
• Complex sentence
We can change a simple sentence into a compound sentence or a complex
sentence. This is usually done by expanding a word or phrase into a clause. In the
same way, we can change a complex or compound sentence into a simple sentence.
This is done by reducing a clause into a word or phrase.
Study the examples given below.
It is too late to start a new lesson.
As you can see this sentence has just one clause and therefore it is as simple
sentence. The number of clauses in a sentence is equal to the number of finite
verbs in it. Note that to-infinitives and –ing forms are not finite verbs.
The structure too…to can be replaced by the structure so…that.
It is so late that we cannot start a new lesson.
As you can see this sentence has two clauses: one main clause (It is so late)
and one subordinate clause (That we cannot start a new lesson.) We have already
learned that a sentence containing one main clause and one or more subordinate
clauses is called a complex sentence.
Another example is given below.
He worked hard that he might pass the examination.
The above sentence is an example of a complex sentence. It has one main clause
(He worked hard) and one subordinate clause of purpose (That he might pass the
examination). Subordinate clauses of purpose can be reduced to to-infinitives.
He worked hard to pass the examination. (Simple sentence)
One more example is given below.
He ordered that the traitor be jailed. (Complex sentence)
This sentence, too, can be converted into a simple sentence with the help of
a to-infinitive.
He ordered them to jail the traitor.
In short, according to the types of sentences, sentence transformation may be

classified into subtypes: simple to compound, simple to complex and vice versa.
2. THE ACTUAL SITUATION
Many students consider speaking as well as writing a language as knowing that
language, and thus it is a notion that studying a language is to learn how to speak and
write the language. Therefore, if students are not learning how to write a language or
don’t have chance to write the language in class, sooner or later they will lose their


motivation and interest in learning language. Conversely, if appropriate activities are
properly carried out, these activities can be a fun and may help increase students’
learning motivation and make English class as an interesting place. However, not
many students know the importance of writing skills as well as writing lesson at
school. Like these students, the majority of the students at my school, Quang Xuong 1
high school, are not aware of how important the ability of writing English is. Most of
them are studying English for their written exams or to get good marks, not for their
daily communication in foreign language or their further goals in the future. They
mostly focus on reading, or language focus lessons, but pay little attention to
speaking, listening anf writing lessons. Their learning motivation is limited and their
learning attitude is not good, too. As a consquence, students sometimes suffer from
psychological tension whenever they are asked to express their opinions in English or
may even be “uncooperative”; that is to say, they do not listen to teachers or their
classmates attentively or they are not ready or willing to participate in writing
activities. Can you imagine the following situation? When you, an English teacher,
organize an activity in class, in which a student does not actively take part in the task,
how can the activity be successful?
As language environment is concerned, another problem is raised. The scale of
class is an obsctacle to teachers in general and English ones in particular: the number
of students in a class is too great, there are still about 40 to 48 students per class.
Thus, in a fortyfive –minute lesson, only some students’ papers can be corrected, most
students have few opportunites to practice writing English in class. Moreover, a large

number of students have a bad habit of thinking of the topics in Vietnamese and then
trying to translate their ideas into English. This habit have a great influence on the
ways the students write English while there is a big difference between two
languages, Vietnamese and English. In addition, most of students in my school who
live in the countryside do not take any chance to practice, use their English and
communicate with other in English in their daily life as they are out of the class.
Last but not least, some English teachers themselves are concentrating on
teaching students how to get high marks in different exams by providing them with
vocabulary, structures or grammar exercises day by day but they are not really
concerned about teaching communicative skills for their students. To have an
interesting lesson, teachers have to spend much of their time preparing their lesson,
making plan for it, redesigning the tasks to make them more suitable for the levels of
their own students, thinking of extra activities to motivate students to be more
interested in and more involved in them....and even spend some money on , hand-outs
or worksheets...
In short, through observation and reality when teaching English for nearly 10
years and teaching two classes 10C5 and 10C6 at Quang Xuong 1 high school in the


school year: 2015– 2016, it can be seen that the students’ inactiveness and
uncooperation, the limitation of communicative environment, lack of teachers’
investment lead to the students’ inability of writing English and transforming
sentences without changing their meanings. To solve these problems, I myself point
out some errors that students often make when transforming English sentences and
then chiefly offer some measures to improve 10 th grade students’ transforming English
sentences as follow.
3. PATTERNS OF ENGLISH SENTENCE TRANSFORMATION MADE BY
10TH FORM STUDENTS AT HIGH SCHOOL
3.1.Description of subjects
The subjects of this study involved students from two classses: 10C5 and 10C6

at Quang Xuong 1 high school.
3.2.Data collection and the procedure
To collect the data for this study, I carried out a type of test. The test is designed
on the basis of knowledge in English text book of the 10 th form. Hence, it can be
ensured that all the questions of the test are suitable for the level of the students.
The test consists of 10 sentences focusing on basic grammatical knowledge in
th
10 grade textbook .
Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it is as similar as
possible in meaning to the original sentence.
1. The boy didn’t do his homework until his father came in.
It was not.....................................................................................
2. The man is interviewing my niece. He is a film director.
The man who ………………………………………………………
3. He has two brothers, both of them work in television.
He has………………………………………………………………….
4. This is the most delicious cake I’ve ever tasted.
I’ve…………………………..............................................................
5. My father jogs in the park every morning, he is over seventy.
My father, ……………..………………………………………………
6. They are producing motorbikes in Vietnam.
Motorbikes .......................................................................................
7. I wasn't there yesterday, so I didn't know who he was.
If I...................... .................................................. .............................
8. Unless John apologizes, I will talk to him.
If.............................. .................................................. ........................
9. People thought that the cover was made of iron.
The cover...................... .................................................. .....................



10. Jane was absent from class because of her sickness.
Because Jane was................................ .................................................
The purpose of this test is to know how students transform sentences, find out
the errors that they usually make, and help students to expose themselves to the target
language, the hypothesis about types of trasnformations and do this accurately.
3.3.Data analysis
3.3.1. Common errors
Through the tests and the practice of the students in the classroom, we found
out some common errors that they often made when transforming English sentences.
The most common types of errors were:
• Wrong word used
• Errors in word order
• Errors in concord
3.3.1.1.Wrong word used:
+ Students always misuse relatives pronouns such as “who, whom , whose,
which, that”
Example: My father jogs in the park every morning, he is over seventy.
My father, whom jogs in the park every morning, is over seventy.
( Correct: My father, who jogs in the park every morning, is over seventy. )
He has two bothers, both of them work in television.
He has two bothers, both of which work in television.
(Correct: He has two bothers, both of whom work in television.)
+ They use wrong auxiliaries
Example: Unless John apologizes, I will talk to him.
• If John don’t apologize, I will talk to him.
( Correct: If John doesn’t apologoze, I will talk to him.)
+ They confuse the use of different kinds of words: adjective, noun, adverb..
Example: Jane was absent from class because of her sickness.
Because Jane was sickness, she was absent from class.
( Correct: Because Jane was sick, she was absent from class.

3.3.1.2.Errors in word order / word choice
+ They use a nound phrase, but instead of putting adjective before noun, they
place adjective after nouns ( as in Vietnamese)
Example:


The weather was very bad, so they had to cancel theor picnic.
• Because of the weather bad, they had to cancel their picnic.
( Correct : Because of the bad weather, they had to cancel their picnic)
+ They often put relative pronoun in the wrong position
Example:
My father jogs in the park every morning, he is over seventy.
My father jogs in the park every morning who is over seventy.
( Correct: My father, who jogs in the park every morning, is over seventy. )
3.3.1.3.Errors in concord
Errors in concord are the most common ones. Students misunderstand the use
of concord between operator and subject or they don’t know the rules of subject –verb
agreements.
Example: If he does not try hard, he can’t pass the examination.
Unless he try hard, he can’t pass the examination.
( Correct: Unless he tries hard, he can’t pass the examination)
They are producing motorbikes in Vietnam.
Motorbikes is being produced in Vietnam .
(Correct: Motorbikes are being produced in Vietnam)
3.3.1.4. Errors in sequence of tenses
They use wrong tenses in compound sentences because they are not aware of
sequences of tenses.
Example: The package was too heavy for Peter to carry.
• The package was so heavy that Peter can’t carry)
( Correct: The package was so heavy that Peter couldn’t carry )

3.3.1.5.Faulty Parallelism
Faulty parallelism occurs when parts of a sentence that are either in balance or
part of a series are not presented with the same ( or parallel) grammatical structure.
Example: He likes listening to music and watching football.
He is interested in listening to musich and watch football.
(Correct: He is interested in listening to musich and watching football.)
3.3.1.6. Pronoun Errors
Pronouns ( such as “he”, “they”, their”, “it”) are used to replace nouns, and
pronouns must agree in number and person with the noun they are replacing ( the


words that pronouns replace are called “antecedents”). In other words, “he” must refer
to one male, “she” to one female and “they” must refer to two or more people or
things. Lack of pronoun agreement occurs when the pronoun does not agree in
number or person with its antecedent. Pronoun errors also occur when the writer uses
a pronoun whose antecedent is missing, iss ambiguous or is too far removed from its
antecedent.
Example: Jane was absent from class because of her sickness.
Because Jane was sick, he was absent from class.
( Correct: Because Jane was sick, she was absent from class.)
3.3.1.7.Other errors
Besides common errors as stated above, some other errors that might come up
in sentence transformation include the following:
-Missing words
-Wrong structures
-Puntuation ( omitted commas)
-Spelling errors ( Misspelling)
-Words easily confused
Example 1: This is the most delicious cake I’ve ever tasted
I’ve never tasted more delicious cake that this.

( Correct: I’ve never tasted a more delicious cake than this)
Example 2:
My father jogs in the park every morning, he is over seventy.
My father who jogs in the park every morning is over seventy.
( Correct: My father, who jogs in the park every morning, is over seventy. )
Example: People thought that the cover was made of iron.
The cover was though to have been made of iron.
( Correct: The cover was thought to have been made of iron.)
3.3.2.Reasons for making errors
The mentioned above are the main sorts of errors that often occur in students’
sentence transformation. In this section, I will analysize the causes of these errors,
why certain errors are made. The major causes of these errors are:
• Mother tongue interference
• Overgeneralization of rules


• Faulty teaching and materials
3.3.2.1.Mother tongue interference
Mother tongue interference affects a lot in using English in general and in
transforming sentences in particular. For Vietnamese students, they find it difficult to
study and master English because of the big differences between Vietnamese and
English.
For example, in Vietnamese, to form a noun phrase ( using adjective to describe
a person or thing), we put an adjective after noun.
Example: Because of the rain heavy, we arrived at the airport late.
Meanwhile, in English, adjtectives are put before noun.
Example: Because of the heavy rain, we arrive at the airport late.
3.3.2.2.Overgeneralization of rules
Together with the effect of mother tongue interference, lack of concord between
subject and verb is also one of the main reasons for making errors. In English, there is

an agreement between subject and verb.
Furthermore, students always misuse the modal verbs as the ordinary verb or
sometimes they use “be” as the operator of modal verb. Instead of asking: “Can your
sister cook well?”, they ask: “Does your mother can cook well?”
What’s more, many students misuse five relative clauses “ who / which/ whom/
whose/ that”. It seems to be diffcult for them to master the uses of these. They overgeneralize the rules of English. They learn the position and functions of those
pronouns but in fact, they do not understand properly their uses
Example: The washing machine is out of order again, this is a big
nuisance.
The washing machine which is out of order again is a big
nuisance.
( Correct: The washing machine is out of order again, which is a big
nuisance.)
3.3.2.3.Faulty teaching and materials
Some teachers may teach students grammatical rules deductively with little or
even without practical activities. Students have few opportunities to use the language
that they have learnt in different contexts. In the process of teaching writing skills in
classroom, teachers do not pay much attention to the standards of writing. Teachers
should set a good example for students. Therefore, the way teachers use English
influences students’ using English much. If teachers do not concentrate on using


English in general and transfroming sentences in particular properly or letting
students write with no or little frequent correction, errors when converting sentences
by students would occur. Therefore, more activities focus on sentence transformation
should be designed and applied in the classroom.
4. SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR HELPING 10TH FORM STUDENTS TO
TRANSFORM SENTENCES EFFECTIVELY
4.1. Suggestions for teachers to improve students’ ability to transform sentences
in the classroom in the process of teaching English

To help students’ sentence transforming improve, a teacher’s method of
converting sentences into different ways is very important. Therefore, teacher must
pay attention to it in the classroom. The way the teachers ask students questions, the
way teachers encourage students to express the same ideas in various ways and the
ways teachers use various structures to express the same ideas affect the way the
students transform sentences very much. The following guidelines may be helpful:
• Always have purposes for your questions.
• Try to use various structures for the same idea target as much as possible.
• Try to encourage students to use different structures to talk to each other or
to write as much as possible.
• Always pay attention to sentence transformation ( whenever you give a
structure / a sentence, ask student to tranform it without changing its
meanings)
• Try to give students as many sentence transformation exercises as possible
Example 1:
Period 2: Unit 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF.....- Part A: Reading
Objective: Helping students to practice talking about how much time it may
take you to do something
Activity: Converting sentence using structure “It takes / took somebody time to
do something” into “Somebody spends / spent time doing something”
Possible activity:
After students finish task 1 ( page 13), teachers ask students:
T: Good morning. How are you today, Huong?
S1: Good morning. I’m fine. Thank you. And you?
T: Very well, thanks. How far is it from your house to school?
S1: Well, it is about 5 kilometers.


T: Oh, quite far. How much time does it take you to get to school?
S1: It takes me about 15 minutes to get to school.

T: Now, Hoa, how much time does Huong spend getting to school?
S2: Well, Huong spends 15 minutes getting to school.
T: That’s right. It takes Huong 15 mintues to get to school or I can say:
Huong spends 15 minutes getting school.
After listening to the conversation above, students can understand that
there are two structures which can be used to talk about how much time somebody
spends doing something. (They are: It takes/ took somebody time to do something and
somebody spends time doing something)
Example 2:
Period 69: Unit 11: NATIONAL PARKS – Part B: Speaking
Objective: Helping students to practice asking for unreal past using
conditional sentences type 3
Activity: Asking students some questions
In warm-up, teachers may ask students the following questions:
T: Good morning. How are you today, Hung?
S: Good morning. I’m fine. Thank you. And you?
T: Very well, thanks. What did you do yesterday, Hung?
S: Well, I stayed at home.
T: As you know yesterday it rained heavily so you stayed at home.
What would you have done if it had not rained?
S: Well, if it had not rained, I would not have stayed at home, I would
have gone shopping with my mother.
T: Oh. What a pity!
After finishing this conversation, teacher writes two sentences on the
board and elicit the way to transform sentences
It rained heavily so I stayed at home.
If it had not rained heavily, I would not have stayed at home.
4.2. Practical activities for students to practice transforming sentences accurately



In recent years, the application of leaner-centered teaching has flourished so
students have much time and opportunities to work by themselves actively with the
guide of teachers. Teachers plays the roles of a facilitator of the communication
process and an independent participant. To enable students to participate in class
language activities, visual aids, different situations and some games should be used.
In the process of teaching English in the school year: 2015 – 2016, I have applied the
following activities to two classes: 10C5 and 10C6 and experienced the improvements
of students’ transforming sentences.
4.2.1. Practice with multiple choice questions
One of the best ways to help students understand the meanings and the
structures of a particular sentence is by checking their understanding through a variety
of multiple choice questions. By this way, students will have more opportunities to
use the same structure in different contexts or different structures with the same
meaning in the same context.
The first kind of exercise is choosing the best options A, B, C or D to complete
the following sentences
Example 1 :
Period 2: Unit 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF.....- Part A: Reading
Objective: Helping students to practice using different structures to talk about
how much time it may take you to do something
Possible activity:
You shouldn't spend all your time.....................
A. study
B. to study C. studying D. studied
It ...............him 40 minutes to repair his computer yesterday.
A.takes
B. took
C.had taken D.take
She ...............an hour everyday practising her English.
A.takes

B. gets
C. spends D. has
The second kind of exercise is choosing the correct sentence among A, B, C or
D which has the same meaning as the given one.
Example 2 :
Period 2: Unit 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF.....- Part A: Reading
Objective: Helping students to practice using different structures to talk about
how much time it may take you to do something
Possible activity 1:
It took him three hours to do his homework.
A. He did his homework in three hours.
B. He spent three hours doing his homework.
C. He did his homework three hours ago.
D. He finished his homework 3 hours ago.


Possible activity 2:
usually / take / me / 10 minutes / school.
A. I usually take me 30 minutes to get to school.
B. I usually take 30 minutes getting to school.
C. It usually takes me 30 minutes to get to school.
D. It usually takes from me 30 minutes for getting to school.
There are numerous ways of checking students’ understanding of a structure
through multiple choice questions. As a result, students are gradually familiar with the
structures and their meanings so that they can make sure that they can write sentences
accurately.
4.2.2. Practice with sentence transformation exericises
After students gain a stock of vocabulary and structures, teacher can come into
another stage; that is, getting students to do sentence tranformation exercises. Teacher
should be an instructor at this stage, they should be very patient to help students

overcome their difficulties in transforming sentences because it is not easy for them to
convert sentences accurately at once, it takes them so long time to be good at
transforming sentences.
Example 1 :
Period 2: Unit 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF.....- Part A: Reading
Objective: Helping students to practice using different structures to talk about
how much time it may take you to do something
Possible activity:
It took me two hours to do my homework.
I spent…………………………....................................................
Mr. Vy often spends fifteen minutes leading the buffalo to the field.
It often takes ………………………………………………….......
Example 2 :
Period 85: Unit 13: FILMS ANDS CINEMA - Part E: LANGUAGE FOCUS
Objective: Helping students to practice using the structure: “It was not until....
that........”
Possible activity:
She did not begin to act in a film until she had finished college.
It was not
It was not until the end of the 1920s that sound was introduced to movies.
Sound was not .............................................................................
Teachers can give students exercises like those above again and again so that
they can be familiar with the structure and they can limit the errors they can make ( as
listed in section 3.3.1). Teachers should also help students to be aware of the errors
they may take.


Another good way to get students practise this type of exercise is to check
students again and again. Maybe teachers can use the sentences they had given
students before for checking or they can use other sentences using the same structures

and familiar meanings for checking. The ways to check can be various, depending on
the time, the purpose, the numbers of students or the levels of students. Teachers can
give their students pieces of paper and then let them do the exercise in a limited
period of time. In the end, teachers check students’ answers and let students to correct
their paper themselves or let students peer –correct. Or teachers can ask students to
hand in the papers, correct them and give feedback in the next lesson. Another
possible classroom activity is students’ working in groups, ask them to work in groups
and then a student read the original sentence and another student of the group read the
sentence with the same meaning. “Practice makes perfect”, teachers should give
students as many opportunities to practice transforming as possible.
Summary:
Teachers themselves can not require their students to be good at
transforming sentences for a short time. As an English saying “Rome wasn’t built in a
day”, teachers should be patient enough to make students competent in English. In an
English lesson, teachers can use different techniques to encourage students to use a
variety of structures to express the same idea as much as possible, depending on the
objective of the lesson, the topic of the lesson as well as the level of different students
in different classes. Teachers must take these things into consideration before deciding
to choose one of the acivities as described above. However, teachers should try to
speak mostly in English and ask students different types of structures to express their
opinions as much as possible. It is one of the best way to improve students’
transforming sentences because it is a good language environment for students.
Moreover, teachers can combine these activities as above to use them in a lesson.
Because the time for students to spend practice converting sentences is limited ( time
spent on other activities such as speaking, reading, listening, writing), teacher shoud
make use of classroom time to help students practice sentence transformation.
Besides the combination of different techniques, teacher should raise students’
awareness whenever they do sentence transformation exercises. Let students know
the following ruels.
Here are some tips for doing sentence transformation exercises well.

- Read the instructions carefully.
- Are you given a word to include in sentence two? If so, don’t change
this word.
- How many words are you allowed to write to complete sentence two?
Sometimes the instructions will tell you that there is a maximum word limit.
- Read sentences one and two slowly and carefully.
- Which part of sentence one is tested in sentence two?


- What grammar do you need to use?
- If you don’t know an answer, guess. You may be right!
- Check your spelling carefully.
- Check your answers carefully when you finish.
5. Reached results
After applying the methods as described above to teach English for students in
two classes: 10C5 and 10C6 (with 88 students) for nearly a year, I am really amazed
by the improvements made by students from 2 classes when they transform English
sentences as well as write English in class and in their daily life ( not only writing
sentences but also writing paragraphs or essays) . In the three first weeks of teaching,
I noticed that students had a lot of difficulties transforming and they made a lot of
mistakes related to sentences. Most of students can not use different types of
structures, in addtion to misusing of relative pronouns, misunderstanding the concord
between the subject and the verb, the position of the subject and the operator in a
question... for some reasons such as overgeneralization of rules, the faulty teaching or
the mother tongue interference as mentioned above. Surprisingly, after not very long
time, the students’ ability to transform sentences is obviously enhanced. They can
transform sentences accurately, use a variety of types from simple type to more
difficult types, make fewer errors .....needing less assistance from teachers. They can
make up their own sentences more easily and more successfully whenever they are
asked to do so. Especially, what makes me extremely happy is that they love my

subject, English more and more and they take part in classroom activities with their
enthusiasm and interest, which results in my effective lesson and the students’
advance in English in general and in their sentences transforming in particular
Specific result
Content

Tested
result at
the
beginning
of the
school
year

Tested
Tested
result at
result at
the end of the end of
the first the school
semester
year

Students’ confidence, initiative and ability
to take part in classroom sentence
transforming activities

15/ 88
= 16,9 %


27/ 88
= 30,9 %

57 / 88
= 64,7 %


Remembering and understanding how to
make different types of sentence
transformation

12 / 88
= 13,9 %

31 / 88
= 35, 6 %

63 / 88
= 72, 1%

Understanding and applying a variety of
structures in different contexts

9/ 88
= 10,2 %

25 / 88
= 28, 3%

47/ 88

= 53, 2 %

Making
errors
sentences

73/ 88
= 82,9%

55/ 88
= 62,5%

34/ 88
= 38,6%

5/ 88
= 5,6%

15/ 88
= 17,1%

24 / 88
= 27,3%

when

transforming

Effective transforming in daily life


PART III: CONCLUSION
Communication in English becomes very popular in our daily life, so how to
master English in general well is essential for everyone. In the study: “Some
suggestions to improve how to transform sentences accurately for the 10 th form
students”, the sentence transformations are classified into different types according to
their meanings and their types in order to help learners to know how to use each type
of sentences properly. In addition, I find some common errors usually made by
students in the process of learning and indicate the reasons for making them at the
same time. What’s more, some suggested activities are useful and lively enough for
students to practice transforming sentences well. It not only checks their language
competence and enable to improve their writing abilities. Moreover, teachers’
transforming techniques have such a strong effect on students’ transforming
sentences. That’s why some suggested ideas, activities have been given with the hope
that they could help teachers and students deal with the problem concerned. I and
some of my collegues oursleves find these activies useful, interesting and effective in
motivating students and arose students’ interest in learning English.
Although the study is rather limited, we hope that it will contribute a small part
to helping students to learn and master English better at high schools and to be more
successful in daily communication.

Quang Xuong, 5th June, 2016
Teacher:


Phan Thi Quynh Mai

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