Register, Reading for Understanding, Dashes, Connected Paragraphs and Language in Film

1. What Is Register?

Register: The level of formality in language, chosen to suit the audience, purpose and setting.

In Basic 8 you learned to think about your audience. This year, you will use register more carefully, especially when you speak with diverse partners, such as elders, officials, younger children or people from other backgrounds. Every speaker has to consider who they are speaking to, why they are speaking and where they are. A learner speaking to a nurse at a clinic, for example, should be polite and clear, and should give exact details about the problem.

2. Formal and Informal Language

3. Choosing the Right Register

The topic also affects register. Discussing an illness with a doctor needs careful, accurate words. Talking about a football match with friends can be lively and casual. Ghanaian English also includes everyday expressions like "small small" and "I'm coming", which are fine among friends but do not suit formal letters. In examinations, always write in formal or neutral English, unless the question asks for a friendly letter.

4. Register with Diverse Partners

Respect is shown differently in different cultures. In many Ghanaian homes, young people lower their eyes and use both hands when speaking to elders. They greet elders first, and avoid interrupting them. When you speak with someone from another region, avoid expressions that they may not know, and speak clearly. Good register shows that you respect the other person, and it helps your message to be accepted.

1. Reading Passage: The Plastic Road

When Nana Yaa's village was cut off by floods for the third year running, she stopped complaining and started collecting bottles. She was seventeen, and she had read that plastic could be mixed with sand to make hard paving blocks. Her neighbours laughed. "Rubbish cannot build a road," they said.

For six months, she and four friends gathered waste plastic from the gutters. A local mechanic helped them to melt it safely in an open yard, while an engineer from the district checked the mixture. The first blocks cracked. The next batch was better. By the end of the rainy season, they had paved a short stretch beside the clinic, and pregnant women could reach it without wading through mud.

Nobody laughs now. The assembly has asked Nana Yaa's team to train young people in three other towns. "We did not wait for someone to save us," she says, "and we were tired of being angry."

2. Understanding the Passage

3. Reading Strategies

Before you read, look at the title and think about what you already know. While you read, stop and ask whether you understand. Use context to work out new words: "wading through mud" suggests slow, difficult walking. After reading, retell the main events and state the message. When answering questions, go back to the text and find evidence. Good answers are based on what the writer says and implies, not on your own guesses.

4. Main Idea and Details

The main idea tells you what the passage is mostly about, and the details support it. Here, the main idea is that one determined young person solved a community problem. Details include the bottles, the failed blocks and the training of others. Notice that the writer gives a message without saying it directly. Initiative, patience and help from others can change a community.

1. What Is a Dash?

Dash: A long horizontal mark used to show a break or add information in a sentence.

A dash looks like a long line (—). It is longer than a hyphen (-). A hyphen joins words, as in "well-known", while a dash separates parts of a sentence. Do not confuse them. In handwriting, make a dash clearly longer, with a small space on each side.

2. Uses of the Dash

3. Pairs of Dashes

Two dashes work like brackets around extra information. The sentence must still make sense without the part between them: "My brother is a nurse." When you use a pair of dashes, do not forget the second one. A single dash comes before the final part of a sentence, as in "Only one thing mattered — getting home."

4. Dashes, Commas and Colons

Dashes are most useful in stories, speeches and informal writing. Do not overuse them, or they will lose their effect, and your writing will look careless. In formal letters and reports, use them only rarely. Commas, colons and full stops are usually better there.

1. Unity, Completeness and Coherence

A paragraph has a topic sentence, which states the main idea, followed by supporting sentences, and often a concluding sentence. If one sentence wanders away from the topic, the paragraph loses its unity. If the idea is not fully explained, then the reader is left with questions.

2. Cohesive Devices

Cohesive device: A word or phrase that links ideas in a text.

3. A Model Paragraph

Plastic waste is one of the biggest problems in our town. First, it blocks the gutters, and as a result the streets flood when it rains. In addition, stagnant water in these gutters provides a breeding place for mosquitoes. Therefore, residents suffer from both flooding and malaria. Clearly, our town must find a better way of managing plastic.

Notice the words "first", "as a result", "in addition" and "therefore". They show how the ideas are related. The word "these" in "these gutters" refers back to the gutters already mentioned, and helps avoid repetition.

4. Writing Your Own

Do not use cohesive devices just to fill space. Each one must show a true link. "However" needs a real contrast, and "therefore" needs a real result. Too many of them make your writing sound stiff.

1. How Characters Are Revealed

In a novel, the writer can tell us directly what a character thinks. In a film or a radio drama, we usually have to judge from what we see and hear. Writers and actors build characters through dialogue, tone of voice, word choice, gestures and how others respond to them. These are known as methods of characterisation.

2. Language Clues

3. A Sample Scene

Consider this scene from a television drama. MR ADDO: (not looking up) You are late. KOJO: Sir, the trotro broke down at Nsawam, and I — MR ADDO: I did not ask for a story. KOJO: No, sir. Sorry, sir.

Mr Addo's short, cold sentences show his authority, and he does not look up, which shows disrespect. He interrupts Kojo, marked by the dash, and that shows power. Kojo's repeated "sir" shows that he is respectful, and perhaps afraid. Without any description, we already know a great deal about these two people.

4. Analysing Character

Use this pattern when you write: point, evidence, explanation. For example: "Mr Addo is harsh. He says, 'I did not ask for a story.' This shows that he has no interest in Kojo's difficulty." Ghanaian films and TV series offer many examples, and so do radio dramas, where voice alone creates the character.