The Self-Introduction Grammar Revision
During English class at a junior high school in Kagoshima, students are preparing short self-introductions for a welcome party for exchange students. Riku writes these sentences: 'I have a sister. She is a high school student. She likes music.' The teacher asks him to combine the first two sentences into one sentence and to explain the punctuation. Next, Riku writes: 'I am belonging to the tennis club. I have visited Kagoshima last year. I want to be a teacher who can teach English.' The teacher marks two verb-form errors. Finally, the class compares two versions: (A) 'My sister who is a high school student likes music.' (B) 'My sister, who is a high school student, likes music.' The teacher says Riku has only one sister. Riku must choose the better version and explain why. He also must correct the two verb-form errors without changing the meaning. The teacher reminds the class that the speech will be read aloud, so punctuation must help the listener understand which sister is meant.
1. Which version, (A) or (B), should Riku choose, and why? Use the fact that he has only one sister.
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Reasoning: A clause without commas is restrictive: it identifies which sister. That suggests there is more than one sister. A clause between commas is nonrestrictive: it adds extra information about a sister already identified. Since Riku has only one sister, the listener does not need the clause to identify her.
Answer: Riku should choose (B): 'My sister, who is a high school student, likes music.' The commas show that 'who is a high school student' is extra information. Version (A) could make the listener think Riku has more than one sister and is pointing to the one who is in high school.
2. Correct 'I am belonging to the tennis club' and 'I have visited Kagoshima last year.' Explain each correction.
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Reasoning: 'Belong' describes a state, not an action in progress, so it is not normally used in the present continuous. 'Last year' is a finished past time, so the simple past is needed, not the present perfect.
Answer: Change 'I am belonging to the tennis club' to 'I belong to the tennis club.' Change 'I have visited Kagoshima last year' to 'I visited Kagoshima last year.' The first correction uses the simple present for a state. The second uses the simple past because the visit happened at a specific finished time.
3. Rewrite Riku's self-introduction as three correct sentences that keep all his information.
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Reasoning: The revision must keep the family detail, the club, the visit, and the future goal. The relative pronoun 'who' correctly refers to a person, 'teacher'.
Answer: 'I have a sister, who is a high school student. I belong to the tennis club. I visited Kagoshima last year, and I want to be a teacher who can teach English.' This keeps all the information, corrects the two verb forms, and uses 'who' for a person.