Rittenhouse Charles. Language Comes Alive 5

Vancouver: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1959. — 280 p.This text has been developed on the assumption that learning to use our language comes through repeated practice in speaking and writing. To this end it provides a wealth of opportunities for students to express themselves on topics of particular interest to boys and girls in Grade Five. The activities have all been tested in scores of classes over a period of years and should help you to organize a varied, stimulating, and well-motivated programme to suit the needs of your own pupils. Two major kinds of activities are included: imaginative and practical. Among the former are the writing of stories, descriptions, and verse, and the improvising of plays; the latter includes reporting, presenting information gained from reading and interviewing, letter-writing, and the like. A great many classroom situations and group discussions are outlined or suggested to provide stimuli for language growth. Children’s experiences become the reason and necessity for effective speaking and writing. The sections on editing, mechanics, and grammar grow out of these activities. All the units, indeed, took shape after a study of some 5000 compositions on the suggested topics, a study that provided the authentic examples used as models or as material for exercises in proof-reading or reasoning. These, too, are motivated and the need for them grows naturally. Main emphasis is given to sentence recognition, sentence construction, expressive diction, clarity, sequence, punctuation, and verb forms. Language Comes Alive 5 is a revision of a Trial Edition used in 26 classes in Montreal and Toronto in 1958-59.