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Appendix F: Extracts from "English in Malawi"

From: English in Malawi, Revised Edition Pupils' Book 2

Timve and Tsala are inside the store.
They are buying things for mother.

Are they buying matches?
No, they are not.
They are not buying matches.

Are they buying bottles?
No, they are not.
They are not buying bottles.

Are they buying tins?
No, they are not.
They are not buying tins.

They are buying sugar.
They are buying tea.
They are buying sugar and tea.
They are buying things for mother.

(Note: this text was copied onto the board by the school P teacher.)

From: English in Malawi, Revised Edition Pupils' Book 3

TIMVE'S BIG SHOES (UNIT 4)

1 shoes try laughing feet

One day Timve's father buys some new shoes. He puts them inside the door of his house and goes out. Timve sees the shoes. He puts them on. The shoes are very big. Timve tries to walk in them. He cannot walk very well.

Tsala, Zione and Tinyade are walking along the road outside. They are all together. Tsala is carrying a basket on her head. Zione is carrying a bottle on her head. Tinyade is carrying some books on her head. They are laughing. They are looking at Timve's shoes and they are all laughing together.

Timve has the big shoes on his feet. They are not his shoes. They are his father's shoes. He cannot walk very well in them. His feet are coming out of them. The girls are laughing at him.

Tsala says, "Look, Timve's trying to wear father's new shoes. He can't run after us. He can't run after us in his big shoes. He can't run after Zione. He can't run after Tinyade. He can't run after me. He can't run after any of us."

From: English in Malawi, Book 4 (revised edition)

They went into the garden, then round to the back of the house. Timve wanted something to play with. He pointed to an old motor-car tyre. "Let's play with that," he said. "It's old. Uncle Maloni doesn't want it. Let's roll it across the garden."

"We can't," Tsala told him.

"Yes, we can." Timve rolled the tyre across the garden. He ran after it and hit it with his hand. The tyre rolled faster. He hit it again.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Tsala shouted.

But Timve could not stop the tyre. It was rolling down a hill and he could not catch it. It rolled into the garden of the next house.

From: English in Malawi, Revised edition. Pupils' Book 6

The North Sea is far to the north of Africa. Fishermen go there because the water is full of many different kinds of fish. The favorite way of catching them is by trawling with a net. A big net is dropped into the water and pulled along by a boat called a trawler. After some time, the net is brought up to see if there are any fish in it.

A big trawler weighs more than a hundred tonnes. It is really a ship. If the fishing is good, a trawler will not go home until it has caught many tonnes of fish.

2

Word:

bait

 

Special meanings:

sticks into...

 

 

coloured thread

Another favorite way of fishing is with a hook and line. This is very different from using a net or a fish trap. With a net, the fish is caught in the strings or threads of the net. With a trap, the fish is caught because it cannot get past the pointed sticks. With hook and line, the fish is caught because it bites the hook, which sticks into its mouth. Then it can be pulled out of the water by the line.

Fishermen use their own kind of hook, which looks like this:

There are two points onto the hook, one going up and one going down. When a fish bites the hook, the top point goes into the flesh of its mouth. The bottom point stops the hook from coming out again.

Once a fish has taken a hook into its mouth, it usually can't escape. But it must be made to bite the hook in the first place. Fishermen do this by using bait. They stick on the hook something which fish like to eat, perhaps a worm. A fish sees the worm, tries to swallow it, and is caught by the hook. The bait doesn't have to be worms. Some fishermen use grasshoppers. Others use small fish. Others use pieces of meat or bread. Others don't use food at all, but pieces of coloured thread. Anything which will make a fish bite is good enough to use as bait.

3

Words:

eagle Japan cormorant

When they use nets, traps and hooks, men put something into the water and wait for the fish to come to it. That is not the only way to catch fish. In some parts of the world, men shoot fish. They stand on a rock beside a river, or on the shore of a lake. When they see a fish in the water below, they shoot it with an arrow. Other men do the same thing with spears. It is a natural way of fishing, which they may have learned from birds. Have you ever seen a fish eagle? It lives on the shores of lakes, or on the banks of rivers. Every day the eagle flies over the water, watching for fish below. When it sees one, it folds its wings and falls into the water like an arrow or a spear. When men saw eagles and other birds fishing in this way, they may have decided to try it themselves with spears and arrows.


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