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Diotima Posted 12 years ago
Vocabulary

How to create your own material

I am writing to a colleague and I would like to explain her how I created my own material for a lesson with young learners. I am not sure whether this paragraph is clear overall, and which of the underlined prepositions is the right one (or perhaps neither of them and another one is in order?  Emotion: embarrassed ) . Could you please help me?

" I created a set of sticks of different lengths (I divided a straw by 4 segments and cut it along/across). Then I took other 2 sticks and joined them together and divided them by eight sections and cut them along/across)..."

Thanks a lot!
  

Top answer

There are a number of problems with this. I suppose you mean "I divided a straw into 4 segments", but probably "I cut a straw into four pieces" is the natural way of saying it, if I understand you correctly. It would be clearer still to say "unequal" pieces, if that's what you mean, otherwise the natural assumption may be that the pieces were of equal length.

— GPY

  • There are a number of problems with this.
  • I suppose you mean "I divided a straw into 4 segments", but probably "I cut a straw into four pieces" is the natural way of saying it, if I understand you correctly.
  • It would be clearer still to say "unequal" pieces, if that's what you mean, otherwise the natural assumption may be that the pieces were of equal length.
  • Possibly "cut it along/across" should say "cut them along/across", but it is not clear to me what this further cut refers to.
  • Neither "across" nor "along" clearly describes what is going on.
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8 Answers
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There are a number of problems with this.

I suppose you mean "I divided a straw into 4 segments", but probably "I cut a straw into four pieces" is the natural way of saying it, if I understand you correctly. It would be clearer still to say "unequal" pieces, if that's what you mean, otherwise the natural assumption may be that the pieces were of equal length. Possibly "cut it along
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Hi GPY,

Thank you for your useful suggestions. The idea behind my message is to create your own material to develop children's observation skills (e.g., long, longer, short etc...)
Would you please check if the paragraph is right?

"As I did not own the relevant material I decided to recycle some straws and create my own material. I created a set of sticks of different lengths
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No, it's still very confusing, I'm afraid.
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Erm...what can I do to improve it? I corrected it bearing in mind what you had suggested. Perhaps I did not do it very well, but now I don't know what else I can do
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I don't understand why you don't simply say that you took a bunch of straws and cut them into 14 pieces, some of equal length and some unequal. Why does it have to be so complicated?
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I know it sounds a bit weird but it is part of a lesson plan and I was trying to be as detailed as possible, even because without visualizing the activity some details (e.g. step by step procedure) could be useful for future reference.
I found myself a bit helpless because I did not know how to deliver that paragraph correctly and effectively.

Imagine I take a straw and I divide it (
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diotimaImagine I take a straw and I divide it (ideally) into sections in order to cut the straw into pieces.If 'cutting the along/across the sections' (marked on the straw) is not the right form, how can I deliver it?
Assuming you are doing the obvious thing, one would just say "cut the straw into three pieces", or whatever number it is. You can say "equal pie
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Thanks a lot, comments are always food for thought! Emotion: rose
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