Write a story beginning with: "The teacher walked

into the classroom. It was the first period..."

- by Abigail Shannon Chua
Wesley Methodist School Melaka
Melaka

The teacher walked into the classroom. It was the first period and
everyone was pretty much still asleep. The teacher rapped his
knuckles on his desk, jolting everyone awake.
"Teenagers," he said as he began to write notes on the board. I
groaned and took out my history book. As I was jotting down the
notes, I started to feel a little strange. I felt as if there were
voices in my head and could not seem to shut them off. I ignored
them and tried to concentrate. Suddenly, a wave of voices surged
through my brain and I cried out in pain.
"Simon Hill, are you feeling alright?" Mr Howard called out from
the front. Everyone was staring at me. I fell onto the floor and
started writhing in pain as the voices got louder and louder. "Get
out of my head!" I screamed as everyone watched in terror. A
student ran out and screamed for help.
Suddenly, the voices in my head disappeared. Then, everyone
around me started screaming in pain, clutching their heads like I
did. Mr Howard was clawing at his head, shouting in agony.
"What have you done to us?" he screamed at me. Terrified, I ran
out of the classroom and into the hallway. All around me,
teachers and students alike were yelling in agony, raking their
heads. I threw the doors open and stumbled out of the school.
Police cars were seen outside. Someone had called the police and
they surrounded the area.
"Put your hands in the air!" one of them shouted, pointing his gun
at me.
"It wasn't me! I don't know what's going on!" I screamed in fear.
"Get away!" I yelled.

Suddenly, some of the police cars flew in the air, landing a few
meters away. The police scattered like ants in terror, demanding
me to get down on the ground. But in my panic, I just caused
more damage. After a while, a special unit arrived and
tranquilised me, sending me into a deep sleep. I awoke finding
myself in a prison cell, my hands chained behind my back. I
looked around in terror and called for help, but the guard outside
just grinned at me.
"Freak," he spat, spitting at me and walked away. I slumped onto
the ground, feeling helpless when suddenly the alarms started
blaring.
"Intruder! Someone has broken the main gate!" a guard yelled
just as he was thrown into the air before landing heavily on
several other guards. The place was in chaos as men were trying
to shoot the intruder. The place was covered in smoke and I shut
my eyes until the yells subsided. Suddenly, the door came off its
hinges and my chains snapped loose. I quickly got up and looked
at the man standing in the doorway.
He looked ordinary, wearing a long black coat and carrying a sort
of staff.
"Hello young one. My name is Doctor Hanson," he introduced
himself. I took a step back in fear as he approached me. "I help
young people like you discover their gifts and use them to their
advantage. Come with me and I can help you discover yours," he
said as he extended his arm. Without thinking, I took his hand
and he led me out.
"So, what do you want from me?" I asked and he came to a halt.
"Your power," he grinned and injected me with a serum, causing
me to collapse onto the ground, writhing in pain as my soul
started to burn away. As I felt the last of myself burn away, I
watched as he opened a portal and sneered, "A new addition to
the team."
I cried out as I fell away into darkness.

Why is it so important to learn grammar?

It is important for English learners to learn grammar because of several reasons.
Firstly, the English Language is like no other languages. There are many grammar
rules to observe. If a learner does not learn the rules, it would be like driving
without learning traffic rules. If you do so, you are bound to break the rules and get
tickets or have accidents. You may even risk your life.
Of course, if you do not learn the grammar rules, you will not likely have accidents
or risk your life. But, if you wish to write and speak good English, it is advisable to
learn grammar and apply it when writing and speaking English.
There are many disadvantages if you do not learn grammar. For instance, you will
not know what tense to use for a particular situation. What tense do we use for an
action that happens often, or regularly? We use the simple present tense. When do
we use the simple past tense? We use it for a past action and the time it happened is
usually included.

Look at this sentence:

I did not went to the post office yesterday.
The sentence is in the simple past. Is there anything wrong with it? If you know
grammar rules, you will know that the sentence is grammatically incorrect. That is
because after the auxiliary verb did, the base form of a verb should be used, in
spite of the fact that the sentence is in the simple past. So, the grammatically
correct sentence should be:
I did not go to the post office yesterday.
How do we use the verbs have, has and had? What about do, does and
did? When do we use who, whom, whose and which? You can get the
answers to all these questions through learning grammar.
When you know English grammar well, you are able to communicate effectively
and with confidence in the language. You are also bound to leave a good
impression on the people that you communicate with.
If you know the rules of English grammar well, it helps you not only in writing but
speaking as well. The reason is that all of these are interrelated. Therefore, it is not
likely that a person who speaks flawless English writes very bad essays. The

opposite is also true. There is not much difference between spoken English
grammar and written English grammar. The main difference is that, in spoken
English, more contractions are used. Some examples of English contractions
include Im (the contraction of I am), shes been (the contraction of she has
been), Ill be (the contraction of I will be), etc. In spoken English, when we
answer a question, we also tend to give a short reply if we can. I will blog about
speaking good English (among some other topics) later.
It is quite impossible for a learner to write good essays or reports and speak good
English with little understanding of the grammar rules.
If an English learner has a wide knowledge and a clear understanding of the
grammar rules, does it guarantee that he or she will definitely be able to speak and
write good English? In my opinion, the answer to this question is no it does not
necessarily guarantee so. In other words, having a wide knowledge of the English
grammar rules is not the only requirement if a learner wishes to have a good
English command. There are some other requirements. For example, having an
extensive knowledge of how English sentences are formed. How do learners
master the correct sentence structure? That is what I am going to talk about in my
next blog. So, be sure to follow it to get more tips on how to master the English
Language