It was summertime. Donna walked into the classroom." Good afternoon, everybody!" That was a joke Donna told every day. Usually the class started with only two or three students in the classroom, and then the other students came as the minutes went by.
Donna knew that the students didn't like studying English. The head teacher had told her the reason. The students thought English was confusing.
Donna waited until all the students were sitting in their seats. She smiled and said," Okay, well. Let's get started. Please turn to Page 36. Today we're studying participles as adjectives(分词作形容词). Students often feel confused when they learn about the present and past participles, so we need to practice a lot. Today, we're just going to practice using present participles as adjectives." Donna looked at all the blank faces around the classroom. Then she wrote two sentences on the blackboard.
"The present participle tells us what kind of emotion the subject(主语)is causing. For example, when we say 'grammar is boring', we mean that the subject—grammar — causes an emotion of boredom. If we say, 'The movie is interesting', we are saying that the movie causes an emotion of interest. Any questions so far? Is anyone confused?"
The classroom was quiet. Donna knew it would take some time for everyone to understand what she was talking about. After a while, Donna got a little excited because she saw looks of understanding on some of the students' faces.