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English
Quarter 1; Week 5
Module in Verbs, Adjectives, and
Adverbs

Doris Evita F. Autencio

Kimberly F. Cabigao
Christine D. Pastrana
Authors

MOST ESSENTIAL LEARNING COMPETENCY:

Use a range of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs to convey emotional responses or
reaction to an issue to persuade.

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Lesson 5. Learning About Others to Know Oneself

How to use this module?

Hello, learners! As you go through the tasks and tests in this module for English 8,
carefully read and follow the instructions; write your discoveries in your notebook; and don’t be
shy to ask questions to your teacher if you find some parts challenging. Believe that you can do
it!
As you explore this lesson, you should be able to:

 share thought/perception on the given quote;

 identify various forms of discrimination;
 determine the function of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs;
 recognize verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in a sentence;
 use verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in persuasion; and
 express sentiments or appreciation through an open letter.

PRE-TEST

Before you begin, check what you already know about the topic. Identify whether the
underlined word is a verb, adjective, or adverb. Write your answer on the space before the
number.
_________1. I couldn’t understand why the hands of the black are lighter than the rest of
their body.
_________2. I sincerely prayed for answers, but not even Father Christiano gave me a
convincing answer.
_________3. Doña Dores said that our hands are lighter because we must serve clean food
to our masters.
_________4. I was almost hopeless, but I still went to ask Mother.
_________5. She had a loud laugh when I told her what I knew, then she explained her
answer.

Looking Back:
In your Module 3 lesson, you learned about modal verbs, nouns, and adverbs. They
perform different functions to make a sentence more meaningful.
 Modal verbs state the modalities such as possibility, necessity, permission, etc.
 Nouns are words that function as names of people, objects, places, actions, etc.
 Adverbs are words or phrases that describe the qualities of a given adjective,
verb, or adverb.

Previously, you also got to know how to use signal words in establishing coherence in
your composition or speech. Some of these signal words are:
 Additive (also, moreover, etc.)
 Causative (as a result, consequently, etc.)
 Conditional (otherwise, in that case, however, etc.)
 Sequential (to begin with, in conclusion, first, second, etc.)
 Clarifying (for instance, in fact, in addition, for example, etc.)
BRIEF INTRODUCTION:
In this module, you will apply your knowledge and skill on these recently discussed
topics to effectively convey your message and persuade your audience.
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 This lesson will give you a journey to understanding universal ideas related to the culture
and traditions of African people through the chosen literary selection and informative texts which
would help you learn more about yourself as a Filipino with distinctive traits, beliefs and
personality. The activities will help you confidently convey your message to effectively persuade
others.

Focus Questions:

 What universal human experiences and ideas can be learned from the plight of African
people throughout time?
 Do Filipinos share the same values, traditions and aspirations as African people?
 How do values and traditions shape people’s understanding of themselves?

Task 1: Something to Think About

Read the quote below. Agree or disagree with the statement. Justify your answer in one
to two sentences. Use the space provided below.

“We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin,
but we all belong to one human race.”. ~ Kofi Annan
________________________________________________________________________
‘
________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
Author’s Background
________________________________________________________________________
Luís Bernardo Honwana was born Luís Augusto Bernardo Manuel in Lourenço Marques
(present-day Maputo), Mozambique. His parents, Raúl Bernardo Manuel (Honwana) and Naly
________________________________________________________________________
Jeremias Nhaca, belonged to the Ronga people from Moamba, a town about 55 km northwest
of Maputo. In 1964, he became a militant with FRELIMO, a front that had the objective to
liberate Mozambique from Portuguese colonial rule. Due to his political activities, he was
arrested by the colonial authorities and was incarcerated for
three years.
He studied law in Portugal and worked for some time
as a journalist. He was appointed director of President's office
under Samora Machel. Later in 1981, he became Secretary of
State for culture. He served on the Executive Board
of UNESCO from 1987 to 1991 and was chairman of
UNESCO's Intergovernmental Committee for the World
Decade for Culture and Development. In 1995, he was
appointed director of the newly opened UNESCO office in
South Africa. Since he retired from the organization in 2002,
he has been active in research in the arts, history and ethno-linguistics.
Reference: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Luis-Bernardo-Honwana Photo by
http://www.mozambiquehistory.net/

Task 2: Enriching Vocabulary

Directions: Identify the correct meaning of the highlighted words through context clues.
Choose from the pool of words below. Write your answer on the space before the number.
craziness examination lightened roughen too much
___________1. The catechism will measure what we have learned in the discussion.

___________2. He is full of baloney, so people won't listen to him anymore.

___________3. He looks a lot different with his bleached hair and new funky style.

___________4. Walking for a long time barefooted left them with calloused feet and
hungry stomachs.
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Task 3: Reading Literature
Read the selection carefully.

The Hands of the Blacks

by Luis Bernardo Honwana

Excerpts from “We Killed Mangy-Dog and other Mozambique Stories” by Luis
Bernardo Honwana
ISBN -0-435-90060-9

Photo by Marco Michelini from FreeImages

I don’t remember now how we got onto the subject , but one day Teacher said that the
palms of the black’s hands were much lighter than the rest of their bodies because only a few
centuries ago they walked around on all fours, like wild animals, so their palms weren’t
exposed to the sun, which made the rest of their bodies darker and darker. I thought of this
when Father Christiano told us after catechism that we were absolutely hopeless, and that
even the blacks were better than us, and he went back to this thing about their hands being
lighter, and said it was like that because they always went about with their hands folded
together, praying in secret. I thought this was so funny, this thing of the black’s hands being
lighter, that you should just see me now – I don’t let go of anyone, whoever they are, until
they tell me why they think that the palms of the black’s hands are lighter. Dona Dores, for
instance, told me that God made their hands lighter that so they wouldn’t dirty the food they
made for their masters or anything else they were ordered to do that had to be kept quite
clean.
Senhor Antunes, the Coca Cola man, who only comes to the village now and again when
all the Cokes in the cantinas have been sold, said to me that everything I had been told was a
lot of baloney. Of course, I don’t know if it was really, but he assured me it was. After I said
yes, all right, it was baloney, then he told me what he knew about this thing of the black’s
hands. It was like this: - “ Long ago, many years ago, God Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin
Mary, St. Peter, many other saints, all the angels that were in Heaven then, and some of the
people who had died and gone to Heaven – they all had a meeting and decided to make
blacks. Do you know how? They got hold of some clay and pressed it into some second-hand
molds. And to bake the clay of the creatures they took them to heavenly kilns. Because they
were in a hurry and there was no room next to the fire, they hung them in chimneys. Smoke,
smoke, smoke – and there you have them, black as coals. And now, do you want to know
why their hands stayed white? Well, didn’t they have to hold on while their clay baked?” When
he had told me this Senhor Antunes and the other men who were around us were very
pleased and they all burst out laughing. That very same day Senhor Frias called me after
Senhor Antunes had gone away, and told me that everything I had heard from them there had
been just one big pack of lies. Really and truly, what he knew about the black’s hands was
right – that God finished making men and told them to bathe in a lake in heaven. After
bathing. The people were nice and white. The blacks well, they were made very early in the
morning, and at this hour the water in the lake was very cold, so they only wet the palms of
their hands and the soles of their feet before dressing and coming into the world.
But I read in a book that happened to mention it, that the blacks have hand the lighter like
this because they spend their lives bent over, gathering the white cotton of Virginia and I don’t
know where else. Of course, Dona Estefania didn’t agree when I told her this. According to
her, it’s only because their hands became bleached with all that washing.

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 Well, I don’t know what to think about all this but the truth is that however calloused and
cracked they may be, a black’s hands are always lighter than all the rest of him. And that’s
that.
My mother is the only one who must be right about this question of a black’s hands being
lighter than the rest of his body. On the day that we were talking about it, us two, I was telling
her what I already knew about the questions, and she just couldn’t stop laughing. What I
thought was strange was that she didn’t tell me at once what she thought about all this, and
she only answered me when she was sure that I wouldn’t get tired of bothering her about it.
And even then, she was crying and clutching herself in the stomach like someone who had
laughed so much that it was quite unbearable. What she said was more of less this: “God
made blacks because they had to be. They had to be, my son. He thought they really had to
be…Afterwards he regretted having made them because the other men laughed at them and
took them off to their homes and put them to serve like slaves or not much better. But
because he couldn’t make them all be white, for those who were used to seeing them black
would complain. He made it so that the palms of their hands would be exactly like the palms
of their hands of other men and do you know why that was? Of course, you don’t know, and it
is not surprising, because many, many people don’t know. Well, listen: it was to show that
what men do is the only the work of men… That what men do is done by hands that are the
same – hands of people who, if they had any sense, would know that before everything else
they are men. He must have been thinking of this when He made the hands of the blacks be
the same as the hands of those men who thank God they are not black!
After telling me this, my mother kissed my hands. As I ran off into the yard to play ball, I
thought that I had never seen a person cry so much when nobody had hit him.
From English 8 DepEd Module

Comprehension Check:

Let’s see how well you understand the story. Answer the questions below. Write your
answers on the space provided.
1. Who is narrating in the story? How is the narrator described according to the text?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
2. What question did the narrator want to be answered?
___________________________________________________________________
3. Different explanations were given by the characters, which one did you find correct?
Why? ______________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
4. If you were asked by the narrator of the same question, “Why are the palms of the Blacks
lighter?”, what would be your answer? ________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

Side Notes:

Discrimination means an act of treating people unfairly due to certain characteristics like
age, gender, race and etc.

 Age Discrimination happens when people are treated differently or unequally because
of age.
Example: A man being rejected for a job due to old age
 Racial Discrimination happens when people are treated differently or unequally
because of the social groups they belong to.
Example: An Asian student who did not get a scholarship because one of the
classifications looks for English native speakers only
 Gender Discrimination happens when people are treated differently or unequally
because of their gender (male or female)
Example: A company that gives higher salary to male employees than their women 5
counterparts
 In the discussion of Hands of the Black, you found out that the issues on racial
discrimination and slavery were featured in the story. These issues may have been long-
standing, but they may be changed for the betterment of the society.
You play a vital role as an advocate of fairness and equality in the fight against
discrimination. In this part of the lesson, you will focus on grammar points such as type of verbs,
order of adjectives, and use of adverbs for you to use them effectively in persuading others to
your cause.

Verbs are commonly defined as action words. However, verbs also come in different
types. Check out the table below to recognize the verbs and their functions in a sentence.

Verb Type Function Example Sentence Use

Action Express action or To walk, to eat, to  They walked around

Verbs possession dance, to have, to with their hands like
take, to own, to give, wild animals.
to stand
 They decided to create
the Blacks.

Linking Connect the subject To become, to seem  After bathing, the

Verbs to a noun or Be-verbs (is, are, was, people were nice and
adjective that were, am, etc.) white.
describes the
subject (Subject  Black hands are lighter
Complement) than the rest of him.

Helping Present aspects of be-verbs (is, are, was,  I do not remember

Verbs time or possibility were, am)
(Auxiliary modal verbs (can,
Verbs) could, will, would,
shall, should, must, 
ought to, may, might)
to do, to have
now how we got on to
the subject.
They were ordered to
keep the food clean.

You might be a little confused with the difference between Linking and Helping verbs. To
help you identify the type of verb, simply look at the word that follows the it.

My mother is kind, strong, and The words that follow the verb are Linking
beautiful. I am her child. adjectives or nouns. Verb

My mother is telling me the answer. The word that follows the verb is a Helping
verb. Verb

You must recognize the verbs so that you can:

 understand the entirety of the speaker/author’s message;
 identify what action must be done in a given situation;
 state your views and ideas correctly; and
 convince people to believe what you are saying.
Let us move on to adjectives and adverbs. Both adjectives and adverbs are modifiers.
They “modify” or describe a certain idea so that the reader or audience gets the chance to better
visualize the event or situation.

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 Commonly, adjectives are placed before the nouns or pronouns that they describe.
Keep in mind that, in grammar rules, adjective modifies the noun or pronoun closest to it. Since
you can add adjectives as you make further descriptions, you also have to consider the order of
adjectives.
Order of adjectives

Physical Description
Determiner Observation Origin Material Qualifier Noun
Size Shape Age Color

the big white concrete house

a wise small young African lady

one rectangular literature book

Here are some examples.

The big white concrete house was a landmark in our rural town where most houses were
small.

The land was bought by a wise small young African lady.

She said she found her inspiration in a story she read in one rectangular literature book.

Adverbs, on the other hand, modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Adverbs answer
how, when, where, why, or to what extent—how often or how much. Check out how these
adverbs improve the sentences.

My mother used to laugh joyfully. How did she laugh? joyfully

She was always eager to fight for our rights. How often was she eager to always
fight?

She said that we will have a better life When will they have a better tomorrow
tomorrow. life?

Slowly, I started to believe in her and her How did he start to believe her? slowly
dreams.

Task 4: Testing Waters

Identify whether the underlined word is a verb, adjective, or adverb. Write your answer on the
space before the number.

________1. I thought of this when Father Christiano told us after catechism that we were
absolutely hopeless.
________2. Doña Dores, for instance, told me that God made Blacks’ hands lighter so they
would not dirty the food they made for their masters.
________3. They got hold of some clay and pressed it into some second-hand molds and
baked the clay of creatures, which they took from the heavenly kilns.
________4. Smoke, smoke, smoke—and there you have them, black as coals.

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________5. They were made very early in the morning and at this hour, the water in the lake
was cold.

REMEMBER:
 Verbs are words that express actions. They are also used to help relay the meaning
or intention of the speaker. They are useful in persuasion because they make the
message of the speaker clearer. The three verb types are action verbs, linking verbs,
and helping verbs.
 Adjectives and Adverbs are modifiers that describe your ideas more clearly.
Effective use of these modifiers transforms your simple statement to a more
appealing and convincing argument.

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

Task 5: Taking Responsibility
It’s time for you to practice the use of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in persuasion
through writing an open letter. Read the different situations in the three task boxes. Select one
and write an open letter according to your chosen task box. Write your letter on the space
provided. Be guided with the given rubric as you write your open letter.

An open letter is a published letter of protest, appeal, opinion, or praise usually

addressed to an individual or group but intended for the general public in order to solicit support.
For example, people wrote letters and posted them online to show appreciation for the
frontliners during the pandemic. Another example is a letter written by people addressed to the
government calling for immediate mass testing for suspected COVID-19 cases. (Source:
Merriam-Webster Dictionary Website)

Task Box A
You are a student volunteer to different indigenous communities. You learned that in
2019, the Department of Education ordered the closure of 55 Lumad (indigenous peoples
in southern Philippines) schools, affecting almost 1,500 students. A government fact-
finding committee found that those schools didn’t meet requirements and were allegedly
being used as training centers for the communist New People's Army. To promote the
rights of Lumad kids to be educated, you are going to write an open letter for DepEd and
the public. (Source: Magsambol 2020)

Task Box B
You are an active Public Information Officer of the Supreme Student Government in your
school. You found out that there are fast food chains in Manila and in Pasay that hire
senior citizens as their crew. With much appreciation, you realized that this could provide
more job opportunities to the elderly citizens of Caloocan. To raise awareness on the
equality in the workplace regardless of age, you are going to write an open letter to the
Caloocan City government and the public. (Source: Gierran 2020)

Task Box C
You are an LGBTQ+ rights advocate. Despite the efforts to promote equality among
genders, you are aware that gender discrimination still exists. Due to the strict measures
on mass gatherings implemented by the government in response to the pandemic, the in-
person activities of the Metro Manila Pride March 2020, a celebration of all genders in
order to spread equality, was cancelled and shifted to various online engagements. To
enlighten the public’s views on different genders, you are going to write an open letter.
(Noriega 2020)

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 Criteria for an Open Letter
(Adapted from Tech4Learning, Inc. 2020)

WRITING LEVELS AND SCORES

CRITERIA DESCRIPTION (Check one per criterion)
Distinguished Proficient Apprentice Novice
5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points

Interesting & informative details

Idea and The letter includes information based on real
Message events. Details are unique, interesting, and
related to the chosen situation.
Correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, &
usage
Writing Sentences are all well-formed. Proper spelling,
Conventions grammar (including the correct usage of verbs,
adjectives and adverbs), capitalization, and
punctuation are applied in the letter.
Gives reader a sense of author's opinions
Voice Personal style and feeling are used to engage
the readers and communicate the message.
Opinion is clearly expressed in the letter.
TOTAL ___ points / 15 points

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POST-TEST
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Identify whether the underlined word is a verb, adjective, or adverb. Write your answer
on-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the space before the number.
_________1. Reforms are not achieved by a single person rallying on the street nor by one city
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mayor doing the best he could.

_________2. For change to happen, people must continuously work together to fight for it.
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_________3. It takes patience, courage, and persuasion to effectively encourage people to be

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brave enough to do the right action.
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_________4. Change is never comfortable. What are you willing to give?
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_________5. People will win once they achieve fairness and justice.
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REFLECTION
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Think about your answer to the question below. You may discuss your thoughts with a
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friend or a family member at home. Apply your knowledge on the use of verbs, adjectives, and
adverbs in answering the question. Write your answer on the space provided.
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How can you help
stop any form of
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discrimination in
your community?
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