Miskito/Layout

	Miskitu Aisas! Miskito Language Course
Lesson structure			Layout guide
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This page describes how to use the course's templates and conventions to produce each of the elements in a standard lesson of the course. For a general description of the structure of lessons, see the page on Lesson Structure.

Templates are used to generate the components. To learn more about how this is done, you may need to read Using the templates.

Point layout

The standard structure of a point (i.e. "teaching point" or "learning point", depending on the point of view) consists of three components: a model, a commentary and an exercise. These components appear on the page in the following layout:

Standard point layout:
model component
commentary component	exercise component

NB The three components are edited in the following sequence: model - exercise - commentary. This is because the exercise is contained in a template (called Mini_exercise) which floats it to the right automatically. (If the text of the commentary component is long enough it will "wrap around" the exercise at the bottom forming an L-shape.)

The sequence of templates in a typical point is as follows (CAPITALS represent variable template parameters):

 ==SECTION TITLE==
 {{miskito/Model|
 LIST OF MODEL SENTENCES
 |
 TRANSLATIONS OF MODEL SENTENCES
 }}
 {{miskito/Mini_exercise|
 EXERCISE INSTRUCTIONS
 |
 LIST OF EXERCISE INPUT ITEMS
 |
 OUTPUT ITEMS
 }}

 {{miskito/Comment|COMMENT}}
 {{miskito/Comment|COMMENT}}
 {{miskito/Note|ADDITIONAL NOTE}}

• ADDITIONAL NOTE</nowiki>

This results in the following:

SECTION TITLE

---

Study	What do they mean? TRANSLATIONS OF MODEL SENTENCES
LIST OF MODEL SENTENCES

Practice	EXERCISE INSTRUCTIONS
LIST OF EXERCISE INPUT ITEMS
Answers OUTPUT ITEMS

COMMENT COMMENT

• ADDITIONAL NOTE
• ADDITIONAL NOTE

There can be any number of "comments" and "notes" in any relative order. The maximum length of each of these items is the paragraph. Other elements should generally be kept in the order shown.

The model component

The purpose and composition of model components is explained here in the Lesson Structure page.

The Miskito/Model template is used to create model components in the following way:

 {{miskito/Model|
 LIST OF MODEL SENTENCES
 |
 TRANSLATIONS OF MODEL SENTENCES
 }}

For example, the following (from Lesson 1):

 {{miskito/Model|
 * '''Naha''' John sa.
 * '''Naha''' tuktiki sa.
 * '''Baha''' Lucia sa.
 * '''Baha''' yaptiki sa.
 |
 * '''This''' is John.
 * '''This''' is my child.
 * '''That''' is Lucia.
 * '''That''' is my mother.
 }}

produces this result:

Study	What do they mean? This is John. This is my child. That is Lucia. That is my mother.
Naha John sa. Naha tuktiki sa. Baha Lucia sa. Baha yaptiki sa.

Notice that the model sentences are laid out as a bulleted list, with key items (i.e. those being studied in this point) indicated in bold. The translation is presented in parallel fashion.

The exercise component

The purpose and composition of exercise components is explained here in the Lesson Structure page.

The Miskito/Mini exercise template is used to create exercise components in the following way:

 {{miskito/Mini_exercise|
 EXERCISE INSTRUCTIONS
 |
 LIST OF EXERCISE INPUT ITEMS
 |
 OUTPUT ITEMS
 }}

For example, the following (from Lesson 1):

 {{miskito/Mini_exercise|
 What do these sentences mean?
 |
 * Naha sirpi sa.
 * Baha nini sa.
 * Naha yaptiki sa.
 |
 * This is small.
 * That is my name.
 * This is my mother.
 }}

Practice	What do these sentences mean?
Naha sirpi sa. Baha nini sa. Naha yaptiki sa.
Answers This is small. That is my name. This is my mother.

results in:

Notice that this template automatically "floats" the whole exercise to the right hand side of the page. In edition, the exercise is placed immediately before the text that is to appear to its left (such as these lines), where the commentary will normally go.

The input items may be laid out as a bulleted or a numbered list. It is probably best to use bullets for short exercises (with few "questions") and numbers for longer ones (to facilitate comparison with the answers). The output items (or answers) are presented in the same format as the input.

The commentary component

The purpose and composition of commentary components is explained here in the Lesson Structure page.

The Miskito/Comment template is used to insert comments as follows:

 {{miskito/Comment|COMMENT}}

The Miskito/Note template is used to insert notes as follows:

 {{miskito/Note|NOTE}}

For example:

 {{miskito/Comment|The indefinite definite article ("a" or "an") is '''kum'''. This
 article follows the noun too.}}
 {{miskito/Note|'''Kum''' is also the number "one".}}

results in:

The indefinite definite article ("a" or "an") is kum. This article follows the noun too.

• Kum is also the number "one".

The vocabulary component

Vocabulary components are described here in the Lesson Structure page.

The first step in laying out a vocabulary component from scratch is to create a table as follows:

 {|width=100% style="background:#DEE7F5;" border="0"
 | colspan=3|{{Miskito/Vocab_head|(OPTIONAL INSTRUCTIONS)}}
 |-
 | width=33% valign="top"|
 . . . . . . . . . .
 | width=33% valign="top"|
 . . . . . . . . . .
 | width=33% valign="top"|
 . . . . . . . . . .
 |}

This produces a block of background colour onto which to superimpose the template elements (this is the function of the first and last lines). Secondly, it incorporates the Miskito/Vocab_head template, which consists of the darker horizontal bar of colour in the top right corner with the "Vocabulary" heading and room in the top right corner for instructions to be added if wished (the second line). The remaining lines divide the lower part of the table into three (still empty) cells of equal width from left to right. The lines of dots show where these cells are located.

The vocabulary, ordered alphabetically, will be split into three columns, and these columns will go in the places indicated by the rows of dots shown. For example, here is the vocabulary in (Lesson 1):

Click on "Show" for meanings. Click on word to see section. List of abbreviations  Vocabulary Miskito vocabulary · English vocabulary · Abbreviations · Subject index
aisiki my father ba det the baha pron that buk n book daiwan n animal kum det a, an mairin n woman	na det this naha pron this nini my name sa is sin too, also sirpi adj small tara adj big	tiara adj young tuktiki my child umpira adj poor waitna n man witin pron she, he yaptiki my mother yul n dog

Each individual vocabulary item is entered by means of a Miskito/Vocab template, which looks like these (code on the left, result on the right):

{{miskito/Vocab|ba|det|the|1#The}}	ba det the
{{miskito/Vocab|aisiki| |my father|#A}}	aisiki my father

in other words:

 {{miskito/Vocab|MISKITO|POS|ENGLISH|LINK}}

POS stands for "part of speech". We may choose not to give a POS by placing a blank space in the position for this field, as in the "aisiki" example. LINK stands for data to link the word to the lesson and section where it first appears; the format is:

 LESSON#SECTION

where LESSON is a number and SECTION is the name of the section, as in the above examples.

The review component

Review components are desribed here in the Lesson Structure page.

Again, we begin by setting up a table as follows:

 {|width=100% style="background:#DEE7F5;" border="0" cellpadding="2"
 cellpadding="2"
 |{{Miskito/Review_head|INSTRUCTION}}
 . . . . . . . . . .
 |}

which produces:

INSTRUCTION Review . . . . . . . . . .

where the dots indicate the body of the table. An instruction is placed here in the position marked by "INSTRUCTION". The body of the table is then filled with instances of the Review Template, one for each question, like this:

 {{miskito/Review|INPUT SENTENCE OR CUE|OUPUT SENTENCE OR ANSWER}}

with the result:

INPUT SENTENCE OR CUE

OUPUT SENTENCE OR ANSWER

A whole review exercise could then look like this:

Say in Miskito Review My name is John. Nini John sa. My father is big. Aisiki tara sa. He is young. Witin tyara sa. My mother is young too. Yaptiki sin tyara sa. That is my child. Baha tuktiki sa.

for which the full code is as follows:

 {|width=100% style="background:#DEE7F5;" border="0"
 cellpadding="2" cellpadding="2"
 |{{Miskito/Review_head|Say in Miskito}}
 {{miskito/Review|My name is John.|Nini John sa.}}
 {{miskito/Review|My father is big.|Aisiki tara sa.}}
 {{miskito/Review|He is young.|Witin tyara sa.}}
 {{miskito/Review|My mother is young too.|Yaptiki sin tyara sa.}}
 {{miskito/Review|That is my child.|Baha tuktiki sa.}}
 |}