Monday, July 26, 2010

Learning English: Starting with Grammar

It's been a summer full of fun, trips and learning for me and my students and as we go into the last week of vacation, I'd like to write down some of the topics we've discussed:

*SUMMARY

  1. Parts of Speech: refers to the way a word is used in a sentence; the part of speech of a particular word can be found by looking up the word in the dictionary.
  2. Nouns: basically, era people, place, or thing words. Ideas and qualities are also nouns. Only nouns, or words or phrases that act as nouns, can be the subject of a sentence.
  3. Pronouns: act as stand-ins (substitutes, alternate) for nouns.
  4. Adjectives: describes, or modify, nouns. They describe by saying which one, how many, how much, or what kind of noun you mean.
  5. Adverbs: modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They describe by saying when, in what manner, where, how, or how much. An adverb never modifies a noun.
  6. Verbs: tell what the noun is doing. They express either action or a state of being. Every sentence must have a verb.
  7. Conjunctions: link words or parts of sentences.
  8. Prepositions: link nouns to other words in a sentence, usually describing a relationship of time or space.
  9. Interjections: provide emphasis and filler; there are no rules to worry about.
  10. Tense: is the form of  the verb that places the action in time. Past tense puts the action in the past; present tense puts the action at the current time. There are six basic tenses, plus the continuous, or -ing form, of all six.
Teaching writing and speaking (English) to a French speaker or a Middle Eastern native can be very difficult even if the student is around 8 or 9 years old. The semantics in their native language can be very different from the English/American language.

It does not help too that they are patriotic enough to consider the "White Language" as the source of moral corruption among their youth and in their society. So what do you do? I simply ask them why they want to learn the language and always remind them about it.

Motivation is the name of the game!

* From Grammar Smart, A Guide to Perfect Usage. The Princeton Review, New York, New York. 2001.

Enhanced by Zemanta

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Free Internet Chess Server

FICS: Free Internet Chess Server