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LING 3 Structure of English 202

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Topic I: Noun 3
Topic II: Pronoun 7
Topic III: Verb 15
Topic IV: Adjective 20
Topic V: Adverb 24
Topic VI: Preposition 28
Topic VII: Conjunction 33
Topic VIII: Interjection 36
Topic IX: Basic Sentence Pattern 40
Topic X: Sentence Structure 44
Topic XI: Four Types of Sentence 47
Topic XII: Linguistics 62
Topic XIII: Grammar 64
Topic XIV: The Sounds of English 66
Topic XV: Theories of Language Teaching 73
Topic XVI: Language Teaching Methodology 77

References: 91

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LESSON 1: NOUNS
Nouns can be recognized by means of the following characteristics:

1. They are names of entities - a person, place, thing, of idea.

2. They have two INFLECTIONS, the PLURAL {-es} and the POSSESSIVE
(sometimes called the GENITIVE) {-‘s}. Both inflections have various
ALLOMORPHS
/əz/ appears after morphs ending in sibilants or affricates / s, z, š, ž, č ǰ /
/s/ appears after morphs ending in voiceless consonants / p, t, k, f, Ɵ /,
except the sibilants and affricate / s, š, č /
/z/ appears after morphs ending in vowels and voiced consonants / b, d,
g, v, ð, m, n, ŋ, l, r. y, w /, except the sibilants and the affricate / z, ž,
ǰ/

3. They may be marked by noun-forming DERIVATIONAL SUFFIXES added


to bases or stems, usually belonging to other parts of speech, e.g.
 added to verbs
{-age} breakage
{-ee} employee

 added to adjectives
{-ity} facility
{-ness} happiness

 added to other nouns


{-cy} advocacy
{-ian} librarian
{-ship} friendship

4. They fill certain characteristic positions in relation to other parts of speech


in phrases and sentences.
 just before a verb

Red roses bloom in my garden.

 after determiners such as articles, demonstratives, and possessive


adjectives, e.g., the examination, these reviewers, my hand-outs

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5. Unlike other languages, gender is not an important feature of English
grammar. Gender is only marked in certain pairs of nouns, e.g.,
waiter/waitress, host/hostess

6. Certain SUPERFIXES/STRESS PATTERNS occasionally identify nouns


from other parts of speech as in: récòrd and rècórd. These two words are
morphemically alike; however, we identify the stress pattern / ˊ ˋ / as a
noun.

7. Nouns can serve as HEADS in a noun phrase. As heads they may be


preceded by one or more single-word modifiers and followed by a phrasal
or clausal modifier or both

The small study table in my room which my father bought

Functions of Nouns

 subject of verbs Several items have ambiguous stems.


 direct objects of They administered the test.
verbs
 indirect objects of The lecturer provided the participants
verbs hand-outs.
 subject noun We are LET reviewers.
predicates/
 predicate nouns
 object noun The reviewees chose him their
predicates/ representative.
 objects of in our review class
prepositions
 appositives The LET, a professional examination, is
conducted every year.
 vocatives/nouns of Anne, how did you find the exam?
address

Noun Types

1. COMMON NOUNS refer to a kind of person, thing, or idea


 COUNT NOUNS which take the plural inflection
 MASS/NONCOUNT NOUNS which don’t take the plural inflection

2. PROPER NOUNS are names for unique individuals or places

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3. COLLECTIVE NOUNS are able to take either singular or plural verbs
forms, depending on the interpretation given to the noun, i.e., whether
it is seen as a unit or as a collection of individuals
The team has won all its games.
The team have won awards in their respective events.

NOUN GENDER

In general there is no distinction between masculine, feminine in English


nouns. However, gender is sometimes shown by different forms or different
words when referring to people or animals.

Examples
Masculine Feminine Gender neutral
man woman person
father mother parent
boy girl child
uncle aunt
husband wife spouse
actor actress
prince princess
waiter waitress server
rooster hen chicken
stallion mare horse

Many nouns that refer to people's roles and jobs can be used for either a
masculine or a feminine subject, like for example cousin, teenager, teacher,
doctor, student, friend, and colleagues.

Examples:

Mary is my friend. She is a doctor.


Peter is my cousin. He is a doctor.
Arthur is my friend. He is a student.
Jane is my cousin. She is a student.
It is possible to make the distinction for these neutral words by adding the words
male or female.

Examples

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Sam is a female doctor.
No, he is not my boyfriend, he is just a male friend.
I have three female cousins and two male cousins.
Infrequently, nouns describing things without a gender are referred to with a
gendered pronoun to show familiarity. It is also correct to use the gender-neutral
pronoun (it).

Examples
I love my car. She (the car) is my greatest passion.
France is popular with her (France's) neighbours at the moment.
I travelled from England to New York on the Queen Elizabeth; she (the Queen
Elizabeth) is a great ship.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE

The feminine of some nouns are formed in the following ways:

1. by adding -ess:

host – hostess

2. If the masculine ends in -er or -or the -er or -or is dropped before adding –ress:

tiger - tigress
actor - actress

3. Some changes are made before adding -ess :


Duke - duchess
master - mistress

See how the following nouns are changed in their feminine.

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ARTICLES

ARTICLES are a subclass of DETERMINERS, which are noun-marking


words. They usually come before the nouns they modify.

a/an (indefinite the (definite article) no/zeroarticle


articles)
Only before singular Before uncountable/mass Identifies certain indefinite
(sg) countable nouns nouns (UNs) and countable meanings of nouns
(CNs) plural (pl) nouns
1 Before an Backward reference to a N Refers to all members of a
unidentified sg CN, already mentioned class
one example of its A dog . . . and here is the Dogs are domestic
class dog now. animals.
a chair (furniture)
2 Before an Forward reference to an Distinguishes one class
unidentified sg CN identification soon to be from another
that is representative made, often by modifiers Men, not women, are
of its class following a noun protectors.
a dog (a domestic The history of his town
animal)
3 Before a predicate N Before superlatives and Refers to an indefinite
after a be verb if no before ordinal numbers, number but not
determiner is used except ordinal numbers necessarily to all members
. . . is a good used alone (first in her of a class.
neighbour batch) Seedlings are beginning
The best cake I have ever to sprout. (many)
seen
The first person to fly in
space
4 With UNs to mean a Content know to both writer With plural nouns after be.
kind of, or with kind and reader His brothers are

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of, or certain The chapel in the village engineers.
a smile (only one chapel)
an insight
5 Before few and little Identification of a class, With institutions and
to mean some but especially in a practices felt to be unique
not many generalization, Offices open at 7 o’clock.
A few friends followed by a noun, or an Dinner is usually late.
A little salt adjective
The youth is the hope of the
future.
the physically challenged
6 When using a proper Beginning of a phrase With set phrases, usually
noun to indicate the containing an appositive pairs
characteristics of the Interpret this item, the one Heaven and hell
person named with an illustration
She is a Sister
Teresa. (a saintly
person)
7 To name “a certain With prepositional phrases
person whose name At rest, in danger,
is.” on time
A Mr Alba came to
see you.
8 With nouns used in
headlines in newspapers,
captions in books, signs,
labels and the like
MURDERER ESCAPES
BEWARE OF DOG
9 For a family name in the With common nouns used
plural as terms of address and
The Basas have arrived. therefore capitalized.
We are ready to go,
Mother.
10 Distinguishes people who
have the same name
The Jessica Reyes who
joined the beauty pageant
is not the Jessica Reyes
who is my cousin.
11 When the article is part of a
geographical name

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The Philippines
The United States
The Red Sea
12 When the article is accepted
as part of any kind of proper
name
The Philippine Star
The Princess of Negros
The Hilton
The University of St. Tomas
The United Nations

LESSON 2: PRONOUNS

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Most pronouns stand for, refer to, or replace a noun or a noun phrase
within a text; hence, they occupy the same position as a noun or noun phrase
does. The word or words that a pronoun stands for are its ANTECEDENT or
REFERENCE.

My brother holds dual citizenship. He is not only a Filipino but also a


Canadian citizen.

I and she stand for the speaker or writer.

I am a Filipino, but I am living in Australia now.

Pronouns can also be a direct reference to an outside situation (e.g., “What is


that?” in response to a sound or noise).

Kinds of Pronouns

There are many different kinds of pronouns: SUBJECT, OBJECT,


POSSESSIVE, REFLEXIVE, DEMONSTRATIVE and others. The forms within
each category are distinguished by number (singular/plural), person
(first/second/third) gender (masculine/feminine/neuter), and in the case of
demonstratives, by number and proximity.

Personal and Related Pronouns

Person/ Personal Possessive


Number Reflexive/
Subject Object Noun Determiner
Intensive
Singular Form Form replacemen /
t Adjective
+I I Me Mine my myself
+ II you You Yours your yourself
+ III
Masculin he Him His his himself
e
Feminine she Her Hers her herself
Neuter it It - its itself
Plural
+I we Us Ours our ourselves
+ II you You Yours your yourselves
+ III they Them Theirs their themselves

Things to Remember:

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1. Animals closely related to people can be referred to by he, him, and his or
she, her, and hers.

The dog loves his/her/its master.

2. Use it and its to refer to inanimate objects except ships, which are always
referred as she.

3. Countries and schools are sometimes referred to by she or her.

4. Traditionally, the pronouns he, him, and his have been used for mixed
groups or groups in which the sex is unknown. Many people now object to
this use, so they use both the masculine and feminine forms and the plural
forms to avoid the problem.
Everybody submitted his or her assignment. (awkward)
All the students submitted their assignments. (acceptable)

5. If I, me, my or mine or their plural counterparts are part of a pair or a


series, put them last.
The teacher confiscated his toy and mine, too.
Father helped Tony with his project, and he will help my sister and
me with ours tomorrow.

Reflexive Pronouns

1. Use the reflexive pronoun as the object of the verb form or preposition to
refer to the subject of the sentence.

The baby is able to feed itself.


Luis cut himself with a razor blade.

2. The phrase by + self or its emphatic form all by + self means alone or
without any help.

I crossed the river (all) by myself.

Intensive Pronouns

The intensive form occurs directly after the word it modifies or at the end of the
clause.

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The mayor herself distributed the relief goods.


The mayor distributed the relief goods herself.

Reciprocal Pronouns

1. The reciprocal pronoun forms are each other and one another. They mean
that each part of the subject did the action and also received the action.

2. They must be objects of verb forms or objects of prepositions.

3. Some prefer to use each other for two people or things and one another
for more than two.
The two finalists congratulated each other for making it to the top.
The class members prepared surprise gifts for one another during the
Christmas party.

Demonstrative Pronouns

1. Demonstrative pronouns occur alone. They do not precede nouns.


This is my favourite movie.

2. Demonstrative pronouns can show distance or contrast not connected with


distance.

(distance) This is mine; that is yours over there.


(contrast) Which ones do you prefer, these or those?

Indefinite Pronouns

Personal none another


anyone everyone no one someone other ones
anybody everybody nobody somebody others
Non- anything everything nothing something another
Personal every one none other ones
others

Use singular verbs with compound pronouns and use singular pronouns to refer
to them in formal writing.

Formal: Nobody brought his book today.

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Informal: Nobody brought their books today.

Interrogative Pronouns

Who, whom, whose, which, and what can begin questions.

1. Use who, whom, whose and which to refer to persons..


2. Use what and which to refer to things and events.
3. In formal writing, use who for the subject of a clause and whom for the
object of the verb or preposition.

Relative Pronouns

1. RELATIVE PRONOUNS (sometimes called CLAUSE MARKERS)


introduce dependent clauses (also called RELATIVE CLAUSES).

2. Relative pronouns used in adjective clauses are who, whom, whose,


which and that.

3. Who, whom, and whose are used for persons while which is used for non-
persons.
The guest who came to dinner is the governor.
The book which I bought is a best seller.

4. That is a neutral form. It can be marked +human or–human. In other


words, it can be a substitute for both who (+human) or which (-human).
The guest who/that came to dinner is the governor.
The book which/that I bought is a best seller.

5. In informal writing, whom is optional; in formal writing, whom must be used


(informal)Nora is the girl you saw in the party last night.
(formal)Nora is the girl whom you saw in the party last night.

6. That, which and whom are the only relative pronouns that can be left out.
The instrumental music (that) I like to hear often is that of Zamfir.
The house pests (which) I hate to see are the rodents and the
cockroach.

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7. Who, whom, and whose can be used in both essential/RESTRICTIVE and
nonessential/NON-RESTRICTIVE clauses.
The man, who came to dinner, is the mayor. (non-essential/non-
restrictive, bounded by commas)
The man who came to dinner is the mayor. (essential/restrictive,
without commas)

8. That instead of which is used only in essential or restrictive clauses, so do


NOT put commas around clauses beginning with that.
The poster that won first prize pleased both the judges and the
viewers.
*The poster, that won first prize, pleased both the judges and the
viewers.
(*means ungrammatical)

9. Use which in nonessential or nonrestrictive clauses. Separate


nonessential clauses from the rest of the sentence by commas.
Our car, which has been running for three days, should be brought
to the machine shop for check-up.

10. Relative pronouns used in noun clauses are that, what, whatever,
whoever, whomever and whichever.
(noun clause as subject) Whatever you offer will be appreciated.
(noun clause as direct He will befriend whoever he gets
object) acquainted with.

11. Look at the antecedent of who, that or which when used as subject to
decide whether the verb following should be singular or plural.
The painting which is exhibited is the painter’s masterpiece.
The farmers who own orchards earn much from their harvest.

LESSON 3: VERBS

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A verb can be recognized by means of the following characteristics:

 Denotes an action (e.g., read) or a state of being (e.g. know). ACTION


VERBS are dynamic. STATE OF BEING VERBS (or STATIVE VERBS)
includes the copula or linking verbs, e.g. the be-verbs, remain, appear,
and become.

 Has four inflections


{-s} of third person singular present tense verbs
{-ed} of simple past tense verbs
{-en} of the past participle
{-ing} of the present participle

The third person singular –s has the same allomorphs as the noun plural
and the noun possessive.

The –ed past tense inflection has three allomorphs:


/əd/ after morphs which end in / t / or / d / as in planted, raided
/t/ after morphs that end in voiceless sounds except / t / as in
brushed, jumped, walked

/d/ after morphs which end in voiced sounds except / d / as in


cleaned, grabbed, agreed

 Follows a subject noun and may be followed in turn by adjectives

}______ eager [to enhance their knowledge].


The reviewees }______ seriously.
}______ their hand-outs.

 May fall under one more or more of these types


o INTRANSITIVE VERBS which does not take an object (direct)
Flowers bloom.
o TRANSITIVE VERBS which require an object (direct)
Flowers need water and sunlight.
o DITRANSITIVE VERBS which take two objects (direct and indirect)
Alex gave his girlfriend three red roses.
o LINKING/COPULA VERBS where what follows the verb relates
back to the subject (subject complement -- a predicate noun or a
predicate adjective)

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Roses are lovely Valentine’s Day gifts.
Roses are sweet.
o COMPLEX TRANSITIVE VERBS where what follows the object
(direct) relates to the object
They chose Niña, muse of the team.
o PREPOSITIONAL VERBS which requires a prepositional phrase to
be complete
We looked at the pictures taken during our graduation

 Have tense and aspect qualities. Tense and aspect have to do with form.
TENSE is “the grammatical marking on verbs that usually indicates time
reference relative to either the time of speaking or the time at which some
other situation was in force” (Jacobs 1995). Time reference has to do with
meaning. Events and situations are located in time, perhaps to our
speaking about them, perhaps while we are speaking about them, or
perhaps at some later time. English has three tenses – present, past, and
future. The present and the past tenses have inflectional markings; while
the future is marked by the inclusion of the modals will or shall. Simply put,
tense is a set of verb forms that indicate a particular point in time or period
of time in the past, present, or future.

ASPECT is a general name given to verb forms used to signify certain


ways in which an event is viewed or experienced. Aspect can view an
event as completed whole (simple), or whether or not it has occurred
earlier (perfect aspect) or is still in progress (progress).

Noel has attended the review classes. (perfect)


Now he is studying for the LET exam. (progressive)

The tenses in combination with aspects make up the following 12 tense-


aspect categories. These make up the traditional 12 tenses.

Tense-Aspect Combinations

Simple Perfect Progressive Perfect


Progressive
Ø have + -en be + -ing have + -enbe + -ing

Presen dream/dreams has/have am/is/are has/have been


t dreamed dreaming dreaming
eat/eats has/have eaten am/is/are eating has/have been

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eating
Past dreamed had dreamed was/were had been dreaming
dreaming
Ate had eaten was/were eating had been eating
Future will/shall will/shall have will/shall be will/shall have been
dream dream dreaming dreaming
will/shall eat will/shall have will/shall be will/shall have been
eaten eating eating

Sometimes, if we want to draw attention to the time of the action, we use


an ADJUNCT OF TIME, which can be an adverb, a noun group, or a
prepositional phrase, e.g.:

(adverb) She’s coming tomorrow.


(noun group) Results of the examination were released last
week.
(prepositional phrase)He will feel relieved after the exam.

VERB TENSES: Their Meanings and Common Uses

SIMPLE ASPECT: complete wholes; unchanging

1. SIMPLE PRESENT: the present in general


 To talk about our thoughts and feelings at the present moment or about
our immediate reactions to something
I’m terribly busy.
He looks excited.

 To talk about a settled state of affairs which includes the present moment
He lives in Sagada now.
Our teacher is very competent and considerate. We like her very
much.

 To say something is always or generally true


There are 24 hours in a day.
The earth revolves around its axis.

 To talk about something that a particular person or thing does regularly or


habitually.
I get up early to take a bath.
Every Sunday, I attend church services.

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 To discuss what happens in a book, play or film


In the movie, he plays the character of Juan Tamad.
In those early chapters, he keeps himself isolated to other people
in the village.

 To describe an event such as a sports match or a ceremony at the time it


is happening as radio and TV commentators do
Doods takes the ball, and then passes it quickly to Alfie. Alfie
turns, shoots, and scores two points.

2. SIMPLE PAST: Stating a definite time in the past


An adjunct of time or other time expression is necessary to specify the
particular time in the past we are referring to.

 To say that an event occurred or that something was the case at a


particular time in the past.
The university officials flew into Jakarta last week to sign a
memorandum of agreement with a sister school.

 To say that a situation existed over a period of time in the past.


He lived in his ancestral home in the countryside during his last
years.

 To talk about an activity that took place regularly or repeatedly in the past,
but which no longer occurs
We swam in the river a great deal in my childhood.

3.SIMPLE FUTURE: An expression of what we think might happen or what


we intendto happen
 To say that something is planned to happen, or that we think it is likely to
happen in the future
What do you think Ella will do to fix it?

 To talk about general truths and to say what can be expected to happen if
a particular situation arises
An attack of dengue fever can keep a man off work for a few days.
He will earn nothing and he have trouble paying his hospital bills.

PERFECT ASPECT: prior

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1. PRESENT PERFECT: the past in relation to the present


We cannot use adjuncts or expressions which place the action at a definite
time in the past. But we can use adjuncts of duration, e.g. forever, always.
*I have watched it the other day.
I ate raw vegetables, which I always avoided, and there was no
other choice.
To mention something that happened in the past but we do not want to
state a specific time.
I have read the book several times.

2. PAST PERFECT: Events before a particular time in the past


To talk about a past event or situation that occurred before a particular
time in the past
By noon, students had gathered at the quadrangle with their
placards.

3. FUTURE PERFECT
To refer to something that has not happened yet, but will happen before a
particular time in the future.
By the time he graduates, his parents will already have left for New
Zealand

PROGRESSIVE ASPECT: incomplete action; changing

1. PRESENT PROGRESSIVE: Accent on the present


 To talk about something that is happening at the moment we are speaking
I’m already feeling bored and hungry.

 To emphasize the present moment or to indicate that a situation is


temporary
She’s spending the summer in her hometown.

 To indicate changes, trends, developments, and progress


He’s performance in class is improving.

 To talk about a habitual action that takes place regularly, especially one
which is new or temporary
She’s spending a lot on clothes these days.

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2. PAST PROGRESSIVE: accent on the past


 To talk about continued states or repeated actions which occurred in the
past
His body was trembling; his fever was rising.

 To contrast a situation with an event which happened just after that


situation existed. We use the past continuous to describe the first event
and the simple past to describe the event which occurred after it.
We were standing at the main gate waiting to welcome the guest
speaker. He arrived 20 minutes later.

3. FUTURE PROGRESSIVE
 To say something will surely happen because arrangements have been
made
They will be sending their students regularly to the University for
English Proficiency Enhancement.

 To emphasize the duration of a recent event


She’s been crying bitterly.

PERFECT-PROGRESSIVE ASPECT

1. PRESENT PERFECT PROGRESSIVE


 To talk about an activity or situation that started at some time in the past,
continued, and is still happening now.
The economy has been declining in many parts of the world.

2. PAST PERFECT PROGRESSIVE


 To emphasize the recentness and duration of a continuous activity which
took place before a particular time in the past?
The old woman had been living alone in that dilapidated house.

 To say that something was expected, wished for, or intended before a


particular time in the past.
I had been expecting a phenomenal rise in his political career.

3. FUTURE PERFECT PROGRESSIVE


 To emphasize the duration to an event at a specific time in the future

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By January 2011, she will have been serving this university for 38
years.

AUXILIARY/HELPING VERBS

1. VERB PHRASE/VERB COMPLEX: consists of an auxiliary + a main verb,


e.g., must work, have been reading, will be informed. The underlined word
or words are the auxiliary or helping verbs.

2. AUXILIARY/HELPING VERBS

A. MODAL AUXILIARIES and their related phrasal forms

True Modals Phrasal Modals


can, could be able to
will, shall be going to, be about to
Must have* to, have got to
should, ought to be to, be supposed
would (= past habit) used to
may, might be allowed to, be permitted to
*The verb betakes several forms such as is, are, was, were, and
will be. Have taken the forms has, have, and had

 NON-MODAL AUXILIARIES : be, do, and have verbs


Of all the auxiliaries, only the non-modals can change form.

Distinguishing Characteristics between True Modals and


Phrasal Modals

True Modals Phrasal Modals


1 Do not inflect, i.e., the forms Inflect like other ordinary
remain unchanged verbs
Canpass am/is/are/was/were/will be
able to pass
2 Lack tense and a resultant Subject-agreement rule
lack of subject-verb applies except the form used
agreement to
We can pass the LET. We are able to pass the
He can pass the LET. LET.
He is able to pass the LET.
3 Do not require an infinitive Requires an infinitive marker
marker to precede the main toto precede the main verb
verb has/have/had to study hard

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must study hard

3. OPERATORS/OPERATOR VERBS

 The OPERATOR is a verb that has three main functions: 1) It


precedes the negative and combines with it when the negative is
contracted to n’t; 2) It is the verb that moves around the subject to
the sentence initial position in yes-no questions; and 3) It is also the
verb that appears in the tag phrases of interrogative sentences or
tag questions.
My father will not approve your marriage proposal.
My father won’t approve your marriage proposal.
Will your father approve my marriage proposal?
Will your father not approve my marriage proposal?
Won’t your father approve my marriage proposal?
Your father will approve my marriage proposal, won’ the?

 When a clause contains no verb eligible to be an operator, do is


introduced.
He attends the graduation ball tonight.
 He does attend the graduation ball tonight.
 He does not attend the graduation ball tonight.
 Does he attend the graduation ball tonight?
 He attends the graduation ball tonight, doesn’t he?

 If there are two or more auxiliary verbs present in the VERB


PHRASE, the first auxiliary serves as the operator.
He has been reading the Obama autobiography.
 He has not been reading the Obama autobiography.
*He has been not reading the Obama autobiography.
 Has he been reading the Obama autobiography.
He has been reading the Obama autobiography, hasn’t he?

SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT/CONCORD RULES WHICH OFTEN CAUSE


ERRORS

1. Collective nouns may take either a singular or plural verb inflection depending
on the meaning.

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 Conceived of as one entity – takes a singular verb
Our school team has won its games.
 Conceived of as more than one entity or refers to individual membership –
takes plural verb
Our school team have won all their games.

2. Some common and proper nouns ending in –s, including –ics nouns and
certain diseases are always conceived as single entity – take a plural verb.
The recent news is exciting.
Mathematics is repelling to many students.
Measles is a contagious disease.
The United States is still a powerful country.

3. Titles of works even when plural in form are conceived of as single entitles.
The Ten Commandments is a beautiful movie.
The Syntax Files is good reading for those in linguistics.
The song Greenfields brings nostalgia to people of my generation.

4. Nouns occurring in sets of two take the singular when the noun pair is present
but take the plural when pair is absent.
That pair of Lee jeans is expensive.
My glasses are missing.

5. Fractions and percentages takes a singular verb inflection when modifying a


non-count noun and a plural verb when they modify a plural noun. Either a
singular or plural verb inflection may be used when they modify a collective noun,
depending on the speaker’s meaning.
More than a half of the cake is eaten.
Twenty percent of the students are not joining the field trip.
One-fourth of the audience is/are teachers.

6. A number normally takes the plural. The number takes the singular.
A number of parents are coming for the meeting.
The number of signatories is substantial to merit approval of the
motion.

7. When we use a number and a plural noun to talk about two or more things, we
usually use a plural verb. We use a singular verb with ‘one’.
Seven days make up a week.
One solid evidence is enough to prove his dishonesty.

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8. When we are talking about an amount of money or time, or a distance, speed,


or weight, we usually use a number, a plural noun, and a singular verb.
Five hundred dollars is a lot of money.
Three years is a long time to wait for a family member from abroad to
come home.
Eighty kilometres per hour of travel is quite risky on slippery roads.
Seventy-five pounds is all she weighs now.

9. Arithmetic operations take the singular because they are perceived as


reflecting a single numerical entity on both sides of the equation or equal sign.
Two plus two is/equals four.

10. The quantifiers a lot (of), lots of, and plenty of take a singular verb if the
subject noun is non-count by plural verb if the subject head noun is plural.
A lot of sound views were advanced during the discussion.
A lot of nonsense is evident from uninterested participants.

11. Traditional grammar states that when used as a subject, none (meaning not
one) is always singular regardless of what follows in a prepositional phrase.
None of the boys joins the mountaineering group.
None of the rice is eaten at all.

12. Traditional grammar maintains that the antecedent of the relative pronoun is
the noun before.
Alice is one of the graduate students who have finished her master’s
degree in a short period of time.

13. For correlatives either . . . or and neither . . . nor, traditional grammar argues
for a proximity rule, i.e., subject-verb agreement should occur with the subject
noun nearest to the verb.
Either my friend or my classmates are expected to help me with my
project.
Neither my classmates nor my friend volunteers to lend support.

14. A singular noun or pronoun should take a singular verb inflection regardless
of what else occurs between the subject and the verb.
Jimmy, along with his co-teachers, conducts a cleanliness campaign in
the barangay.

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15. In questions, subjects don’t always come before verbs. Identify accurately the
subject before deciding on the proper verb to use.
Does your father usually go jogging?
What are the pages our teacher wants us to read?

VOICE

VOICE pertains to who or what serves as the subject in a clause. In the


ACTIVE VOICE, the subject of a clause is most often the agent, or doer, of some
action. In the PASSIVE VOICE, the subject of a clause is the receiver or
undergoer of the action. The passive “defocuses” the agent. (Shibitani 1985 in
Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman 2001)

The lifeguard saved the child. (active)


The child was saved [by the lifeguard]. (passive)

The passive voice is more limited than the active in that it requires only the
transitive verbs – verbs that take direct objects.

The passive morphology is be . . . –en, i.e., a form of the be verb + the past
participle. Usually in passive sentences the agent is not mentioned at all, referred
to as the AGENTLESS PASSIVE. If the agent is mentioned (= AGENTED
PASSIVE), it appears in a prepositional phrase marked by the preposition by.

Some passive sentences have no active counterparts.

Justin was born in Canada.

Advantages of the Active Voice

1. An active clause can give more information in fewer words.


2. An active verb makes writing livelier and more vivid.

Uses of the Passive Voice

1. A passive construction emphasizes the result in an impersonal style. This


use is sometimes desirable in scientific and technical writing.
A new strain of malaria was discovered.

2. A passive verb emphasizes a victim or the result of a disaster.

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Active: The child broke the antique vase.
Passive: The antique vase was broken.

3. Use the passive when the agent or the actor is so unimportant or is


obvious that you do not need to mention it.
Rica was born in Seychelles.

4. Use a passive verb if you want to hide the name of the person who is
responsible for an unpleasant decision or result.
An increase in tuition fees was proposed.

Forms of the English Passive

We usually form simple passives like these:

Paper is produced from trees. (simple present)


Paper was produced from trees. (simple past)

Here are other possible forms:


1. With modals
Paper can be produced from trees.

2. With present perfect


Paper has been produced from trees.

3. With present progressive


Paper is being produced from trees.

4. With past progressive


Paper were being produced from trees.

5. With be going to for future


Paper is going to be produced from trees.

PHRASAL VERBS

These are verbs which consist of two or three words. They consist of:

1. a verb followed by an adverb;

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go up, spill over, and push through
2. a verb followed by a preposition;
come upon, reckon with, and bank on
3. a verb followed by an adverb and a preposition
break out of, look forward to, and go along with

Just like ordinary verbs, phrasal verbs may be used:

1. intransitively
Why don’t you speak up?
2. transitively
Let’s cut down pollution to conserve our environment./
Let’s cut pollution down to conserve our environment.

Note that some phrasal verb may be separable. This is further explained
below.

3. both intransitively and transitively


A plane took off.
She took off her coat because it was warm./
She took her coat off because it was warm.

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Meaning of Some Phrasal Verbs

A two-word verb often has a one-word synonym, which is generally more formal.
Here are some examples:

Phrasal Synonym Phrasal Synonym


Verb Verb
call up Telephone give in/up surrender
keep on Continue leave out omit
pick out Choose put off postpone

Separable and Inseparable Verbs

 Parts of inseparable phrasal verbs cannot be separated. If there is a direct


object, it follows the phrasal verb.

Look after your baby brother.


*Look your baby brother after.
Look after him

 On the other hand, the object of separable phrasal verbs is movable. A


pronoun object comes between the first and second part. A short noun
object can come between the two parts or can follow the second part.

Donna turned it on.


Donna turned the light on.
Donna turned on the light.

 Some phrasal verbs can be either separable or inseparable according to


their meanings in a certain context.

She passed out. (fainted)


She passed the brochures out. (distributed)

The car broke down. (stopped running)


The polite broke the door down. (opened by force)

Separable Phrasal Verbs with Their Objects

Object
back it/the car up
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blow it/the candle out
it/the balloon up
break them/the statistics down down
them/the negotiations off
bring it/the change about
it/the subject up
burn it/the building down
them/the papers up
clear them/the dishes away
it/the misunderstanding up
close it/the business down
draw it/the agreement up
fill it/a form in/out
it/the cup up
find it/the answer out
give it/this old bag way
it/eating candy up
it/the news out
hand it/the work in/out
keep them/expenses down
it/the radio on
leave it/the question out
Let them/our friends in/out
lock them/the prisoners up
look them/our relatives in up
Manila
make it/the handwriting out
it/a story up
mix it/food being prepared up
them/people up
pass it/the responsibility on
pay it/the money back
them/my enemies back
pick it/a new shirt out
point it/the problem out

LESSON 4: ADJECTIVES

An adjective :

1. Is a word which describes or denotes the qualities of something

2. Commonly occurs between a determiner and a noun, or after be or other


linking verbs or immediately following the intensifier very
the _____ baby seems (very) _____
the hungrybaby seems (very) hungry

3. Is associated with certain derivational morphemes


{-y} healthy, leafy

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{-al} racial, normal
{-able} understandable, visible
{-ed} aged, learned
{-ful/-less} hopeful, hopeless
{-ish} childish, boyish
{-ive} active, native
{-ous} famous, marvellous

4. Has inflectional morphemes for comparative and superlative forms


pretty prettier prettiest

5. Modifies or complements nouns


The honest man (modifier)
The man is honest. (complement)

6. Has various types in terms of characteristic positions: ATTRIBUTIVE


which precede nouns, and PREDICATIVE which follow linking verbs
The diligent students pass the tough exam. (attributive)
They are happy with their high scores. (predicative)

Other Related Concepts

1. Restrictive/Non-restrictive adjectives
RESTRICTIVE adjectives are necessary for defining which noun is being
referred to while NON-RESTRICTIVE adjectives merely add information
without being essential for identification.
A concrete house. (restrictive)
My uncle owns a house, built of concrete materials. (non-restrictive)

2. Polarity
POLARITY refers to positive and negative contrasts in a language.
Positive polarity Negative polarity
big small, little
old young
long short
good bad
fast slow

Adjectives with positive polarity are UNMARKED FORMS because they


are used more frequently in a given language, learned earlier by children,

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and used in neutral contexts. Adjectives of negative polarity are MARKED.
They are less frequently used.

3. GRADABILITY

 Adjectives can be placed in continuum of intensity, with the intensity


increasing or decreasing depending on the intensifier chosen.

[Less [More
intense] intense]
Somewhat rare, rare, quite rare, very rare,
extremely rare

 Adjectives that can be compared are also called gradable


adjectives. Comparative forms (adjectives marked by -er, more, or less)
show differences/contrasts between two things or groups. Superlative
forms (marked by –est, most, or least) show differences in three or more
things or groups.

 Comparison do not apply to absolutes such as unique, possible,


impossible, horizontal, round, square, and fatal. They can co-occur with
words like nearly and almost.
The accident was fatal.
The accident was nearly fatal.
The accident was almost fatal.

 The as . . . as construction is used to show that two things or groups


are similar.
Ella is as tall as her mother.

Order of Adjectives in Noun Groups

When two or more adjectives are used in a structure, they usually occur in a
particular order or sequence as follows:

DET opinio size shape conditio age colour origin NOUN


n n
many Pretty smal round chipped antiqu Blue Chines vases
l e e

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LESSON 5: ADVERBS

ADVERBS modify or change the meaning of other words such as verbs,


adjectives, another adverb, or even a whole sentence.

(verb modifier) The athlete can run fast.


(adjective modifier) Sailboats are really beautiful to watch.
(adverb modifier). The athlete can run very fast.
(sentence modifier) Perhaps, Nina’s family will give a party

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Adverbs or adverbials vary in form as follows:

Adverbial clause: The child cried because he was hungry.


Adverbial phrase: Diane sang very sweetly.
Prepositional phrase: She sang during our class reunion.
Word: We eagerly look forward to your graduation.

Adverbs can be readily recognized through certain affixes. For example:

1. Suffix –ly hopefully, popularly


2. Prefix a- aloud, adrift, anew
3. Suffix –wise lengthwise, clockwise
4. Suffix –wards backward(s), forward(s)

Kinds of Adverbs

1. Adverbs of frequency: answer the question how often?


(always, never, usually, rarely)
2. Adverbs of relative time can be used with all tenses as meaning permits
(just, still, already, lately)
3. Adverbs of manner answer the question how? orhow well?
(carefully, eagerly, clearly, quickly)
4. Adverbs of place answer the question where?
(here, in the city)
5. Adverbs of time answer the question when?
(today, on April 15)
7. adverbs that emphasize only and even

Where we put only makes a big change in the meaning of a clause. To illustrate:

(no one else) 1. Onlyhe invited Alex to join the team this
year.
(not ordered) 2. He onlyinvited Alex to join the team this year this
year.
(no one but Alex) 3. He invited only Alex to join the team this year.
(to join, not to do 4. He invited Alex only to join the team this year.
anything else)
(recently as or 5. He invited Alex to join the team only this
year.

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at no other time)

Positions of Adverbials

While some adverbials are fixed in their positions in the sentence, others
are movable. They can occur sentence initially, medially, or finally.

Sentence-initial: Doubtlessly, we must conclude that the findings are


correct.
Sentence-medial: We, doubtlessly, must conclude that the findings are
correct.
Sentence-final: We must conclude that the findings are correct,
doubtlessly.

Order of Adverbials

When two or more adverbials co-occur in final position in the same


sentence, ordering should be observed.

{direction} + position↔ manner + time ↔ frequency + {purpose}


{goal } {reason}

He walks homeleisurely at 5:30 PMevery daybecause he wants to feel


relaxed.

He walks homeleisurelyevery dayat 5:30 PM because he wants to feel


relaxed.

LESSON 6: CONJUNCTIONS

Coordination
COORDINATION is the process of combining ideas. Two constituents of the
same type can be put together to produce another larger constituent of the same
type. Traditional grammar calls this process COMPOUNDING.

Compound sentence: The boys sangandthe girls danced last night.


Compound subject: The teacher andher students will join the parade.

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Compound verb: The children playandeat during recess.
Compound object: We boiled cornandcassava.

Conjoining like constituents as shown above is referred to as SIMPLE


COORDINATION. Here are other ways of coordinating ideas:

1. ELLIPSIS: Omission or elision of the first verb phrase in the second and
adding the word too or either (for UNINVERTED FORMS), and so or
neither (for INVERTED FORMS).

Affirmative forms
My friends like to read storybooks and I, too. (uninverted)
A horse runs fast, and so does an ostrich. (Inverted)

Negative forms
Donna can’t climb a tree, and his little brother can’t, either.
(uninverted)
Ducks can’t fly high, and neither can chickens. (inverted)

2. Use of PRO-FORM, i.e., the substitution of pronoun for a repeated noun.


Luis plays the guitar andhe plays the harp, too.

3. COMPLEX or CORRELATIVE CONJUNCTIONS like both . . . and..


My father is both kind and sincere.

Forms of Coordinating Conjunctions

Other than and, simple coordinating conjunctions include: for, nor, but, or, yet,
and so. Note the following examples:
milk or chocolate
small but/yet terrible
He came late, so he missed the fun. (clausal)
They accepted the verdict, for they failed to counter the charges against
them. (clausal)

Other forms of correlative conjunctions are either . . . or, not only . . . but also,
and neither . . . nor. These pairs are used together
Either Tony or Nico will top the test.
Anna is neither friendly nor generous.
Our teacher is not only competent but also very understanding.

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Use of Coordinating Conjunctions

Below is a straightforward account of the simple conjunctions:

Conjunctio Meaning Conjunctio Meaning


n n
For Because or one or the other of two
alternatives is true
And Plus yet but at the same time
Nor conjoins two negative so therefore
sentences, both of
which are true
But shows contrast

A deeper and thorough study of each conjunction, however, reveals certain


properties beyond the given straightforward account. To illustrate, here are the
other meaning and uses of and.

1. As LOGICAL OPERATOR (the truth-conditional meaning)


The entire conjoined statement is true so long as each conjunct that
makes it up is true. If one conjunct is false, then the statement is false.

2. As MARKER of many meanings


Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (2001) citing Posner (1980) provides
these illustrations:
 (and there . . .)
Annie is in the kitchen, and she is making doughnuts.
 (and during this time . . .)
Annie fell into a deep sleep, and her facial color returned.
 (and coming from it . . .)
The window was open, and there was a draft.
 (and after that . . .)
Peter married Annie, and she had a baby.
 (and thereby . . .)
Paul pounded on the stone, and he shattered it.
 (If you give me your picture, I’ll give you mine.)
Give me your picture, andI’ll give you mine.

3. As INFERENTIAL CONNECTIVE

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A reader/listener can draw an inferential connection from sentences like
Susan jumped and hurt her ankle. The use of and invites the
listener/reader to seek some other implicit relevant connection between
stated conjuncts.

4. As MARKER OF SPEAKER CONTINUATION


In conversational discourse, sometimes a speaker uses and to signal that
the utterance to follow is in some way connected with what has come
before. This particular use of and goes beyond the usual content
conjunctive use; rather it places and into the category of discourse
markers like oh and well.

Subordination
SUBORDINATION means putting less important ideas in less important
grammatical structures like dependent clauses. One means of subordination is
SENTENCE COMBINING or REDUCING.

Sentence combining

Melissa topped the test.


Melissa was late by twenty minutes.

Although late by twenty Melissa topped the test.
minutes,
dependent clause independent clause

Reducing


Although late, Melissa topped the
test
dependent independent clause
clause

Subordinating Conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions do the job of connecting dependent clauses to


independent clauses. Shown below are different types.

Type Conjunction Type Conjunction


Time when, before, conditional if, unless
after, since,

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while, until, as
Purpose in order to, so reason because, since,
that as
Result so that concessive although, though,
while, despite
Place where, wherever manner as, like

Time Her father died when she was young.


Conditional IfI could afford it, I would buy a car.
Purpose They had to extend the session in order to discuss all
concerns raised.
Reason I couldn’t ignore him because he was my childhood
playmate
Result She reviewed very hard so that she would pass the
LET.
Concessive While I did well in class, I was a poor performer at
club activities.
Place Wherever I stayed, I found troublesome neighbors.
Manner Is she often rude and cross likeshe’s been this past
week?

Relative Clauses

Another form of subordination involves the EMBEDDING of one clause within


another. For example:

The lady came into the room.


The lady was small and slender.
 The lady [the lady came into the room] was small and slender.
The lady who came into the room was small and slender.

The most common relative pronouns which mark relative clauses are: that,
which, who, whom, and whose. Their uses are presented earlier in the section on
pronouns

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LESSON 7: PREPOSITIONS

Prepositions are notoriously difficult for ESL learners for several reasons.

1. Several English prepositions are realized as a single form in the learner’s


first language.

Pumunta kami sapalengke. (We went to the market).


Lumangoy kami sailog. (We swam in the river.)

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Sakalyeanggulo. (The commotion occurred on the street.)
Antayinmoakosakanto. (Meet me at the street corner.)

2. The English preposition is not necessarily realized by a single word. There


are complex forms like because of and in spite of or coalesced forms like
into and onto.

3. Certain prepositions co-occur with verbs, adjectives, and nouns to form


clusters.
to substitute for to be afraid of
infavorof awareness of

4. English prepositions are polysemous. They bear varied meanings.


(space) Throw the at the wall.
(time) It rains at night.
(degree) Water freezes at 00 C.
(idiomatic) She’s good at dancing.

Meanings of Prepositions

1. Many prepositions prototypically deal with locating objects in space


involving two or more entities. One entity is for foregrounding, while the
other serves as background. The former is the figure and the latter is the
landmark. In

Throw the ballat the wall.


figure landmark

2. Note the following figure

At on in
By ↕ ↕ ↕ through
With about
Under over
From off out of

Adapted - Dirven 1993


 At, on, and in are the basic and most general place prepositions. At
denotes place as a point of reference, on denotes physical contact

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between the figure and landmark, and in denotes the enclosure of the
trajector in the landmark.

They met at the main gate.


Put the box on the table.
The ball is in the box.

 From, off, and out of are source prepositions involving the notion of
separation from place.From denotes separation from a point of
orientation, off denotes separation from contact with line or surface,
and out of, separation from inside a landmark.

We walked from the gate to the waiting shed.


The box fell off the table.
Take the ball out of the box.

 By and with are proximity prepositions, which locate the figure in


relation to a point of orientation marked by the preposition at. By
denotes the idea of “connection” while with denotes both a point of
orientation and the idea of connection. In its spatial sense, with can
occur only with animate nouns as landmark.

He stood by me in all throughout the campaign.


He rides withme to our place of work.

 Through and about require the landmark to the seen as a surface or a


volume and are positioned in the diagram above next to in. Through
structures space as a tunnel or channel. About denotes spatial
movement in any direction.

Move the other side of the mountain through the tunnel.


He walked briskly about the yard for his morning exercise.

 Under and over are vertical space preposition. Under denotes a figure
at a lower point than the landmark. Over denotes a figure that is at a
higher point than the landmark.

Don’t keep your shoes under the table.


We watched the game over the fence.

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Selected Meanings and Uses of Common Prepositions

1. at (exact) We left at2:00 pm.


2. about (approximate) We left about 2:00 pm.
3. against (contact) to lean against the wall
4. around (approximate) around 2:00
5. by (nearness) bed by the window
(no later than) by 2:00
6. from (source) paper is made from wood
7. of (before) a quarterof ten
8. on (contact) on the wall
(day, date) on Sunday, on November 8th
(communication) onradio, TV
(concerning) a round-table discussion on language
policy
9. over (spanning time) over the weekend
(communication) over the radio, TV
10. through (penetrate) through the forest
(endurance) through thick and thin
11. to (until) work from 8 to 5
(before) a quarter to 11:00
(degree) He is honest tosuch extent.
12. under (less than) in under an hour
(condition) under stress
13. with (together) He grew smarter with the years.
(equal standing
or ability) rank with the best
(manner) delivered his speech with ease

Variations in Use of Prepositions

1. spatial proximity a house near/by the lake


2. time/degree approximation cost about/around Php1,500.00
3. telling time a quarter of/to ten
a quarter after/past ten
4. location along something the houses on/along the river
linear
5. in a time period It occurred in/during 1901.
6. temporal termination studied from 8 until/till/to 5

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7. location lower than something below/beneath/under/underneath the
bed
8. location higher than something above/over the piano
9. location in/at the rear of behind/in back of the cabinet
something
10. location adjacent next to/beside the cave

NEGATION

In English, negation affects words, phrases, and sentences.

Forms to Express Negation

The following forms mark negation in English (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-


Freeman, 2001.):

Affix-Negation No-Negation Not-Negation


a- (atypical) no (no plans) not, n’t
dis- (dishonest) nothing (I cannot/can’t) play the
in/im/ir/il- nobody piano.)
(inadequate/impossible/ no one never (not + ever)
irrelevant/illegal) nowhere (My aunt has never left
non- (non-formal) our town.)
un- (uncomfortable) neither (not + either)
-less (useless) nor (and + not)
-free (fat-free) Neither his brother nor
his sister helps support
him in his studies.

Negation at the lexical or word level can simply use the negative affix. For
example:

untidy untidily
impossible impossible
inadequate inadequately
illegally illegally
dishonest dishonestly
atypical atypically

Determining which affix to use is not always predictable. However, the choice of
im-, in-, il- or ir- is PHONOLOGICALLY CONDITIONED by the consonant which

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follows it, i.e., im- is used if the following consonant is bilabial (b, p, m), il- goes
with a stem beginning with l, and ir- with a stem beginning with r. The prefix in- is
the most common.

Nothing, nobody, and no one are indefinite pronoun while nowhere is an adverb.

Other negative items include never (negative adverb of frequency), nor (negative
coordinating conjunction and neither . . . nor (negative correlative conjunction.

The basketball players never admitted their mistake.


The pre-schoolers can neither read nor write, nor can they comprehend
do mathematical computations yet.

At the phrase level, no can function as a negative determiner in a noun phrase.

No agreement has been reached yet.

No may also be followed by a gerund as in no reading, no parking, or no littering.

Not is used before infinitive verbs to make the phrase negative.

She reminded her friends not to forget their bathing suits.

At the sentence level, not or its contraction n’t is the main NEGATOR. This
applies to different sentence types.

(statement) Mgrs. Palma is not/isn’t our teacher.


(question Are you not/Aren’t we meeting today?
(command) Do not/don’t laugh.
(exclamation) Was it not/wasn’t it exciting!

No and not are negative substitutes. No can be a negative substitute for a whole
sentence while not for a subordinate clause.

A: Is she coming with us?


B: No. She’ll do library work for an hour.

A: Is Pepito interested in the post?


B: I’m afraid not. He’d rather be a plain member.

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Are you joining us on Friday? If not, please let me know by tomorrow.

Placement of not

1. Not usually follows the be-verb, whether functions as a main verb (copula) or
an auxiliary/helping verb.

(main) Surprisingly today, the birds are not noisy.


(auxiliary verb) I’m wondering why they are not chirping.

2. Other than be, not follows the auxiliary verb if one is present or the first
auxiliary (modal, phrasal modal, or have) if there are two or more.

I cannot swim well.


The principal must not have been joking when he said that.
We have not been analysing the data since we received them.

3. With other main verbs, a do-verb is introduced before negation can take place.

The child swims in the pool. The child does swim in the pool.
The child does not swim in the pool.

YES/NO QUESTIONS

Inverted and Uninverted Yes/No Questions

YES/NO QUESTIONS are often defined as questions for which either “yes” or
“no” is the expected answer. They are produced with a rising intonation.

Yes/no questions are formed by inverting the subject and the operator.

Lucy is your cousin. Is Lucy your cousin?


She can speak fluently. Can she speak fluently?
She has been a consistent debater. Has she been a consistent
debater?
She loves (= does love) to read opinion columns. Does she love to read
opinion columns?

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Yes/no questions may have a statement word order, i.e., the word order is
uninverted. This sentence, however, is likewise said with a rising intonation.

2
Lucy is your 3cousin3↑
2
She can speak 3fluently3↑

Answers to Yes/No Questions

Yes/no questions usually take short answers using the operator. The operator is
underlined below.

1. Is your sister fond of sweets? Yes, she is.


No, she isn’t.
*Yes, she’s.

2. Can you speak Chinese? Yes, I can.


{No, I can’t.

3. Are we supposed to attend? Yes, we are.


No, we aren’t

4. Have they eaten? Yes, they have.


No, they haven’t

5. Does the baby walk? Yes, it does.


No, it doesn’t.

If the sentence contains more than one auxiliary verb, the short answer may also
contain an auxiliary verb in addition to the operator.

Will they have joined? Yes, they will have.


No, they won’t have.

If the second or third auxiliary is a be form, it is usually omitted.

Will she be able to pass? Yes, she will.


No, she won’t.

Negative Yes/No Questions

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Semantic problems may arise for many ESL learners who react to a
negative yes/no question in a literal manner in their language. This means that
they agree or disagree with the form of the yes/no question, thus causing
miscommunication.

Don’t you feel sorry? Yes (I don’t feel sorry).


No (I feel sorry).

Among native speakers of English, the expected response is:

Don’t you feel sorry? Yes, (I feel sorry).


No, I don’t feel sorry}.

Focused Yes/No Questions

While neutral yes/no questions, as in the preceding cases, query on the whole
state, activity or event, this query can be more focused sometimes.

Does Alex plan a foreign trip with Melly? (or did someone else?)
Does Alex plan a foreign trip with Melly? (or did he only suggest?)
Does Alex plan a foreign trip with Melly? (or is it something else?)
Does Alex plan a foreign trip with Mélly? (or is it with someone else?)

The focused sentence element gets the primary stress as shown above.

Some versus Any in Questions

Some and any can both occur with different question types depending on the
meaning.

 In open or unmarked questions, any is used in questions as well as in


negatives.

(question) Is there any sugar?


(negative) There isn’t any sugar.

 However, some is used in questions that expect a positive response, e.g., an


offer:

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Would you like some cold drink? (encourages a “yes” answer)

 Here are questions to consider:

Is there some relief? (expects a “yes” answer)


Is there any relief? (neutral question/no special meaning involved)
Isn’t there some relief? (Surely there is.)
Isn’t there any relief? (hopeful that there would be)
Is there no relief? (hopeful that there would be)

Other Functions of Yes/No Questions

1. Direct request: Can I borrow your notes on phonology?


2. Less direct request: Could I borrow your notes on phonology?
3. Polite request: I wonder if I could borrow your notes on
phonology.
4. Offers or invitations: Would you like to have a cup of coffee?
5. Commands Would you please pay attention?
6. Reprimands Don’t you have enough sense to do such a
thing?
7. Complaints Have you ever tried using this gadget at
all?

WH-QUESTIONS

WH-QUESTIONS are used to seek specific information so they are also


referred to as INFORMATION QUESTIONS. Except for how, these words begin
with wh- : who, whose, whom, what, which, where, when, why, and how.

A variety of constituents can be queried in a wh-question. Consider this


sentence:

Liza bought a beautiful house for her parents before she went to Canada.

Subject NP: Who bought a beautiful house?


(Liza)
Object NP: What did Liza buy?
(a beautiful house)
Object of the For whom did Liza buy a beautiful house?
preposition: (her parents)

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Who(m) did Liza buy a beautiful house for?
(her parents)
Verb phrase: What did Liza do when she came home?
(She bought a beautiful house).
Determiner: Whose parents did Liza buy a beautiful house for when she
came home?
(her parents)
Adjective: What kind of house did Liza buy?
(a beautiful house)
Adverbial: When did Liza buy a beautiful house?
(before she went to Canada)
Adverbial: Where did Liza go?
(to Canada)

Wh-questions elicit specific kinds of information.

What? The answer is non-human.


Who? The answer will be human.
Which? The answer is one of a limited group.
When? The answer will be a time or an occasion.
Where? The answer will be a place or situation.
Why? The answer will be reason.
How? The answer will show manner, means, or degree.
How much? The answer will be connected with an uncountable noun.
How many? The answer will be connected with a countable noun.
How often? The answer will indicate frequency.

Forming Wh-Questions

If who, what, or which is the subject of the sentence, it is followed by the normal
word order of a statement.

Statement: Grammar study is exciting.


Question: What is exciting?

Statement: Those big dogs chased the cat.


Question: Which dogs chased the cat.

Statement: Their teacher gave a test.


Question: Who gave a test?

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Whom/who, what and which as objects form questions by putting the wh-words
first, and do, does, or did next.

Statement: He planted fruit trees.


Question: Whatdid he plant?

Statement: Mothers bathes my baby sister.


Question: Who(Whom) does my mother bathe?

Statement: The children catch yellow butterflies.


Question: Which butterflies do the children catch?

A modal (e.g., can) cannot be replaced by do, does, or did. The do-verb replaces
the main verb.

Statement: My three-year-old sister can read.


Question: What can my sister do?

Social Uses of Wh-Questions

Certain fixed formulaic wh-questions serve social functions (Celce-Murcia and


Larsen Freeman 2001). Among them are:

Introductions: How do you do?


Greetings: How are you?/ How have you been?/
What’s up?/ What’s new?
Eliciting personal reactions: How was the test?
Making suggestions: Why don’t you seek advice? How about a trip?
Responding positively Why not?
to a suggestion:
Expressing exasperation: What now?
Seeking another’s opinion: How about you?/ What do you think?
Challenging another’s opinion: What for?/ How come?/ Since when?
Expressing perplexity: What to do?
Asking for clarification/expansion: What about it?

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LESSON 8: INTERJECTION
An interjection is a part of speech that demonstrates the emotion or feeling
of the author. These words or phrases can stand alone, or be placed before or
after a sentence. Many times, as within the examples of interjections below, you'll
notice many interjections are followed by an exclamation point

Here are some examples of interjections and their definitions:

1. Ahem - The sound of someone clearing their throat in an attempt to get


your attention

2. Aah - Used as a call for help or when someone is scared

3. Boo - Used to scare someone or to voice disapproval

4. Eh - Used when you didn't hear or understand what someone said

5. Eww - Conveys dislike or disgust

6. Hmm - Can mean you're thinking or hesitating

7. Jeez - Could indicate you can't believe something or you're exasperated

8. Ooh-la-la - A slightly comical way to refer to something as fancy or special

9. Oops - An exclamation people use when they do something by accident

10. Phew - Expressing relief or gladness something is over

11. Whoa - Can show surprise or amazement

12. Yahoo - Expresses joy or happiness

13. Yeah - Demonstrates a very strong affirmation or approval

14. Yoo-hoo - An expression used to get someone's attention

15. Zing - Usually used comically to emphasize a clever statement or


comeback

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Interjections in a Sentence

Here are some more interjections, this time used in the context of an
accompanying sentence:

1. Ahh, that feels wonderful.

2. Alas! I'm lost in the wilderness.

3. Bah! That was a total waste of time.

4. Bless you! I couldn't have done it without you.

5. It's time for me to go. Cheerio!

6. Congrats! You finally got your master's degree.

7. Crikey! Do you ever think before you speak?

8. Gesundheit! Are you starting to get a cold?

9. Good grief! Why are you wearing shorts in the winter?

10. Grrr. I'm going to get back at him for that.

11. Humph. He probably cheated to make such good grades.

12. Oh dear! I don't know what to do about this mess.

13. Shoot! I forgot my brother's birthday.

14. Well, duh! That was a stupid thing to do!

15. Yowza! That is a gorgeous gown.

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More Interjection Examples

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LESSON 9: BASIC SENTENCE PATTERNS


Below are basic patterns around which most English sentences are built.

1. N be Adj
where the adjective is a SUBJECT COMPLEMENT, in particular a
PREDICATE ADJECTIVE. The adjective refers back to the subject.
The copula verbbe means “may be described as.”

Roses are sweet. (Subject complement = predicate adjective)

2. N be UW (= uninflected word)
where the uninflected word is an ADVERBIAL such as here, there,
up, down, in, out, inside, upstairs, downstairs, on, off, now, then,
yesterday, and tomorrow. Be has the meaning of “be located” or
“occur.”

The meeting was yesterday. (Adverbial)

3. N1 be N1
where the superscript means that the two nouns have the same
referent. The second noun following the be verb is also a SUBJECT
COMPLEMENT, in particular a PREDICATE NOUN or PREDICATE
NOMINATIVE.

Her neighbor is my cousin. (subject complement = predicate


nominative)

4. N InV (= intransitive verb)


where the INTRANSITIVE VERB does not require an object. The
verb being self-sufficient can stand alone with its subject.

Glasses break.

5. N1 TrV (= transitive V) N2
where N2 does not have the same referent as N 1. N2 is called the
DIRECT OBJECT of the verb, “the receiver of the action.”

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The girl buys yellow roses.

6. N1 TrV N2 N3
where the superscripts 1, 2, and 3 indicate that each noun has a
different referent.

Mother gave a gift to the orphan.


(usually reads as Mother gave the orphan a gift.)

Two noun objects occur after the verb. Still N2 is the direct object and
N3 is the INDIRECT OBJECT. If we omit the last noun, the pattern is identical to
that in item 5. Note that the indirect object is preceded by the preposition to
(sometimes for or of). If the two objects are inverted, the preposition disappears.

He made a toy house for her.


He made her a toy house.

The teacher asked a question of her.


The teacher asked her a question.

7. }N2
}Adj
}Pronoun
N1 TrV N2 }Adv (of place), uninflected
}Verb, present participle
}Verb, past participle

There are choices of different forms in sentence final position. These are
illustrated as follows:

(object complement) The class voted Henry secretary.


(adjective) The principal found the gardener efficient.
(pronoun) We considered the writer you.
(adverb of place) The teacher directed them outside.
(present participle) She saw them praying.
(past participle) I imagine my father overworked.

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The most common illustration of this sentence pattern is one with the
occurrence of a final N2.

LESSON 10: THE FOUR ENGLISH SENTENCE TYPES

There are four types of English sentence, classified by their purpose:

1. Declarative sentence
(statement)
2. Interrogative sentence
(question)
3. Imperative sentence
(command)
4. Exclamative sentence
(exclamation)

(form = structure / function = job)

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1. Declarative Sentence (statement)
Declarative sentences make a statement. They tell us something. They
give us information, and they normally end with a full-stop/period.

The usual word order for the declarative sentence is:

subject + verb...
Declarative sentences can be positive or negative. Look at these
examples:

Declarative sentences are the most common type of sentence.

2. Interrogative Sentence (question)


Interrogative sentences ask a question. They ask us something. They
want information, and they always end with a question mark.

The usual word order for the interrogative sentence is:

(wh-word +) auxiliary + subject + verb...


Interrogative sentences can be positive or negative. Look at these
examples:

3. Imperative Sentence (command)


Imperative sentences give a command. They tell us to do something, and
they end with a full-stop/period (.) or exclamation mark/point (!).

The usual word order for the imperative sentence is:

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base verb...
Note that there is usually no subject—because the subject is understood,
it is YOU.

Imperative sentences can be positive or negative. Look at these


examples:

4. Exclamative Sentence (exclamation)


Exclamative sentences express strong emotion/surprise—an exclamation
—and they always end with an exclamation mark/point (!).

The usual word order for the exclamative sentence is:

What (+ adjective) + noun + subject + verb


How (+ adjective/adverb) + subject + verb
Look at these examples:

What a liar he is!


What an exciting movie it was!
How he lied!
How exciting the movie was!

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LESSON 11: SENTENCE STRUCTURE 1.1

Simple, Compound, Complex, and Compound-Complex


Simple Sentences
- A simple sentence contains a subject and a verb.
- It expresses a single complete thought that can stand on its own.
Examples:
1. The baby cried for food.
There is a subject and a verb that expresses a complete thought.
2. Professor Maple’s intelligent students completed and turned in their
homework.
A simple sentence does not necessarily have to be short. It can have
adjectives. In this case, there are two verbs “completed” and “turned in.”
However, the sentence expresses one complete thought and therefore is a
simple sentence.
3. Megan and Ron ate too much and felt sick.
Although there are two subjects and two verbs, it is still a simple sentence
because both verbs share the same subjects and express one complete
thought.
Compound Sentences
- A compound sentence has two independent clauses. An independent
clause is a part of a sentence that can stand alone because it contains a
subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought.
- Basically, a compound contains two simple sentences.
- These independent clauses are joined by a conjunction (for, and, nor,
but, or, yet, so).
Examples:
1. The shoplifter had stolen clothes, so he ran once he saw the police.
Both sides of the conjunction “so” are complete sentences. “The shoplifter
had stolen clothes” can stand alone and so can “he ran once he saw the
police.” Therefore, this is a compound sentence.
2. They spoke to him in Spanish, but he responded in English.

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This is also a compound sentence that uses a conjunction to separate two
individual clauses.
Complex Sentences
- A complex sentence is an independent clause joined by one or more
dependent clauses. A dependent clause either lacks a subject or a verb or
has both a subject and a verb that does not express a complete thought.
- A complex sentence always has a subordinator (as, because, since,
after, although, when) or relative pronouns (who, that, which).
Examples:
1. After eating lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, Tim went to the gym to
exercise.
The independent clause is ‘Tim went to the gym to exercise.” The
subordinating clause before it is dependent on the main, independent
clause. If one were to say “after eating lunch at The Cheesecake Factory,”
it would be an incomplete thought.
2. Opinionated women are given disadvantages in societies that privilege male
accomplishments. The subject is “opinionated women” and the verb is “are
given.” The first part of the sentence “opinionated women are given
disadvantages in societies” is an independent clause that expresses a
complete thought. The following “that privilege male accomplishments” is a
relative clause that describes which types of societies.
3. The woman who taught Art History 210 was fired for stealing school supplies.
The dependent clause in this sentence is “who taught Art History 210”
because if removed, the rest of the sentence would stand as an
independent clause. “Who taught Art History 210” is an adjective clause
that provides necessary details about the subject, woman.
Compound-Complex Sentences
- A compound-complex sentence has two independent clauses and at
least one dependent clause.
Examples:
1. After the two soccer players lost their game, they joined their other teammates
for lunch, and they went to the movies. If we remove the dependent clause
“after the two soccer players lost their game,” we have a compound
sentence. The dependent clause makes this sentence compound-
complex.
2. The man believed in the system, and he knew that justice would prevail after
the murderer was sent to jail.
Practice:
Identify whether the sentences are simple, complex, compound or compound-
complex. Please underline dependent clauses where it applies.

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1. Vampires Dairies is my favourite television show, but I also love True
Blood.
2. The student wiped the white board that was filthy with last week’s notes.
3. The trendy fashion designer released her new line on Wednesday.
4. Trina and Hareem went to a bar in Hollywood to celebrate their
anniversary.
5. Wicked Regina cast a spell on the entire city, so the citizens decided to
rebel.
6. While waiting for the paint to dry, Angela went to Home Depot, and
Martin organized the kitchen appliances.
7. After listening to the Kanye West CD, I have new respect for his music.
8. After the teacher chose groups, John and Sara were selected as
partners for a project, yet Sarah did most of the work.

SENTENC STRUCUTRE 1.2


Using different types of sentences allows you to highlight different
relationships between ideas and to add variety to your writing. This resource is
designed to help you to construct sentences accurately, so that your meaning is
clear.

1. Clauses and phrases


2. Simple sentences
3. Compound sentences
4. Complex sentences
5. Answers to practice exercises
Clauses and phrases
Sentences are made up of clauses and phrases. All sentences must have
at least one independent clause.
Clauses
A clause is a group of words which has:
 a subject, ie. the focus of the clause, or someone or thing which does
something in the clause and
 a complete finite verb, ie. a verb which has a subject and a sense of time
For example, Subject Verb
 The lecture finished at 3 pm
 Pollution causes cancer
 New Zealand is in the south Pacific
There are two kinds of clauses: independent (or main) clauses and dependent
(or subordinate) clauses.
Independent

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 An independent clause expresses a complete thought and can stand on
its own as a sentence.
Example: Learning a new language is often frustrating.
Dependent
 A dependent clause does not express a complete thought and needs to be
joined to an independent clause to become a sentence. It usually begins
with a word such as although, while, because, who, which, if, etc.
Example: Although learning a new language is often frustrating
Phrases
 A phrase is a group of words which does not have a subject, e.g. walks to
work every day or does not have a finite verb
Example: The reason being their good design

Simple sentences
 A simple sentence has only one clause, which must be an independent
clause. The word “simple” does not necessarily mean “easy”; simple
sentences can also contain phrases, so they are often long and
complicated. However, they still have only one subject and one finite verb.

The diagram below illustrates the basic elements of a simple sentence.

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In this type of sentence, each clause has equal (or nearly equal) importance.
The clauses can be joined in three ways:
1. With a coordinating conjunction
Example: and, but, or, for, nor, yet, so
Example: Diversity has become a strategic imperative for corporations,
and the term has already entered the corporate vocabulary or with a
correlative conjunction
Example: not only ... but also
Example: Not only have conservationists been successful in bringing
issues to the attention of governments, but they have also achieved
considerable success in having policies and institutions introduced or
changed to meet their demand. 6
2. With a semi-colon (;)
Example: Astute depositors could see what was happening to the value of
the land that was supporting the assets of the banks; they moved quickly
to remove their deposits for cash.
3. With a semi-colon and another kind of link word called a conjunctive adverb
Example: furthermore, however, therefore, in contrast, similarly
Example: These obvious contamination problems have long been known;
however, what is not often realised is the organic matter carried in ground
water can contaminate samples. Many of these link words can also be
placed in other parts of the sentence. However, some other aspects of the
reforms appear counterproductive. Some other aspects of the reforms,
however, appear counterproductive. Some other aspects of the reforms
appear counterproductive, however.

Complex sentences

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A complex sentence has one independent clause and one or more dependent
clauses

In this type of sentence, the clauses do not have equal importance. The
independent (or main) clause contains the most important idea, and the
dependent clause adds extra information. The two clauses are linked by a
subordinate conjunction placed at the beginning of the dependent clause.
e.g. although, because, just as, whereas, unless, even though
Example:
Today, New Zealand lacks crocodiles, goannas, freshwater turtles and
land turtles, even though all were probably part of its Gondwanan heritage.
Even though crocodiles, goannas, freshwater turtles and land turtles were
probably part of its Gondwanan heritage, New Zealand lacks these
species today.

Compound-complex sentences
 A compound-complex sentence has two or more independent clauses and
at least one dependent clause.

Example:

When the new structure was proposed in 2003, the Council at first refused to
discuss the plans with community groups, but the Environment Court over-ruled
the decision and insisted on a full consultation process.

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LESSON 12: LINGUISTICS

Language - A system that uses some physical sign (sound, gesture, mark) to
express meaning.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Its breadth and depth reach
various fields and affect our daily lives. In the field of language teaching,
linguistics plays a very important role. Primarily, it provides language teachers
with “what to teach” since basic linguistic concepts serve as the foundation of
language, hence language teaching. Secondly, the study of language and how it
is learned provide teachers with basic ideas on “how to teach”.

We are uniquely language user We Use


Other Animals Communicate
Language
We can separate our vocalization from a given
• Cats arch their back to scare
situation (cats only arch their back in the
the neighbour cat
appropriate situation).
• Bees tell each other when
• We can lie (animals only report)
they have found food
• Chimpanzees can be taught
• We can speculate (animals are bad at
to use primitive sign language
counterfactuals)
to communicate desires.

4 parts to Language Grammar


 Phonology – Rule pertaining to the sound system
 Morphology – Rules governing word structure.
 Syntax – Rules governing the structure of sentences
 Semantics – Rules concerning meaning.

How Do We Make Speech Sounds?


History of English Language

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 Helps teachers understand the origins of our phonology, morphology,
orthography and semantics.
 Helps teachers understand and explain our spelling system.
 Provides an appreciation for the variety and expressive precision of
English vocabulary.
 Enhances vocabulary teaching.
 Explains the historical origin of some common errors seen in invented
spelling.

Vocabulary Building
 Latin words from this period are often composed of prefixes, roots and
suffixes.
 Students can learn many vocabulary words at once by learning about
these Latin roots and affixes.
Prefixes and suffixes: Using this information in the classroom

 Most of today’s suffixes date from the Middle English period of history.
- Inflectional Suffixes (learned early):
-s, -es, -ed, -ing, -er, -est
 Derivational Suffixes (usually change part of speech):
-able, - ness, -ful, -ment, -ity
 The suffixes may change pronunciation of base words:
- define à definition
- compete àcompetition

BACKGROUND: Language, including the phonology, is always changing but the


“great vowel shift” was an unusually profound and quick change. It occurred over
a 100 to 200 year period from 1400 to 1600. Scholars have not really found a
reason for this.
Examples of some changes in vowels that occurred in the modern period of
English are shown on the next slide.
The great vowel shift
 During the Renaissance, the pronunciation of words changed particularly
for the vowel sounds.
 The spelling system was already established and did not change to
accommodate the changing sound.
You now know
 What sounds will children confuse with /p/ and how can I help?
 Why do common sight words such as “was,” “what,” and “said,” have
irregular spellings?
 How many meaningful parts (morphemes) are there in the word
contracted?
 Why is English spelling perceived as “crazy?”

Rules that enable us to combine morphemes into sentences (bridge between


sound and meaning).
When children put words together they are following syntactic rules about how
morphemes are put together.

Semantic
Arbitrariness of the Sign - Sounds of words bear no relationship to
meaning (except for onomatopoeia).
In Philosophy we often distinguish between denotation and connotation.

Semantics Follow Syntax

“The people talked over the noise”

Two Syntactical Interpretations

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1. [The people] [talked [over]the noise]]] - Over is a preposition
2. [The people [talked over][the noise] – Over is a particle

A single sentence can correspond to two propositions, each of which has a


distinctive syntactic (and logical) structure, hence, a different cognitive
representation.
 Evidence that meaning is assigned to syntactic structure, rather than to
words and sentences.

LESSON XIII: GRAMMAR

Grammar - How do we know that one sentence is grammatical and the other is
not?

Enter Rules
But what are rules, and how are they represented in the brain?
How do we come to have such knowledge?
In what form is such knowledge represented in the mind?
How can children learn grammar?

Interesting Facts about Language


 The number of sentences is infinite.
 We are able to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical sentences.
 We are able to recognize truncated sentences (“Stop it”) that are missing
nouns.
 We are able to recognize ambiguous sentences (“Andrew saw the girl with
binoculars”)
 We can create sentences that paraphrase each other.

Noam Chomsky
Focused on the vast and unconscious set of rules he hypothesized must exist in
the minds of speakers and hearers in order for them to produce and understand
their native language.  

Chomsky’s Views
 He abandons the idea that children produce languages only by imitation
(abandon behaviorism)
 He rejects the idea that direct teaching and correcting of grammar could
account for children’s utterances because the rules children were
unconsciously acquiring are buried in the unconscious of the adults.

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 He claims that there are generative rules (explicit algorithms that
characterize the structures of a

Hypothesis – The inborn linguistic capacity of humans is sensitive to just those


rules that occur in human languages. Language development occurs if the
environment provides exposure to language. Similar to the capacity to walk.

Universal Grammar - Despite superficial differences all human languages share


a fundamental structure. This structure is a universal grammar. We have an
innate ability to apply this universal grammar to whatever language we are faced
with at birth.

Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Rules


 Prescriptive Rules – E.g., Don’t split the infinitives. A pronoun must agree
in gender and number with the noun to which it refers.
 Descriptive Linguistics – Implicit knowledge of rules that are inherent in the
language.

Grammar is descriptive
Support for Chomsky 2
Claim that children can’t be taught grammatical rules because they are not
explicitly known. Rather, they absorb these rules unconsciously, as their
language is spoken around them.

Phonological Rule: Plural Marker


DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE

Cognitivist
Structuralist Transformationalis Functionalis Behaviorist Interactionali
t t st
System Mental Interaction
Phenomenon
Arbitrary Innate To persuade Repetition Socialization
(absolute)
Means of To give/ask Reinforceme
Communication LAD information nt
Primarily Vocal To make
someone do
something
OTHER DEFINITIONS
PSYCHOLINGUISTS- Language is learned through schema
SOCIOLINGUISTICS- Language performs a social function
WEBSTER- Language is the expression and communication of emotions or ideas
between human beings by means of speech and hearing that is systematized and
confirmed by usage among a given people over a period of time.

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LESSON XIV- THE SOUNDS OF ENGLISH

The sounds of English (A language is a complex structure)

A. Vowel sounds – high, mid, low ( front, central back)

Vowel sounds can also be classified as SPREAD, ROUND OR NEUTRAL.

B. CONSTANT SOUNDS

NASAL PLOSIVES FRICATIVES AFFRICATIVES LATERAL


GLIDES
m,n,ng b,d,g,p,t,k, v,f,s,z,sh dz,ch w,l,r,j,h
(voice and
voiceless)

What is a word?
A word is a particular combination of sounds and meaning.

 We can identify words by the strings of sounds that comprise them.


 We can also tell what is a ‘possible word’ in our native language.

Listeners tacitly know:

 The sound sequences that make for ‘possible words’ in their language.

What lies behind our ability to distinguish possible from not possible
words?

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 Tacit knowledge of the phonotactic constraints of the language.

Loanwords

 As a result of cultural contact, one language may ‘borrow’ words from


another.
 The newly borrowed words are transformed to meet the phonological
constraints of the borrowing language.

Words have phonological structure

 The phonological structure of a word tells us how to pronounce it


and how to recognize or distinguish it from other words.

Words have morphological structure

 The morphological structure of a word is a guide to its meaning and


its role in sentence structure.

Second Language Acquisition Theories.

A plethora of theories have evolved and they can be broken down into four
major categories:
 Behaviorist “Use behavioral training for accurate pronunciation and rote
memory of information such as object and motor vocabulary.”
 Humanistic “Reduce tension and support a positive emotional state in the
learner.
 Cognitivist “Align learning with the brain and its natural ways of knowledge
acquisition.”
 Postmodern Techniques of Knowledge:
 Constructivist “Leave behind one-size-fits-all methods and negotiate
activities and objectives based on the needs of the learner, using
knowledge of learning styles and multiple intelligences, and encouraging
meta-cognition and self-reflection in order to increase students’ self-
knowledge and capacity for making conscious meaning.”

Linguistic Concepts

Scope of Linguistic Studies:

1. Phonology. It studies the combination of sounds into organized units of


speech, the combination of syllables and larger units. It describes the
sound system of a particular language and distribution of sounds which
occur in that language. Classification is made on the basis of the concept
of the phoneme. It is the study of the sound system of language: the rules
that govern pronunciation. It is the component of a grammar made up of
the elements and principles that determine sound patterns in language.

Phonological Rules
The rule system within a language by which phonemes are sequenced and
uttered to make words. Language consists of a fairly small set of sounds
(phonemes). There are about 40 in English. Most have no meaning in
themselves; rather we string them together to form meaningful bits and pieces.

Phonology: A related Term


 PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING: The use of information about speech
sounds which can include:
- Pronouncing words

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- Remembering names
- Rhyming, identifying syllables
- Segmenting and blending sounds

2. Phonetics. It studies language at the level of sounds: how sounds are


articulated by the human speech mechanism and received by the auditory
mechanism, how sounds can be distinguished and characterized by the
manner in which they are produced.
3. Morphology. It studies the patterns of formation of words by the
combination of sounds into minimal distinctive units of meaning called
morphemes. It deals with the rules of combining morphemes to form
words, e.g. suffixes or prefixes are attached to single morphemes to form
words.
Morphology is the study of word formation; it deals with the internal
structure of words. It also studies the changes that take place in the
structure of words, e.g. the morpheme ‘go’ changes to ‘went’ or ‘gone’ to
signify changes in tense and aspect.
4. Syntax. It deals with how words combine to form phrases, phrases
combine to form clauses, and clauses join to make sentences. Syntax is
the study of the way phrases, clauses and sentences are constructed. It is
the system of rules and categories that underlies sentence formation. It
also involves the description of rules of positioning elements in the
sentence, such as noun phrases, verb phrases, adverbial phrases, etc.
5. Semantics. It deals with the level of meaning in language. It attempts to
analyze the structure of meaning in a language, e.g. how words similar or
different are related; it attempts to show these inter-relationships through
forming categories. Semantics accounts for both word and sentence
meaning.
6. Pragmatics. It deals with the contextual aspects of meaning in particular
situations. It is the study of how language is used in real communication.
As distinct from the study of sentences, pragmatics considers utterances –
those sentences which are actually uttered by speakers of a language.
7. Discourse. It is the study of chunks of language which are bigger than a
single sentence. At this level, inter-sentential links that form a connected
or cohesive text are analyzed.

I. Basic Linguistic Concepts


1. Phonology is the study of sounds—the most basic building blocks of
language. From these basic units, sounds are arranged into bigger units of
speech. From this basic definition, it is safe to say that this study of the
sound system of language determines the rules of pronunciation
Some of the most important concepts that should be remembered in relation
to phonology are the following:

 Phoneme- the smallest unit of a sound that causes a difference in


meaning (e.g. /m/, /n/, /æ/) [pIn] <a piece of small and solid metal> would
have a different meaning if pronounced as [pEn] <a tool for writing> (or
that changes one word into another word).
- Phonemes should not be confused with letters. Phonemes are
the sounds of speech. Letters may represent phonemes in
written language.

Consonant phoneme
 A consonant phoneme is a speech sound that is formed by fully or partially
obstructing flow of the airstreams. Consonants are often described as
closed sounds

Allophones - variants or other ways of producing a phoneme. They are


phonetically similar. For example, the systematic variations of /p/ are:
i. Aspirated /p/ as in pen

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ii. Released /p/ as in spot
iii. Unreleased /p/ as in pot
Consonants - sounds produced with the obstruction of airflow. The airflow is
either blocked momentarily or restricted so much that noise is produced as air
flows past the constriction. Consonants are described in terms of physical
dimensions such as: place of articulation- a point of contact between two
articulators (e.g. tongue and lips), manner of articulation- the description of how
the speech organs are involved in making a sound, and voicing-the change in
sound (i.e. either voiced or voiceless). To further understand and remember
these concepts, check the table of consonant sounds below. (Source: Parker, F.
& Riley, K. (1994) Linguistics for Non-Linguists)
Phonics – Teaching the connections between sounds and spelling
PHONETICS: The study of linguistic speech sounds and how they are produced
and perceived.
 What parts of your mouth are involved?
- tongue & roof of mouth; lower lip and upper teeth; lower teeth
and tongue
Orthography - A writing system.
 What part of each of these words stands for the sound of long e?
tree speak chief be baby receive these
 Which orthographic rule is used in adding each of the suffixes below?
cups pennies tripped starring baking
Labiodental

Interdental

Alveolar
Bilabial

Palatal

Glottal
Velar

voiceles
s p     T   K  
STOPS Voiced b     D   G  
voiceles
s   f ϴ S Š   h
FRICATIVES Voiced   v ð Z Ž    
voiceles
AFFRICATE s         Č    
S Voiced         ǰ    
voiceles
s              
NASALS Voiced m     N   Ƞ  
voiceles
s              
LIQUIDS Voiced       L R    
voiceles
s              
GLIDES Voiced w       Y    

Vowels- sounds produced with little obstruction in the vocal tract and are
generally voiced. They are described in terms of: tongue height, frontness, lip
rounding, and tenseness. To further understand and remember these concepts,
check the diagram of vowel sounds below. (Source: www.thedialectcoach.com)

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Suprasegmentals- prosodic features that form part of the make-up of sounds no


matter what their place or manner of articulation is. These properties are pitch,
intonation, stress, and juncture.
Pitch- the auditory property of sound that is determined by the frequency
of the waves producing it -- highness or lowness
Intonation- refers to the variation of tone when speaking. It is the rise and
fall of pitch which may contrast meanings of sentences. The statement
“Mario is a teacher” ends with a fall in pitch; while “Mario is a teacher?”
has a rising pitch
Stress - refers to the relative emphasis of syllables; the syllable that
receives the most prominent stress is referred to as primary stress. To
produce a stressed syllable, one may change the pitch (usually by raising
it), make the syllable louder, or make it stronger.

e.g.

2 1 2 1 1 2
Fundamental introductory secondary
Juncture - refers to the pauses or breaks between syllables. The lack of
any real break between syllables of words is referred to as close juncture;
plus juncture, or open juncture is used to describe a break or pause
between syllables in the same word or adjacent word—e.g. nitrate vs.
night rate; why try vs. white rye; black bird vs. blackbird

2. Morphology is the study of the patterns from which words, through the
combination of sounds, are formed. When these sound units are
combined, they form distinctive units of meaning called morphemes. In
general English terminology, these are usually called affixes—although
morphemes are more than just the ordinary affix that we have learned in
Basic English courses. Some of the most important concepts to be
remembered are the following:

Morphological Rules
Language is made up of Morphemes. (we call these morphemes as Lexicon - our
mental dictionary). 3 million words in English (about 200,000 words in
common use today).

 Morphemes- a word or a part of a word that has meaning; morphemes


cannot be further subdivided since it is the smallest unit; it may be found in
other words since it usually has a stable meaning (e.g. the word “review”
has two morphemes {re}, which usually means ‘to do again’ and {view} )

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 Allomorphs- variants of a morpheme that may be phonologically or
morphologically conditioned (e.g. the plural {-s} has at least three
allomorphs [-s] as in /catS/, [-z] as in /dogZ/, and [-iz] as in /boxIZ/
 Free morphemes- those that can stand on their own as independent
words—e.g. {view} in review and {like} in unlike; they can also occur in
isolation.
 Bound morphemes- those that cannot stand on their own as independent
words; they need to be attached to a free morpheme or a free form—e.g.
{re-}, and {un-} they are commonly called affixes
 Inflectional morphemes- those that do not change the form class of the
words or morphemes to which they are attached; they are always attached
to complete words; they cap the word; they are a closed-ended set of
morphemes. English has only 8 inflectional morphemes:
-s 3rd person sing. Pres. She stay-s at home.
-ed past tense She stay-ed at home.
-ing progressive She is stay-ing at home.
-en past participle She has writt-en a
letter.
-s plural She wrote letter-s
-‘s possessive Kay-‘s book is new.
-er comparative This car is fast-er than that.
-est superlative This is the fast-est car.

 Derivational morphemes- those that are added to root morphemes or


stems to derive new words; they usually change the form class of the
words to which they are attached; they are open-ended, i.e. they are
potentially infinite.
e.g.
real + {-ize} = realize
hope + {-ful} = hopeful
{un-} + faith + {-ful} = unfaithful
3. Syntax is the study of the way phrases, clauses and sentences are
constructed. It deals with how words, phrases, and clauses combine to
make meaningful “thoughts” and “ideas”. It also involves the
description of rules of positioning elements in the sentence, such as
noun phrases, verb phrases, adverbial phrases, etc. Some of the most
important structures that should be remembered are the following:

 Structure of Predication- has two components: a subject and a predicate


(e.g. the moon shines; soldiers fought bravely; rain has ceased falling)
 Structure of Complementation- has two components: a verbal element
and a complement (e.g. send the e-mail; plant new trees, be still)
 Structure of Modification- has two components: a head word and a
modifier—whose meaning serves to broaden, qualify, select, change, or
describe in some way affect the meaning of the head word (e.g. helpful
students, great teachers, interestingly delicious)
 Structure of Coordination- has two components: equivalent grammatical
units and joined often but not always by a coordinating conjunction (e.g.
black and white; love not hate; neither safe nor secured)

Syntactic Rules
Rules that enable us to combine morphemes into sentences (bridge between
sound and meaning). When children put words together they are following
syntactic rules about how morphemes are put together.

SYNTAX: The rule system governing sentence formation; the study of sentence
structure.
 Arrange these words into a coherent sentence and write it down.
little mine red is sports car cute the

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“the red cute little sports car” “the sports little red cute
car”

How does word order affect the meaning?


Who’s the boss? Jan is the boss of Martin. Martin is the boss of Jan.
The boss of Jan is Martin. Is Jan the boss of Martin?

4. Semantics deals with the level of meaning in language. It attempts to


analyze how words similar or different are related and in turn, show these
inter-relationships through forming categories. Semantics accounts for both
word and sentence meaning. Some of the most important concepts to be
remembered are the following:
 Lexical Ambiguity- a characteristic of a word that has more
than one possible meaning (e.g. the English word “bank” may
mean ‘a financial institution’ or ‘an edge of a river’)
 Syntactic Ambiguity- a characteristic of a phrase or sentence
that has more than one meaning (e.g. ‘He ate the chips on the
couch.’ can mean ‘he ate the chips while sitting on the couch’ or
‘he ate the chips that were placed or left on the couch’)
 Synonymy- words having the same idea; (e.g. big and huge;
student and pupil; buy and purchase)
 Antonymy- two words which are different in form and in
meaning (fast and slow; heavy and light) Some antonyms are
gradable (hot and cold—not everything that can be hot or cold
is, in fact, either cold or hot; a liquid, for example, may be warm
or cool)
 Hyponymy- a word or a phrase that has its meaning included
within another word; the contained word is also know as the
superordinate (e.g. laptop contains the meaning of computer;
therefore, laptop is a hyponym of the superordinate computer)
 Homonymy- a sense relation in words with the same phonetic
form but different in meaning (e.g. bow ‘to bend forward to show
respect’ or ‘a weapon that shoots arrows’)
 Anaphora- a linguistic expression that refers to another
linguistic expression (e.g. The earthquake killed hundreds of
thousands of people in Haiti. It was devastating.) It is used
anaphorically to refer to ‘the earthquake’.

SEMANTICS: The study of word and phrase meanings


To what category do these words belong?
bicycle bus taxi
automobile scooter
skim scan peruse review
study

5. Pragmatics deals with the role of context in the creation of meanings. It is


the study of how language is used in real communication. Pragmatics
considers utterances, which are actually uttered by speakers in authentic
communication. Some of the pragmatic concepts that should be
remembered are the following:

 Locutionary force the literal meaning of the sentence; what


sentences say (e.g. “Why don’t we buy a new car?” – Wh
Question)
 IIllocutionary force: the pragmatic meaning of the sentence;
what sentences do (e.g. “Why don’t we buy a new car?” –
Request of Action: “buying a new car”)
 Perlocutionary force: the reaction of the hearers: how people
react to sentences (e.g. “Why don’t we buy a new car?” –

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husband gets annoyed/interested/amused: husband ignores/
husband searches for brochures/ husband takes the wife with
him to the car dealer)
 Conversational maxims is any of four rules which were
proposed by Grice (1975) stating that a speaker is assumed to
make a contribution that is adequately but not overly informative
(quantity maxim); the speaker does not believe to be false and
for which adequate evidence is had (quality maxim); is relevant
(maxim of relation or relevance), and is clear, unambiguous,
brief, and orderly (maxim of manner).
 Implicature is something that is meant, implied, or suggested
which is different from what is actually said. (e.g. When Aling
Myrna said that Mang Jun is going to drive them to the Airport,
Aling Aning said “I better check my insurance policy”. Aling
Aning’s utterance shows that Mang Jun is a fast and reckless
driver.)

LESSON XV- THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND ITS INFLUENCES ON


LANGUAGE TEACHING

Theories of Language and its Influences on Language Teaching


Some of the most basic questions in language teaching and learning are: “how
does one learn a language?” and “how should a teacher teach language?”.
These questions may be answered by some of the theories of language, which
took roots from linguistics. The discussions below will present an overview of the
developments of various theories that influenced the practices in modern-day
language teaching.

Theories of Language

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Structuralists see language in terms of its structure. They believe that by


describing the observable and verifiable features of the language, one can learn
it. Hence, as the name implies, structuralists see language as a system and
studying these systems would make it possible to learn language. Some of the
most prevalent thoughts that sprung out of structuralist views are the following:

 Language is a means for communication- Language is an important tool


for communicating. It gives shape to people’ thoughts, as well as guides
and controls their activity.
 Language is primarily vocal- Speech is the primary concern of language,
and the written form is merely a graphic representation of the oral
language. Therefore, it is assumed that speech is a priority in language
teaching.
Language is a system- Language is a system which is structurally
related with other elements or ‘building blocks’ for the encoding of
meaning. These elements are the phonemes (sounds), morphemes
(words), and tag memes (phrases and sentences/clauses).
 Language is arbitrary- There is no inherent relation between the words of
a language and their meaning or ideas conveyed by them. The
relationship between the words and the “things” they denote is merely
dictated by what the natives “want” it to be.

Transformationalists believe that language is innate and universal. They


believe that language rules are universal and every normal being would
eventually find ways to transform input into intelligible language. Some of the
most important tenets of transformationlist view to language are the following:
 Language is a mental phenomenon. It is not mechanical.
 Language is innate. The presence of the Language Acquisition Device
(LAD) in the human brain predisposes all normal children to acquire their
first language in an amazingly short time, around five years since birth.
 Language is universal. All normal children acquire a mother tongue. Also,
all languages must share key features of human languages such as: all
languages have sounds; all languages have rules that form sounds into
words; and all languages have transformational rules that enable speakers
to ask questions, negate, issue orders, defocus the doer of the action, etc.

Functionalists believe that language is vehicle for expressing “functional


meaning” such as expressing one’s emotions, persuading people, asking and
giving information, making people do things for others, etc. This view deviates
from the structural view since it focuses more on the meaning rather than form.
Thus, this leads to a language teaching that prioritizes the teaching of language
notions and functions rather than language rules.

Interactionists believe that language is a vehicle for establishing interpersonal


relations and for performing social transactions between individuals. Interactionist
principles are basically pegged on the socio-cultural theory of Levinsky Vygotsky
and the Experiential learning theory of Jean Piaget and John Dewey.
Interactionists view language as a vital tool in creating and maintaining social
relations through conversations. Some of the most basic premises (Richards &
Rodgers, 2001) that interactionists hold are the following:

A. We are born to talk.


B. Talk is organized in conversations.
C. Conversations have rules/maxims.
D. These maxims are learnt through conversation.
E. 2nd lg. maxims are learnt through participation in cooperatively
structured interactional activities.

Theories of Second Language Acquisition

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1. Behaviorist learning theory. This theory holds that the language


behaviour of an individual is conditioned by the rewards and punishments
provided by his/her environment. It regards language as a “behaviour” which
means that, like other forms of human behaviour, it may be learned through
the a process of habit formation. The three crucial elements of learning in
behaviourism are: a stimulus, which serves to elicit behaviour; a response
triggered by the stimulus, and reinforcement, which serves to mark the
response as being appropriate (or inappropriate) and encourages repetition
(suppression) of the response. Behaviorist perspective in language learning
is usually attributed to B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior.
2. Cognitive learning theory. Chomsky contested Behaviorist assumptions
since individuals are not machines that can be set to learn something. He
argues that language is not acquired by sheer imitation and through a form
of conditioning on reinforcement and reward. He believes that all normal
beings are born to learn a language, through an innate Language
Acquisition Device that allows humans to transform inputs into the
universally accepted language rules.

Major strategies used in the Cognitive approach include:

- Chomsky’s Generative Grammar: “Language is learned


through reinforcement and an active language processor, the
language acquisition device (LAD) which generates rules
through the unconscious acquisition of grammar.”
- Krashen’s Monitor Model: “Krashen considered acquisition (an
unconscious process that occurs when language is used for real
communication) more important that learning (which involves
“knowing about” language and its rules) in achieving fluency,
and deemphasized direct instruction of syntax rules.”
- Information-Processing Theories: “The sensory register
(input/recognition), short-term memory (information encoding),
and long-term memory (storage) work together during learning.”
Perception is the process by which the sensory register receives
and briefly holds environmental stimuli, either as images or
sound patterns, and selects input for further processing.”
- Alternative Theories of Mental Functioning: “As information
is received, the brain creates a pattern across the net, adjusted
over time by repeated exposure.”

3. Krashen’s Monitor Model. Probably the most cited theory of second


language acquisitionis Krashen’s theory which involves five general
hypotheses:

a. The acquisition/learning hypothesis claims that there are two


ways of developing competence in L2:

Acquisition – the subconscious process that results from natural


communication between people where language is a means, not a
focus nor an end in itself. This means that language may be
learned even in the absence of formal teaching.
Learning – the conscious process of knowing about language and
being able to talk about it. This means that explicit teaching should
be done since it involves knowledge of the language rules.
(Grammar and Vocabulary)

b. The natural order hypothesis suggests that there is a


predictable and natural order from which grammatical structures will be
acquired for both children and adults.

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c. The monitor hypothesis claims that learners who have acquired
or learned particular language rules will eventually monitor or check
himself or herself during the process by which he/she uses that
language. The monitor is an editing device that may normally operate
before language performance.
d. The input hypothesis. For an individual to learn a language,
Krashen believes that learners should be exposed to grammatical
features a little beyond their current level (i + 1), those features are
acquired. Too difficult lessons may threaten the learner, while too easy
lessons may bore a learner. This will both result in failure
e. The affective filter hypothesis. Krashen believes that emotions
play a very important role in language learning. The more threatened
or anxious a learner is, the lesser or slower will he/she learns. On the
other hand, the more confident a learner is, the higher and faster is the
possibility for him/her to learn a language.
• Other Universal Theories
1. The Competition Model by Felix (1985):
2. Dulay and Burt’s Creative Construction Theory (1974):
3. Krashen’s Monitor Model
1. The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis (1981)
2. The Natural Order Hypothesis
3. The Monitor Hypothesis: The Input Hypothesis:
4. The Affective Filter Hypothesis

4. Continuum of learning - language is acquired through predictable and


sequential stages of language development.

Stage I: The Silent/Receptive or Preproduction Stage


Stage II: The Early Production Stage
Stage III: The Speech Emergence Stage
Stage IV: The intermediate Language Proficiency Stage
Stage V: The Advanced Language Proficiency
5. Alternative Theories of Mental Functioning:
6. Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner (1983):
7. Emotional Intelligence by Salovey and Mayer (1990) and
popularized Goleman (1998):
8. Suggestopedia by Lozanov (1982): “Pronunciation, vocabulary, and
grammar are assimilated and learned intuitively.”
9. Humanistic Approach
10. Postmodern Techniques of Knowledge
- constructivism, intercultural positioning, metarational thinking,
and creation of meaning

Influences of Theories on Language Teaching

1. Behaviorism led to methods and activities that make students “overlearn”


the lesson. Most activities involve mimicry and memorization. Moreover,
teaching under the behaviourist perspective involves a lot of practice and
drills. These are repeated until students master the lesson. Some of the
most popular “products” of behaviourism are the Audio-Lingual Method
(ALM), Oral Approach/Situational Language Teaching, Operant
Conditioning approach, Bottom-up Text processing, Controlled-to-Free
writing, etc.
2. Cognitivism produced language teaching approaches and Activities that
prioritizes language analysis over language use and instruction by the
teacher. It is compatible with the view that learning is a thinking process, a
belief that underpins cognitive-based and schema-enhancing strategies

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such as Directed Reading Thinking Activity, Story Grammar, Thinking-
Aloud, etc.
3. The Functional view led to the creation of communication-based
methods that provide exercises and classroom activities that focus on the
realistic functions of the language, rather than the previous focus on the
forms of the language. Some of the offshoots of functional view are
Communicative Language Teaching/ Communicative Approach, Notional-
Functional Approach, and Natural Approach. These methods are learner-
centered which means that learners have ample time for interaction,
information sharing, and negotiation of meaning, as opposed to the
previous approaches that are teacher-centered.
4. The view that is both cognitive and affective eventually developed to a
holistic approach to language learning or whole-person learning. These
approaches created humanistic techniques in teaching the language,
which means that aside from the cognitive aspects of the learner, teaching
has involved the emotions of the learners. One of these approaches is
what has come to be known as the Community Language Learning.

LESSON XVI: ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY

Language Teaching Methodology - Definition of some important terms:


Language and Literature teaching goes beyond knowing the content or the “what
to teach”. Hence, teachers should be knowledgeable and skilful in planning and
executing lessons for a language and literature class. The succeeding review
discussions would focus the “how to teach” language and literature. Before going
into the details, here are some important terms to be defined:

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Approach - is a set of assumptions dealing with the nature of language,
learning, and teaching. (Anthony, E.; 1963)
- defines assumptions, beliefs, and theories about the nature of language
and language learning. (Richards, J. and Rodgers, T.; 1982, 1986)
Method – is an overall plan for systematic presentation of language based
upon a selected approach. (Anthony, E.; 1963)
- is an umbrella term for the specification and interrelation of theory and
practice. (Richards, J. and Rodgers, T.; 1982, 1986)
Technique – is a specific activity manifested in the classroom which is
consistent with a method and therefore in harmony with an approach as
well. (Anthony, E.; 1963)
- is the level at which classroom procedures are described. It is a medium
of implementation (e.g., a particular trick, strategy, or contrivance) used to
accomplish an immediate objective.
Design – specifies the relationship of theories to classroom materials and
activities. (Richards, J. and Rodgers, T.; 1982, 1986)
Procedures – are the techniques and practices that are derived from
one’s approach and design. (Richards, J. and Rodgers, T.; 1982, 1986)
Strategies – are specific methods of approaching a problem or task ,
modes of operation for achieving a particular end, planned designs for
controlling and manipulating certain information.

3. TEACHING LISTENING AND SPEAKING

A. The Teaching of Listening


The Goal of Teaching Listening- to improve the language competence of
learners by developing listening skills such as identifying and discriminating
phonemes and other suprasegmentals, maximizing comprehension of aural
input, and identifying relevant and non-relevant information.

The Nature of Listening


 Most used language skill at work and at home
 Takes up as much as 50% of our everyday communication
 Ironically, neglected most of the time (i.e. not included in most language
activities and classes)

Different views of listening in language teaching


1. Listening as a SKILL
Wolvin and Coakely (1992) identified 5 types of purposeful listening
a. Discriminative- listening to distinguish auditory and/or visual stimuli
b. Comprehensive- listening to understand the message presented
orally
c. Therapeutic- listening to provide someone the opportunity to talk
and express his or her problems
d. Critical- listening to find out whether a message is logical or
fallacious
e. Appreciative- listening to achieve entertainment

Listening comprehension skills or enabling skills


a. Listening for detail- listening for specific information
b. Listening for gist- listening to get only the main and most important
ideas
c. Drawing inferences- listening to fill in gaps and draw conclusions
from the message uttered
d. Listening selectively- listening only to specific parts of the input
e. Making predictions- listening to create anticipations before and
while listening
2. Bottom-up Listening
In this process, teaching primarily focuses on sounds that are used to
build up units of information, such as words, phrases, clauses, and

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sentences. It is assumed that by understanding these small units, the
aural input will eventually be understood. Hence, comprehension is built
from “bottom” (sounds) to “up” (understanding)

3. Top-down processing
This process may be referred to as the opposite of bottom up. In top down
processing, the assumption is that learners must learn how to apply their
schema or background knowledge to facilitate comprehension.
It is generally believed now that processing of information is neither top-
down nor bottom-up alone. It is now common knowledge that processing
occurs at the same time in what is known as parallel processing (Eysenck,
1993). In some instances, one type of processing might take precedence
over the other, depending on the amount of practice an individual has had
on a specific task.

4. Listening as an INTEGRATIVE PROCESS


This model is founded on the belief that that “developing listening
competence requires a systematic, developmental approach; opportunities
for listening practice in varied contexts and for different purposes; multiple
opportunities for self-assessment and feedback; and goal-setting.”
(Thompson, et.al., 2004)
The Stages of the Integrative Listening Model:
Stage 1: Prepare to Listen- determining the goal; analyzing the
listening context; and addressing the influence of various listening
filters

Stage 2: Apply the Listening Process Model- this involves five


distinctive components, namely: Receive, Comprehend, Interpret,
Evaluate, and Respond

Stage 3: Assess Effectiveness of Listening Performance- reflecting on


one’s performance to determine the effectiveness and problems;
assessment could be during and after listening

Stage 4: Establish New Goal(s)- upon assessing, learners should


establish new goals to build on strengths and work on concerns

Factors that influence learners’ listening


1. Knowledge of the language system- a learner would find difficulties or
ease when listening if he/she is aware of the linguistic system of the
language being used
2. Background knowledge- a learner would find it easy or difficult to
understand messages depending on how much schema does he/she have
in relation to the message
3. Knowledge of the situation and co-text- a learner would find it easy or
difficult to understand messages if he/she knows the situation and/or
issues involved for creating such messages

Listening can be best understood as a combination of low and high inferences


(Rost, 1990). When they use their knowledge of linguistic features to infer
(decode) the sounds in an utterance, listeners make low-level inferences,
because the focus of listening is merely on the sounds and not on the message.
On the other hand, if a learner listens to understand what a message means,
they engage in higher level inferences. This is done by using their knowledge of
both linguistic and pragmatic nature.

Learners also develop listening skills cognitively through the use of listening
comprehension strategies. These are mental mechanisms used to process and
manage information. The three categories of listening strategies are

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 Cognitive- this strategy involves processing, interpreting, storing, and
recalling information. Some of the sample skills involved here are
inferencing and predicting.
 Metacognitive: this strategy involves managing & facilitating mental
processes and coping up with difficulties during listening. Examples of
such strategies include comprehension monitoring and visualizing.
 Social-affective: this strategy involves asking the help of others to facilitate
comprehension and managing one’s emotions when listening such as
confidence building and cooperation.

Problems that Language Learners Face during Listening


1. Text- learners may encounter difficulties in understanding the message
because of their lack of skills to discern the phonology & speech rate, e.g.
a native speaker of English would naturally speak English at a rate faster
than a learner is usually exposed to; skills to understand discourse
features, e.g. the involvement of some idiomatic expressions or
euphemisms; and the skills to perceive differences among text types, e.g.
the different language items used when giving information as compared to
giving instructions
2. Task- learners may encounter problems when they are presented with
different types of question specially if these questions involve background
knowledge about a particular issue; amount of time, e.g. if the listener is
given enough time to process the message; and whether or not the
listener can get the information repeated, i.e. if the communication is one-
way or two-way.
3. Interlocutor (speaker)- this may be related to the first problem; each
speaker would have different purposes and strategies when speaking, and
these speaking characteristics may involve accent, fluency, gender, and
standard or non-standard usage
4. Listener- the learner himself/herself may be a problem; her language
proficiency, gender, memory, interest, purpose, prior knowledge, &
attention would play a vital role in the full understanding of the message
presented orally.
5. Process- the strategy that the learner usually uses, whether the listener
uses top-down or bottom-up, would also affect the way he would
understand a message

Listening Tasks for Communicative outcomes


Communicative Outcomes Examples
Lists Similarities/ differences/ errors
Sequenced information Picture sequences, lyrics
Matched items Pictures with texts, themes with texts
Restored texts Complete the gaps in a text
Diagrams or pictures Floor plans, sketches of people
Notes Short notes during presentations

One Way Listening Tasks (transactional)


It involves listening and responding through different ways to achieve outcomes.
They do not have to interact with the speaker while listening. It is mainly
concerned with obtaining information and knowledge.

Task Response

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Restoration Include omitted words or phrases
Create original message with words
Reconstruction
heard or noted down
Sorting Sequence, rank, categorize items
Identify inconsistencies and
Evaluation
contradictions
Match information from listening to
Matching
pictures or written texts
Jigsaw Create a whole from different parts

Two-Way Listening Tasks (interactional)


The listener has to interact with the speaker by asking questions offering
information and expressing opinions

Task Response
Creative dictation Dictate to each other to complete a text
Sequence/reproduce/complete pictures
Description
or diagrams
Listen and express opinion in simulated
Simulation
situations
Listen and respond to formal and
Presentation
informal presentations
Stages in a Listening Lesson

Pre-listening stage (activating schema and allowing them to use words which
they will shortly hear in the text)
 “tuning-in” to the topic or given text
 Expressing their views about the text to be listened to
 Predicting content from the title
 Answering a set of questions
 Studying and examining pictures
 Singing a song or chant

While-listening stage-
 Tasks should be enjoyable and meaningful to students;
 should be simple and easy to handle;
 should provide opportunities for students to succeed

Post-listening stage
 “off-shoots” or extension of the work done at the pre-and while
stages
 Students have time to think, reflect, discuss, and to write

B. The Teaching of Speaking

ORAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH


1. Conversational Discourse
Carrying on a conversation

2. Teaching Pronunciation
The role of pronunciation work in a communicative, interactive course of
study

3. Accuracy and fluency


Accuracy – clear, articulate, grammatically and phonologically correct
language

Fluency – flowing and natural language

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The Goal of Teaching Speaking is to produce students who can competently
express themselves and avoiding confusion in the message due to faulty
pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary. Moreover, learners should also learn how
to observe the social and cultural rules that apply in each communication
situation.

The Nature of Speaking


 Two-way process between speaker and hearer
 “encoding” the message a speaker wishes to convey in appropriate
language

Different views of speaking in language teaching


1. Conversational Discourse- “conversation” classes should provide activities
for “transactional” (opening a bank account, ordering food in a restaurant,
offering services, etc.) and “interactional” (open dialogue, social
discussions, etc.) conversation
2. Accuracy & Fluency- Accuracy (ability to use correct, clear, articulate, and
phonologically correct rules of language) and Fluency (natural, smooth,
and flowing) should be both prioritized; however, current approaches to
language teaching lean strongly towards message oriented techniques
(teaching language use) rather than language oriented techniques
(teaching language usage)
3. Affective factors- anxiety generated over risks of blurting out things that
are wrong, stupid, or incomprehensible; teachers and teaching
environment should then be warm and embracing no matter how halting or
broken their attempts may be.
4. Interaction effect- one learner’s performance is always colored by that of
the person (interlocutor) he or she is talking with; thus, teachers should not
create a ‘god-like’ characteristic during interactions with students
5. Teaching Pronunciation- in the advent of communicative language
teaching approaches, issues on whether phonological details of the
language should be taught or not have been debated upon. Since some
learners, specifically adults, will never acquire an accent-free command of
language, some teachers find pronunciation as unimportant

TYPES OF SPOKEN LANGUAGE


Interactional
Transactional

CHARACTERISTICS OF SPOKEN LANGUAGE THAT MAKE SPEAKING


EASY AS WELL AS DIFFICULT
1. Clustering – fluent speech is phrasal, not word by word
2. Redundancy – the opportunity to male meaning clearer through
redundancy of language
3. Reduced forms – contractions, elisions, reduced vowels may create
problem (learn colloquial contractions)
4. Performance variables –the process of thinking as your speak
Thinking time – insert fillers
5. Colloquial language – make user that your students are reasonably well
acquainted with the words, idioms, and phrases of colloquial language
6. Rate of delivery – speed
Our task as teachers is to develop in a student the acceptable speed
along with other attributes of fluency
7. Stress, rhythm, and intonation
This is the most important characteristics of pronunciation. The stress
timed rhythm of spoken English and its intonation patterns convey
important messages
8. Interaction

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Learning to produce waves of language in a vacuum, without interlocutors
– would rob speaking skills of its richest component; the creativity of
conversational negotiation.

PRINCIPLES FOR DESIGNING SPEAKING TECHNIQUES


 Use techniques that cover the spectrum of learners needs, from language
– based focus on accuracy to message –based focus on interaction,
meaning, and fluency
 Provide intrinsically motivating techniques – try at all times to appeal to
students’ ultimate goals and interests, to their need for knowledge, for
status, for achieving competence and autonomy, and for “being a;; that
they can be”
 Encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts
Remember – it is not easy to keep come up with meaningful
interaction
 Provide appropriate feedback and correction – it is important that you take
advantage of your knowledge of English to inject the kinds of corrective
feedback that are appropriate for the moment.
 Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening
Don’t lose out on opportunities to integrate these two skills. Skills in
producing language are often initiated through comprehension and
that these two skills can reinforce each other.
 Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication
Part of oral communication competence is the ability to initiate
conversations, to nominate topics, to ask questions, to control
conversations and to change the subject
 Encourage the development of speaking strategies
Strategies such as:
- Asking for clarification (what)
- Asking someone to repeat something (huh, excuse me?)
- Using fillers (uh, I mean, well) in order to gain time to process
- Using conversational maintenance cues (uh huh, right, yeah,
okay, hmmm)
- Getting someone’s attention (hey, say, so)
- Using paraphrases for structures one can’t produce.
- Appealing for assistance from the interlocutor (to get a word or
phrase, for example)
- Using formulaic expressions at the survival stage) How much
does___cost? How do you get to the ____?
- sing mime and nonverbal; expressions to convey meaning.

TEACHING CONVERSATION
1. Conversation – indirect (strategy conscious –raising)
2. Conversation – direct (gambits)
3. Conversation – transactional (ordering from a catalog)
4. Meaningful oral; grammar practice (modal auxiliary would)
5. Individual practice ; oral dialog journals

Other interactive techniques


 Interviews
 Guessing games
 Jigsaw tasks
 Ranking exercises
 Discussions
 values clarification
 Problem solving activities
 Role –play
 Simulations

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TEACHING PRONUNCIATION
Rather than attempting to build a learners articulatory competence from the
bottom –up, and simply as the mastery of a list of phonemes and allophones,
atop down approach is taken in which the most relevant features of pronunciation
– stress, rhythm, and intonation – are given high ;priority.

Instead of teaching only the role of articulation within words, or at best, phrases,
we teach its role in a whole stream of discourse.

FACTORS AFFECTING LEARNERS PRONUNCIATION


1. Native language – the most influential factor affecting a learner’s
pronunciation
2. Age – children under the age of puberty stand an excellent chance of
sounding like a native is they have continued exposure in authentic
contexts
Beyond the age of puberty, there is no particular advantage attributed to
age
The younger the better is a myth
3. Exposure – quality and intensity of exposure are more important than
mere length of time
4. Innate phonetic ability – “ear” for language
If a person as had early exposure to language – he would have a knack
on the language whether he remembers the language or not
SBI (strat based In)s – has proven that some elements of learning are a
matter of fact are an awareness of your own limitations combined with a
conscious focus on doing something to compensate for those limitations
5. Identity and language ego- one’s attitude toward speakers of the target
language and the extent to which the language ego identifies with those
speakers
Positive attitudes

6. Motivation and concerns for good pronunciation


The intrinsic motivation is the strongest factor that would affect the
learners

Problems that Language Learners Face during Speaking


1. Clustering- some learners don’t know when to pause; they should be
trained that speaking have thought units or “breath groups”
2. Reduced forms- some learners do not know how to make contractions,
reduced vowels, shortened statements, etc.
3. Performance variables- some learners find it difficult to avoid using “fillers”
such as uhm, ahh, well, you know, I mean, like, etc. especially during
formal speech presentations
4. Colloquial language- some learners find it difficult to look and use correct
words, idioms, and phrases that are appropriate for a particular speech act
5. Rate of delivery- some learners are either too slow or too fast; they should
be trained on how to deliver at an “acceptable speed”
6. Stress, Rhythm, and Intonation- learners find it difficult to follow the
prosodic rules of a target language, usually because of mismatches or
differences between the native language and the target language (e.g.
Filipino is syllable-timed while English is stress-timed)
7. Interaction- if learners would not have any avenue to interact, then
learning how to speak would be difficult, if not impossible

Factors that influence learners’ speaking

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1. Native Language- mother Language affects the learning of the target
language
2. Age- learners within the critical period (i.e. between age 5 and puberty)
3. Exposure- quality and intensity of exposure is better than duration/length
of time
4. Innate phonetic ability- some people manifest ‘better’ phonetic coding
ability than others
5. Identity and Language Ego- attitude towards speakers of the target
language
Language ego – you are what you speak

Wrong notion on Mark Twain’s

“It’s better to keep your mouth closed and have others think you are
ignorant than to open it and remove all doubt.”

Teachers must encourage students to speak no matter how broken and


halting their attempts may be

6. Motivation and concern for good pronunciation- high motivation leads to


extended effort to improve and learn

Affective factors
Obstacles to learners – causing anxiety – the anxiety generated over the
risks of blurting things out wrong, stupid, or incomprehensible

Speaking Tasks for Communicative outcomes

Type of Performance Task/ Response


 Student simply parrots back (imitate) a word or
Imitative Speaking phrase or sentence
 Task: word repetition; pronunciation drills
 One step beyond imitative speaking to include any
speaking performance that is designed to practice
some phonological and grammatical aspect of
Intensive speaking language
 Tasks: directed response; read-aloud;
sentence/dialogue completion tasks; oral
questionnaires; picture-cues tasks
 Short replies to teacher or student initiated
questions or comments (a good deal of student
speech in the classroom is responsive); replies do
Responsive speaking not extend into dialogues; such speech can be
meaningful and authentic
 Tasks: question and answer; eliciting instructions
and directions; paraphrasing a story or a dialogue
 Transactional- carried out for the purpose of
conveying or exchanging specific information;
involves relatively long stretches of interactive
discourse
Interactive Speaking
 Interpersonal- carried out for the purpose of
 Transactional
maintaining social relationships
 Interpersonal
 Tasks: interviews; role play; discussions (problem-
solving); games; conversations; information gap
activity; telling longer stories; extended
explanations
Extensive Speaking  Usually for intermediate to advanced levels; tasks
(monologue) involve complex, relatively, lengthy stretches of
discourse; extended monologues can be planned

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or impromptu
 Tasks: oral reports; summaries; short speeches;
picture-cued storytelling; retelling a story or a news
event

Stages in a Speaking Lesson

Presentation stage (a.k.a. “pre-activity stage”)


 Teacher’s task is to serve as informant
 Students listen and try to understand
 Activities should be minimal so as to allow students to participate and
perform later

Practice stage
 Students do most of the talking
 Teacher is facilitator and monitor
Production stage
 Stage where students use the language for themselves
 Free use of language (free expression is more important than mistakes)
 Opportunities to use language as they wish make students become more
aware the they have learned something; thus, they become encouraged to
go on

4. TEACHING READING AND WRITING

A. The Teaching of Reading


What is Reading?
Various authorities in the field of Reading Instruction have varying definitions of
reading, some of them are as follows:
 “Reading is the act of constructing meaning while transacting with text.” –
Martha R. Ruddell
* The reader makes meaning through the combination of prior knowledge
and previous experience.
 “…both the mind of the reader and the language on the page are what
enable people to read and understand.” (Wood, 2000)
 “Reading is thinking. It’s more than moving one’s eyes across the lines of
print, more than recognizing words.” (Mc Whorter, 2001)
 “Reading is not merely the transfer of information from an author to a
reader.” (Mc Cormick & Waller, 1987)

What are the Reading Processes?


A. Bottom-up Reading- assumes that reading begins with print (letters 
words  phrases  sentences  meaning). However, problems arise
because in some instances, knowing the linguistic features of a text would
not necessarily bring a reader to its meaning. Consider this passage from
Lewis Caroll’s Through the Looking-Glass:

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves


Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Does it make sense? No, it does not, but a linguistic analysis can tell you
that for example, “slithy” is an adjective, and “gyre” and “gimble” are verbs.

B. Top-down Reading- assumes that reading begins with knowledge and


hypotheses in the mind of the reader. Similarly, this presents some
situational problems, because readers would have different schema

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because of different experiences. Hence, conclusions might mislead a
learner. For example, at first glance, a reader might fill the blanks below
with “ship or boat” and “sea or ocean”

THE _________WENT SAILING ACROSS THE _____________.

However, if you would further read it, the blanks may have the following
words to fill them.
JERRY SWUNG THE RACKET, AND THE BALL WENT SAILING
ACROSS THE NET.

C. Interactive reading- is an interactive reading model is a reading model


that recognizes the interaction of bottom-up and top-down processes
simultaneously throughout the reading process. A popular Chinese
proverb may summarize the idea espoused by interactive reading.

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may remember. But involve me
and I’ll understand.” –Chinese proverb

The Goals of Teaching Reading- similar with listening and speaking, teaching
reading of course entails certain goals. The following are just some of them.

1. Schema Activation- For learners to understand a “new” text, he/she should


be able to connect this to previous knowledge or schemata. Hence, to
teach reading successfully, a reading lesson should provide opportunities
for learners to make necessary connections with what they know and what
the text offers. Some of the many strategies for schema activation are:
Brainstorming, Previewing, and Showing Graphic Organizers or Visual
Aids.
2. Vocabulary Development- Logically speaking, the more words learners
know, the easier it is for them to connect with the text and understand it.
Although learners must be encouraged to continue reading even in the
presence of new words, a reading lesson should inevitably develop
vocabulary strategies or what some writers call “word-attack skills”. Some
of the words should be taken into consideration are:
a. High frequency words or words that are usually encountered, or
repeated in the text
b. Academic Words or words that are used with the content area
c. Technical words or words that may have a different meaning in a
certain discipline
d. Literary words or those words which are commonly used in
literature
3. Comprehension Development- Reading is the process of constructing
meaning from print. Hence, it is the ultimate objective of reading
instruction to help learners understand a text, and develop strategies in
understanding a text.
4. Understanding Text Organization- Understanding the content goes hand
in hand with understanding how it is organized. Hence, students need to
learn how to relate the following to the text:
a. Text type (narrative or expository)
b. Genre
c. Hierarchy of ideas in exposition
d. Significant Details in narrative and expository texts
e. Use of graphic organizers
5. Application- Reading instruction should also develop the learners’ ability to
relate their learning to real-life situations. Reading instruction can end by:
a. Valuing
b. Appreciating
c. Relating lessons to own life
d. Linking lesson to explain real-life contexts

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e. Responding creatively using multiple intelligences

Phases in a Reading Lesson- There would be different ways in presenting a


reading lesson. However, generally speaking, the following are the parts and
contents of a Reading Lesson:
a. Pre-Reading- This part of the lesson opens the lessons by previewing the
new reading lesson. During the pre-reading, teachers may pose a
stimulating question, picture, video clip, title, etc. to capture the interest of
the learners and prepare them to the main activity or lesson.
b. While Reading- This is where the main activity or lesson or text is
presented. While the “While Reading” presents the text to be read, the
instruction should not be plainly reading.
c. Post-Reading- This is the phase which may aptly be called “closure”.
Here, the learners’ understanding of the text may be evaluated or linked to
other language activities and lessons through the creation of certain
outputs or presentations.

Principles for Designing Effective and Interesting Reading Lessons (Farell,


T.S.C., 2002)
1. Reading materials should be interesting for the target learners.
2. Reading instruction should prioritize students reading the text.
3. Activities and exercises in a reading lesson should reflect the purposeful,
task-based, and interactive nature of real reading (predicting,
hypothesizing, and revising ideas about what was read).
4. Activities and exercises in a reading instruction should allow learners to
bring their knowledge and experiences to the text being read.
5. Reading lessons should focus on teaching and not on testing.
6. There should be a variety of reading activities in each lesson to maintain
the interest and motivation of learners.
7. Reading lessons should be divided into pre-reading, during or while
reading, and post reading phases.

Some strategies in Teaching Reading

A. Vocabulary Development
1. Structural Analysis- is largely focused on the unfamiliar word itself. In this
strategy, the meaning of a word is derived by looking at the root word.
“Structural analysis includes attention to root words, affixes and
inflections. It may also include attention to plural forms, tenses,
comparisons, contractions, and compound words” (Arias & Acuña, 2002).
Hence, learners should be exposed to the different meanings of the affixes
in order to use structural analysis. The table below shows some of the
most commonly used affixes.

Prefix Meaning Examples


a- also an- not, without atheist, anemic
a- to, towards aside, aback
ab- also abs- away, from abdicate, abstract
ad- also a-, movement to, advance, adulterate,
ac-, af-, change into, adjunct, ascend,
ag- al-, addition or affiliate, affirm,
an-, ap-, increase aggravate, alleviate,
at- as-, at- annotate, apprehend,
arrive, assemble, attend
Suffix Meaning Examples
-able capable, can do usable, notable,
comfortable
-ad group triad, monad
-arch ruler, leader monarch, tetrarch

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2. Contextual Analysis- is the strategy that we use in attempting to obtain the
meaning of an unfamiliar word by examining the context in which it
appears. This strategy encourages you to look for “contextual clues,” i.e.,
related information that would provide the meaning of the unfamiliar word.
Simply put, contextual analysis involves your analysis of other words that
surround the unknown word. Some of the most common context clues are
the following:
a. Synonyms- e.g. The newcomer looks dubious, his credentials are
questionable.
b. Antonyms- e.g. Doña Mariana’s boisterous laughter distracted the
calm classroom.
c. Examples- e.g. It’s amazing how Joe maintains his citrus fruit trees;
you can see oranges, ponkans, mandarins, and even lemons in his
backyard.
d. Comparison and Contrast- The tuk-tuk of Thailand, like that of our
tricycles, amazes most tourists.

B. Comprehension Development
1. Anticipation Guide- consists of a list of statements that are related to the
topic of the text your students will be reading. While some of the
statements may be clearly true or false, a good anticipation guide includes
statements that provoke disagreement and challenge students’ beliefs
about the topic. Before reading the text, students indicate for each
statement whether they agree or disagree with it.
2. ReQuest- is designed to encourage students to: a) formulate their own
questions about the material they are reading and develop questioning
behavior; b) adopt an active, inquiring attitude to reading; c) acquire
reasonable purposes for reading; and, d) improve their independent
reading comprehension skills. (Readence, nd)
3. K-W-L (Know-Want to know-Learned)- K-W-L is the creation of Donna
Ogle and is a 3-column chart that helps capture the Before, During, and
After components of reading a text selection. In this strategy, learners are
encouraged to fill-out column K with what they already know about the
topic. Then, they will fill out column W with what they want to learn or
know about the topic. After reading the selection, they will be filling out
column L to list down what they have learned from reading the text. In this
strategy, learners monitor their own learning.
4. Mapping- provides a visual guide for students to clarify textual information
such as characters, problems, settings, reactions, and outcomes.
5. PLAN- a graphic organizer in which students create a map to visually
organize and better understand the information. It includes: P-rediction of
the content; L-ocating the known and unknown information; A-dding words
or phrases to the unknown as students locate information; and N-oting
new understanding or information about the text.

B. The Teaching of Writing

The Goal of Teaching Speaking is to produce students who can competently


express themselves and avoiding confusion in the message due to faulty
pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary. Moreover, learners should also learn how
to observe the social and cultural rules that apply in each communication
situation.

The Nature of Speaking (Brown, 1994)


 Permanence- unlike oral language, written language is permanent and
can be read and reread as often as one likes
 Production time- writers have more time to plan, review and revise,
unlike speakers who need to plan, formulate, and deliver in a very short
span of time

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 Distance- the writer and the reader are usually away from each other in
both time and space,
 Orthography- written texts have limited amount of information, unlike oral
speech (e.g. intonation, stress, pitch, volume, junctures, etc.)
 Complexity- written language is usually composed of longer clauses and
subordinators, while spoken language is usually short
 Formality- writing is more formal and more binding than spoken language

What writers (learners) need to know (Tribble, 1996)


1. Content knowledge- knowledge of concepts in the subject area
2. Context knowledge- knowledge of the context in which the text will be read
3. Language system knowledge- knowledge of those aspects of the language
system necessary for the completion of the task
4. Writing Process Knowledge- knowledge of the most appropriate way of
preparing for a specific writing task.

Writing Theories
Writing as a social and cultural phenomenon- writing is not merely a product
of an individual but of society and culture. Writing takes place within a context,
with a particular purpose and an intended audience.

Writing as a cognitive activity- writing is viewed by some authorities (Hayes &


Flower, 1980; Hayes, 1996) as a cognitive process which consists of two
main parts: the task environment and the individual. Individual aspects of
writing involve interactions among the working memory, motivation and affect,
cognitive processes, and long-term memory.

Approaches in Teaching Writing


1. Controlled-to-Free Approach- This aims to reinforce grammar patterns,
use correct syntax, and reinforce punctuation, orthography, etc. At first,
writing activities are controlled, and usually, learners start with sentence level.
Emphasis is on accuracy so learners do not have room for mistakes.
2. Free Writing Approach- Unlike the first approach, free writing is not that
concerned about accuracy. The focus is on the quantity of writing rather than
quality, so students have more time to write subjects that are of interest to
them.
3. Paragraph-Pattern Approach- This approach focuses on the analysis of
the different paragraph patterns, and later on the imitation of these patterns to
form paragraphs. This is based on the principle that in different cultures,
people construct and organize their communication with each other in
different ways.
4. Process Approach- In this approach, the emphasis is on the writing
process. Learners are engaged in different activities that concern how writers
craft their outputs. Hence, learners do different activities prior to writing. This
will help them understand the writing process.
5. Product Approach- Unlike Process, Product approach is more concerned
with the end result of the learning process. This approach views writing as a
linear process. Hence, learners must develop language mastery first before
creating a written product.

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REFERENCES

Books:

Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999). The grammar book: An


ESL/EFL teacher's course (2nd ed.). Stamford, CT: Heinle & Heinle.

Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. K. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English
language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, R., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive
grammar of the English language. London: Longman.

Internet:

https://ltl.lincoln.ac.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/01/Sentence-
structure.pdf

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/lsu/content/4_WritingSkills/06sentences.htm

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