UNIT 1 : Grammatical categories or 'Parts of speech'

- Normally, to form a plural in English we just add -s or -es (plates, tongues, girls,
watches). To form past tenses we add -d or -ed to the end of a verb (smiled, helped,
dressed, watched, etc.).
- When children make the sort of mistakes shown above, it is because they have worked
out these rules (though they are not thinking about them consciously), but they have not
yet learned that there are also many irregularities in their language.

Noam Chomsky to propose, in the early 1960s, that humans have an innate language-
learning ability.
- Known as Language Acquisition Device (LAD). The theory is widely accepted and those
who study second language acquisition (the way people learn a second or foreign
language) have tried to establish whether the LAD operates when we are learning a
second language.*

- 2) suggests that the LAD operates in the same way for second languages. Some people
argue that the LAD stops working or does not work as well after children have reached
puberty. Others believe strongly that the LAD can operate just as effectively in adults as
in children, provided the learning conditions are right. 

Opponents of this view e.g. Stephen Krashen) even argue that conscious learning of the grammar
rules will interfere with the natural process of language learning.

There is evidence that some kind of natural learning process is going on even in adult learners:

1. People learning an L2 make very similar mistakes to children learning the same language
as an L1.
2. There is a predictable order in which L2 learners 'get things right', regardless of the order
in which they are taught the grammar rules.
3. By the time someone has become fairly proficient in an L2 (upper-intermediate to
advanced level), they know far more vocabulary and grammar than they have been
taught. An average non-native English-speaking student coming to study at an English
language-speaking university will know between 6,000 and 10,000 word families – it is
clear that no teacher could have taught them each of these items one by one. This
suggests that much of the language a learner knows has simply been acquired through
exposure to the language, rather than from being formally taught.

Why do we teach grammar if we can aquire it from merely listening to the language
- Most adults seem to approach learning in a more analytical way than children. They want
to analyse the language they are learning. If, for example, plurals in their L1 are formed
in a totally different way from in the L2, they are likely to want to express the rule for L2
explicitly: 'In English you form plurals by adding -s or -es to the end of the noun.'
 - Because grammar teaching has 'always' been part of foreign language syllabi, it is
difficult to get away from it. The national curriculum in many countries will state that
foreign language teaching should include the teaching of grammar.

Parts of speech (grammatical categories)

- Word classes (noun, adjective, adverb)

Why do we learn about this

- Materials refer to individual word classes and contexts
- Understanding the individual word classes will help you understand and teach
students to phrase sentences correctly
- Understanding differences and rules wil help you to explain these rules to your
students

8 main parts of speech

Prepositions
- a word or a group of words used before a noun to indicate place, location, direction,
time, special relationships, or object
- In, at, on, to
- TELL US POSITION

Vebs
- Actions
- Can be states ‘ I love music’ , ‘she is Japanese’ – verbs are more ongoing situations
- Frame the action or state of your sentence

Adjectives
- Describe nouns
- Adds something to a noun (ADNOUNS)

Adverbs
- Usually end in ly
- Badly , slowly
- ADVERBS DESCRIBES VERBS
- Adds something to a verb

Determiners
- Small words which become before nouns
- - a, the, this, my her
- Special adjectives – narrow down which noun we are talking about

Conjunctions
- Connecting words
- And, but, so, because
- Connect words or parts of a sentence
Noun
- Objects
- People
- Places
- Not always things you can see or touch – speed or enthusiasim
- Nouns are the naming word class

Pronoun
- Word that replaces a noun in a sentence as a substitute
- She, it, him

Parts of speech:

 Verbs
 Nouns
 Adjectives
 Adverbs
 Pronouns
 Prepositions
 Conjunctions
 Determiners

What parts of speech do you know?

noun

woman

pronoun 

me

adjective

studious

verb

look 

adverb
 slowly

conjunction

and

preposition

in

 determiner

your

Nouns
English nouns can be singular or plural. A lot of languages don’t have this distinction, and you’ll
often hear students leave off a plural ending, for example, ‘two friend’ rather than ‘two friends’.

Also, not all English nouns just add -s in the plural. Some follow certain spelling rules (baby ⇾
babies), while others are completely irregular (man ⇾ men, mouse ⇾ mice

- However, a lot of the most common nouns have irregular plurals (man, woman, child,
fish, sheep), so you’ll need to deal with them early on.

English nouns can also be countable or uncountable. A countable noun is, predictably, one you
can count, and the root word has a plural form: one desk, two desks. By contrast, some nouns
can’t be counted, and don’t have a plural form. Uncountable nouns include liquids (milk, petrol),
grains (rice, sand) and some abstract ideas (information, advice).

The following words are all nouns:

child, London, dream, swan, wolf, belief, desk, furniture, dress, knowledge, rice,
information, peace, water, despair.

We have already seen that plurals are usually formed in English by adding -s or -es,
e.g. cat → cats, watch → watches. Nouns which follow this pattern are regular
plurals.

Some nouns do not have a plural form, e.g. we can't say 'advices'. In the box below,
list which of the nouns above take the plural form and, of those, which are irregular
plurals (i.e. they do not follow the normal rule).
Naming of parts 1: Nouns

London has a capital L because it is a proper noun.

Proper nouns are the names of places, nationalities, languages, people and times (e.g. Spain,
Baghdad, Iranians, Jack, Yasmine, Friday, January).

nouns can be broadly put into two groups:

- proper nouns, as we have seen above, and common nouns for everything else
- common nouns can also be divided according to whether they are ‘concrete nouns’ or
‘abstract nouns’.
- concrete nouns are generally things we can see and touch: table, cup, chocolate, person.
- Abstract nouns are generally thoughts, feelings and emotions: advice, truth, happiness.

Nouns can be further divided according to whether they are countable or not. If we can say how
many of something there is (one apple, two people, eight cars) then they are countable.
- Proper nouns tend to be countable, even if they are not normally used in this way: ‘How
many Wednesdays are there in January?’ Things that we don’t usually count, or can’t
count are ‘uncountable’ nouns: hair, sand, salt, petrol.

Naming of parts 1: Adjectives

If more than one adjective is used, the usual order for adjectives in English is as follows:

1. Quantity or number  (e.g. five, some)

2. Opinion/quality  (e.g. fine, beautiful, awful)

3. Size (e.g. big, small)

4. Age (e.g. young, middle-aged)

5. Shape (e.g. round, triangular)

6. Colour (e.g. black, blue)

7. Origin (e.g. British, Yorkshire)

8. Material (e.g. silk, plastic)

9. Purpose (e.g. sewing, knitting)

Now try this activity on adjective order.

Adjectives - comparative and superlative forms

You’ll also find yourself teaching how to talk about similarities and differences
using comparative and superlative adjectives.

A comparative adjective compares one thing with one other thing:

London’s warmer  than Manchester.

A superlative adjective compares one thing with everything else: London’s the biggest city in the
UK.

The main issue for students is form: one-syllable adjectives just add -er and -
est (warmer, the biggest), while longer adjectives need more and the most, for example, Leeds
is more beautiful  than York.

Adjectives can be used to make comparative forms (comparisons):

 Ahmed is taller than Pedro.

 Your cat is fatter than my cat.
 This car is faster than that one.
 He had never felt more bored.
 That house is uglier than all the others in the street.
 This valley is even more beautiful than the last one.
And superlatives:

 This is the fastest car in the world.

 It was the biggest cake he had ever seen.
 She wore her prettiest dress.
 Manuela's the most intelligent person I know.

RULES FOR COMPARATIVES AND SUPERLATIVES

One-syllable Adjectives
To form the comparative, we add -er to the end of the adjective.

To form the superlative, we add -est to the end of the adjective.

Adjective Comparative Superlative

small smaller the smallest

cold colder the coldest
light lighter the lightest
wide * wider the widest
hot ** hotter the hottest

* When an adjective ends in the letter E, we just add the -R (for comparatives) or -ST (for
superlatives). We do not write two Es together. Wider (correct) not wideer (incorrect).

** When an adjective ends in a consonant + short vowel + consonant (C + V + C), we normally

double the last letter. big - bigger - biggest, wet - wetter - wettest

 London is bigger than Santiago.

 Mike is taller than John but James is the tallest.
 Notice how comparatives are often followed by than when comparing two things or
people.

Two-syllable Adjectives ending in -Y

To form the comparative, we remove the -y and add -ier to the end of the adjective.

To form the superlative, we remove the -y and add -iest to the end of the adjective.

Adjective Comparative Superlative

crazy crazier the craziest

 happy happier the happiest
early earlier the earliest

 It was the happiest day of my life.

 My joke was funnier than your one.
 This section is easier than the rest.

Adjectives with Two or more Syllables

For Adjectives with 2 syllables (that don't end in -y) and higher (3, 4 syllables etc), we
use more for comparatives and the most for superlatives.

Adjective Comparative Superlative

handsome more handsome the most handsome

nervous more nervous the most nervous
enthusiasti
more enthusiastic the most enthusiastic
c

 My girlfriend is more beautiful than yours.

 Alex is more intelligent than you but I am the most intelligent.
 It was the most wonderful day I have ever had.

Irregular Forms
Adjective Comparative Superlative

good better the best

bad worse the worst
further /
far *** the furthest / farthest
farther
little less the least
many/much more the most
old **** older/elder the oldest / eldest
  I am a better tennis player than you but Marcelo is the best.
 Steve is a worse liar than me but Adrian is the worst.

*** Farther - Further

Adverbs
An adverb is a word or phrase that modifies the meaning of another part of the sentence. Adverbs
can modify adjectives (very red), verbs (he talks slowly), or other adverbs (incredibly slowly).

Adverbs express:

manner (fast),

place (here),

time (tomorrow),

or degree (slightly).  

Sentence adverbs are used to modify whole sentences, usually giving a comment on the whole
sentence:

Unfortunately, I won't be able to come.

In my opinion, he is not fit to be president.

A subcategory of time adverbs is frequency adverbs, which tell us how often something happens
(e.g. sometimes, never, always etc.)

Adjective before a noun Adjective afte

old man Maria feels awful.
 Adjective before a noun Adjective afte
little boy Your house looks lovely.

horrible lesson The children seem tired.

awkward adolescents This newspaper article is ridiculous.
difficult problem The weather was amazing.
Naming of parts 2: Adverbs

What words could you put in before the adjectives to give further information about the
adjective? Perhaps the following:

 an incredibly old man
 Maria feels absolutely awful

N.B. it is possible to just add additional adjectives: 'a crazy, little, old man', but these additional
adjectives give us further information about the noun, not the adjective: the man is crazy and
little and old.

ADVERBS

1. really

2. very

3. incredibly

4. unbelievably

5. amazingly

6. surprisingly

7. astonishingly

8. rather

9. quite

10. somewhat

11. absolutely

12. totally

13. completely
14. utterly

15. perfectly

16. slightly

What do you notice about the adverbs

Single-word adverbs that modify adjectives, verbs or other adverbs nearly always end in -ly,
which makes them easy to recognise. They are formed by adding the suffix -ly  to an adjective,
e.g. amazing - amazingly, perfect – perfectly.*

However some do not fit this pattern. For example:

 very
 rather
 quite
 somewhat

ADVERBS OF MANNER

Adverbs that describe verbs are called 'adverbs of manner'.

They tell us how something is done.

For example, Elaine dances beautifully.

Examples

John works... hard/well/badly/obsessively/slowly/late

The children laughed... loudly/rudely/hysterically/quietly/uproariously/politely

Mariam drives... dangerously/well/slowly/quickly/fast/badly/crazily

Mohammad speaks... slowly/fluently/well/quickly/fast/inaccurately/quietly/loudly/hesitantly/

nervously

The dog barked... loudly/incessantly/fiercely

The birds sang... loudly/quietly/beautifully/wonderfully/annoyingly

How many other adverbs can you think of that could be placed in those positions?

Close
IRREGULAR ADVERBS

- hard, well, late and fast.

Notice that we could further modify the adverbs in the above examples by placing another adverb
in front of them, for example:

 John works really hard.
 The children laughed rather rudely.
 Mohammad speaks quite hesitantly.
 The birds sang absolutely beautifully.

Pronouns 1

Pronoun means 'for a noun'. These are little words that stand in place of a noun. They are useful
because it sounds strange to keep repeating the same noun. We would not say:

'Tokyo is the capital of Japan. Tokyo is enormous. In fact, Tokyo has a larger population than any
other city in the world.'

Rather, we would say: 'Tokyo is the capital of Japan. It is enormous. In fact, it has a larger
population than any other city in the world’

It is a pronoun. The reader or listener understands that it refers to Tokyo.

PRONOUNS CAN BE
SINGLULAR AND PLURAL
FIRST , SECOND , THIRD PERSON

After subject pronouns, we move naturally to possessive pronouns which we use when we wish
to avoid repeating ourselves. Possessive pronouns can replace a full noun phrase.  

For example:

Is that Phillip’s book?

     No, it's mine. (NOT: No, it's [my book].)

Whose handbag is this?

     Is it yours? (NOT: Is it [your handbag]?)

Their team uniform is black.

    Ours is red. (NOT: [Our team uniform] is red.)

What are the differences between I and me, we and us?

From the examples, you can see that if the pronoun comes at the beginning of the sentence,
before the verb, then we use I or we. If it comes after the verb, then we use me or us.*

*There are occasional exceptions to this. If you want to qualify the subject, you might say, for
example, All of us, Some of them, Both of us, Part of me, etc. These phrases could go before or
after the verb.

Subject, object and possessive pronouns

 The person/people or thing/things that perform(s) an action is the subject of the sentence.
 The person/people or thing/things that an action happens to is the object of the sentence.

With object pronouns we could also rewrite the sentence as 'Harry is kicking it'. In this case 'it' is
the object pronoun

We also have possessive pronouns, which are pronouns that indicate who something belongs to:
my cat = mine, your cat = yours etc.

Be careful not to confuse possessive pronouns with possessive adjectives, which we will look at
in the section on determiners. Possessive pronouns can act as subject: 'His is enormous' or object:
'I don't like hers'.
Prepositions
Think of some likely answers to the question 'Where are my glasses?' (apart from 'You haven't
lost them again, have you?').

Assuming we were being helpful and knew where the glasses were, we would reply something
like:

 'They're in the bathroom'.

 'They're on the table'.
 'Are they under the newspaper?'

They tell us about location or position. Note that the name of this category includes the
word position.

So prepositions are the group of (usually) short words that can indicate where someone or
something is.

These words are not only used for describing location as above, they can also be used to indicate
the time something happens. For example, ‘My birthday’s in August’ or ‘I’m meeting
him on Friday.’

Other examples include phrases such as:

 to be/fall in love with someone (with is also a preposition)

 to be in trouble
 to be interested in
 to invest in something

 Prepositions are small words that indicate some kind of relationship between different
things referred to in a sentence. If there is a word following a preposition, it is always a
noun.

The 25 most commonly used English prepositions

1. of
2. in
3. to
4. for
5. with
6. on
7. at
8. from
9. by
 10. about
11. as
12. into
13. like
14. through
15. after
16. over
17. between
18. out
19. against
20. during
21. without
22. before
23. under
24. around

What problems do you think prepositions might cause learners of English?

The difficulty is that there are so many and it is not always particularly obvious which one we
will use in combination with other words. Often the prepositions used are also different to the
ones used in the student’s native language.

When teaching new vocabulary, you can help your students by pointing out which prepositions
go with new vocabulary items. To take the first group of examples above, you should not just
teach interested, bored, worried, rely, cope, etc.; you should also teach the preposition that
follows them.

As we just explored, some of the words in the set called prepositions can also be used in another
way. This is in combination with a verb. For example, turn the lights on, the plane took off, we
got up early.

These two-word combinations are called phrasal verbs. In phrasal verbs, the preposition-
like word modifies the verb. In those contexts, it is, therefore, a kind of adverb, called a
particle, not a preposition.

A true preposition is always followed by a noun.

The following are phrasal verbs, so the second word is not classified as a preposition:

 step over
 find out
 run out
 dress up
 start someone off
 take (someone/something) out
Conjunctions
A  conjunction is a word used to connect clauses or sentences or to coordinate words in the same
clause. Conjunctions are also referred to as linking words or connectives, though these categories
are broader than conjunctions (some connectives are not conjunctions). These names help explain
the function of these parts of speech. They either link words in a clause:

 Jason and Debbie came to my house.

 Do you want coffee or tea?

Or they link clauses within a sentence:

 We decided not to go for a walk because it was raining.

 I would probably give up teaching if I won the lottery.

In some cases, conjunctions link ideas across two sentences:

We really haven't got much money this year. Even so, we're going to take a short holiday
this summer.

the three most basic conjunctions: and, or and but.

Rewrite replacing the conjunctions

1. I got up and I washed my face.

2. Elsie came at 3 o'clock and Violet came at 3 o'clock.
3. I woke up late and I missed the bus.
4. Hand your assignment in on time or you will fail it.
5. I like reading books, but my sister prefers listening to music.

Number 1 could be rewritten as:

I got up, then I washed my face.

After I got up, I washed my face.
I washed my face after I (had) got up.

Number 2 could be rewritten as:

Elsie came at 3 o'clock (and) so did Violet.

Elsie came at 3 o'clock and Violet did as well.
Elsie came at 3 o'clock. Violet also came at 3 o'clock.

Number 3 could be rewritten as:

I woke up late, so I missed the bus.
I missed the bus because I woke up late.
Because of waking up late, I missed the bus.
I woke up late, then I missed the bus.

Number 4 could be rewritten as:

If you don't hand your assignment in on time, you will fail it.
You will fail your assignment if you don't hand it in on time.
Unless you hand your assignment in on time, you will fail it.
You will fail your assignment unless you hand it in on time.

Number 5 could be rewritten as:

I like reading books. However, my sister prefers listening to music.

I like reading books; my sister prefers listening to music, however.
I like reading books; on the other hand, my sister prefers listening to music.
I like reading books, whereas my sister prefers listening to music.

Addition: also, so, as well, in addition

Result/Cause: so (that), because, because of

Conditions: if, if not, unless

Alternatives: either... or, alternatively, another possibility, on the other hand

Concession: (One statement is surprising/unexpected in view of the other, e.g. He's always rude
to her but she seems to be totally in love with him.) although, even though, even so, in spite of,
despite, nevertheless.

Contrast: however, on the other hand, whereas, while

Notice that some conjunctions convey ideas of time, for example:

I woke up late, then I missed the bus.

While can be used to express contrast, and it can also be used to express the idea of two things
happening simultaneously. For example:

You were out enjoying yourself while I was doing a night shift at the supermarket.

For example, compare these two:

 In spite of the rain, we went for a walk

 Although it was raining, we went for a walk.

The two underlined connectives convey the same meaning, but although must be followed by a
subject + verb clause, while in spite of must be followed by a noun (of is a preposition and as we
have seen, prepositions are followed by nouns).

Introduction to determiners
Here are some of the adjective + noun combinations we looked at earlier in the unit.

 old man
 little boy
 horrible lesson
 difficult problem

We can write many sentences using these four phrases, such as:

 He is a handsome, old man.

 This incredibly old man jumped across the river.
 Everyone loves that wise, old man.
 My lovely, little boy made me a birthday cake.
 Everyone laughed at the cute, little boy.
 Whose little boy is that?
 It was such a horrible lesson!
 I think that was the most horrible lesson I've ever given.
 I watched this incredibly boring, horrible lesson on the Internet.
 Youth unemployment is a really difficult problem.
 My difficult problem shows no sign of improving.
 This has created a really difficult problem for us.
Despite the enormous range of possible sentences, there are certain statements that will be true
about sentences because the grammar of English only allows us to make sentences that adhere to
the rules of the language.

While we may or may not add adverbs and/or additional adjectives to the noun phrases (here, the
adjective + noun combination), one of the statements that will be true about sentences is that the
head (first word) of noun phrases will be a determiner.

A determiner is a modifying word, such as a, those, some, your, which is placed before a

noun.

- It helps clarify the specific reference a noun or noun group has, by showing which one or
ones are referred to. Determiners used to be classified simply as a class of adjectives
because they modify a noun. However, it is now generally seen as useful to treat them as
a separate group. If a word is not followed by a noun or noun phrase*, it is not a
determiner.

*a noun phrase is a group of words containing a noun e.g. big red car, naughty little sister.

There are five categories of determiner:

1. Articles: a, the
2. Demonstratives: this, that
3. Possessive adjectives/possessive determiners: my, our*
4. Interrogative adjectives/interrogative determiners: whose, which
5. Quantifiers: some, a few,  several
*Remember, be careful not to confuse possessive adjectives (also called possessive determiners)
with possessive pronouns. Possessive adjectives demonstrate possession or ownership. We use
them to indicate:

 Something that belongs to somebody

o Our dog is very old.

o My car is dirty.

 Family relationships and friends

o His sister has just arrived.

o Their aunt is a doctor.

 Parts of the body

o She’s washing her hair.
o The cat has hurt its paw.
o How is your leg today?

Quantifiers tell us something about how much, how many or what proportion of a thing or group
of things we are talking about. There are also numbers. Cardinal (one, two, three) and ordinal
(first, second, third) numbers are also used as determiners, and are variously regarded as a
separate category or as a type of quantifier.

Think of as many determiners as you can for each of the five categories. Then think about which
of those you could put in front of these nouns.

 students
 parents
 rice
 panthers
 work
 flowers
 cups of coffee

 all
 any
 many
 not many
 few
 a few
 a little
 a lot of
 lots of
  loads of
 some
 several
 none of the
 hardly any
 no
 a couple of
 enough
 not enough
 much
 not much

the most commonly used set of determiners in English is articles.

 I saw a frog. (Indefinite article)

 The frog was bright blue! (Definite article)
 __ Frogs are fascinating creatures. (No article)
 The frog is a fascinating creature. (Definite article, indefinite article)
 The frogs we ate last night were delicious. (Definite article)

These can be particularly difficult for students because many languages do not use articles. Those
languages which do use them have their own rules governing which article you should use when,
so it is difficult for L2 learners to get this right and mistakes can continue even at very advanced
levels. The best way for students to acquire these rules is through exposure to the language.

Interjections
An interjection is a spoken word, phrase, or sound that expresses a sudden or strong feeling.

All languages have interjections and they do not pose a problem for students in terms of meaning.
They do not really contribute to the grammar of the sentence – the reason this group of words,
noises and phrases has been assigned a part of speech, is so that they can be categorised when
sentences are analysed.

Interjections do not form part of EFL grammar teaching. They are more likely to come up in
listening and speaking lessons. Nonetheless, engage with the activity below to learn more about
them.