Category: Grammar

Introduction

The desire to learn to speak and write has become common in many non-English speaking countries. Online learning helps the learner to have sufficient personal time for studies. Students can learn the language by enrolling for the lessons in schools that teach it and even by registering for the online lessons. The Computer Assisted Language Learning involves learning using computer-generated lessons. One can do the online course by opening the English Grammar Online site.

The site is free for viewing and learning. It helps students to learn the language in real-time. The course designers ensured that it had a combination of relevant topics and syllabus materials that suit the learners.

Summary

The website for English Grammar Online. The website is like a classroom. When one opens the page, it gives clear guidelines that enable the user to access the relevant information that is useful for the learning. It has a section for reading and learning English. The user can get to learn about English speaking countries, their holidays, animals, and sports (GbR, 2015). The literature section enables one to find easy to read novels.

One can also find the current affairs through opening the Newsticker. There is also the section for the current year’s calendar. One can easily download the calendar in the language that one understands. The vocabulary calendar is in PDF files (GbR, 2015).

Teachers can also use the site to find teaching materials for their students. One of the topics is cultural studies. It makes work easy for the tutor who would like to plan his or her lesson. It has printable documents in PDF files. The Lessons area has guidance on how to get rid of typical mistakes. It has grammar worksheets and games. Teachers can also get in touch with other teachers who use the site through the Teacher’s Board (GbR, 2015).

The site has the grammar and vocabulary lessons. It adds crucial exercises and explanations to the learner. There are also guidelines on how to use English stylistic devices. Study tips help in correcting grammar mistakes. It has vocabularies and learning strategies. The site also has the LingoPad Dictionary in English, Japanese and other languages (GbR, 2015).

The site groups all the information into six major sections; the Cram Up, Read On, Business, Chill Out, Take On, and Teach In (GbR, 2015). The Business section includes business letters, business information, and all forms of business communication. The website best suits beginners because of its simplicity. It also introduces the English language to beginners in a very understandable way. Subjects like Mathematics, English, Science, and History are also available.

Criticism/Opinion

The website has an excellent design. It also includes pages that are easy to understand. Any first time user can find it easy to open. Once one clicks on any of the icons, they quickly lead to the page that one wants. The calendars are good. The free calendars enable one to get an offline schedule. The dictionary is also available to enhance one’s learning skills. Learning is free.

The Business English section is very useful. Since almost everything in life revolves around business, it helps one to have confidence in pronouncing business terms and language. It guides one to know how to write the business literature. The new information includes the calendar, verbs, the pronunciation section, the exercises, and tests.

References

GbR, L. (2015). English grammar online – free exercises, explanations, vocabulary, dictionary and teaching materials. Web.

Introduction

Essay writing is an important activity for the majority of college students. Academic papers allow learners to express their views and ideas through a structured, coherent argument and persuade others that their opinion holds value. When preparing a written assignment, students should be aware of how to structure their composition in order to provide convincing reasoning. This paper will discuss the terms used to describe the basic structure, grammar, and punctuation of a well-written assignment and their importance in essay writing.

Basic Essay Structure

Introduction

The first paragraph in the essay is critical as it introduces the reader to the subject of the work and the author’s view on it. The introductory paragraph serves to present the main topic, providing background on it and defending the position the author supports (Palmer and Van Lieu). The primary purpose of the introduction is to establish what the writer will discuss and what central points they will employ to champion their point of view or argue against an opposing perspective. For example, an article on noise pollution can begin with a general description of contemporary environmental issues, problems encountered in big cities, and how they impact the health and well-being of city-dwellers. After establishing the topic, the writer can express their opinion in the thesis statement. Thus, the introductory paragraph sets the tone for the essay, limits its scope, and clarifies its purpose and viewpoint to the readers.

The essay thesis is a critical component in academic writing. It can be defined as a statement that encapsulates the purpose of the paper and presents the main argument of the written work (Palmer and Van Lieu). It can include the opinion to be contested or defended and the points that the author will employ (Palmer and Van Lieu). The thesis statement is usually the last sentence of the introductory paragraph, as it summarizes the preceding information and provides a transition into the body paragraphs. For instance, the thesis can be constructed as follows: Noise pollution in cities should be addressed at the government level as prolonged exposure to noise impacts the physical and psychological well-being of the citizens. Overall, the thesis summarizes the main argument of the essay and outlines how the author will support it.

Body Paragraphs

The body paragraphs are the passages between the introduction and the conclusion sections of the essay. The purpose of the body paragraphs is to elaborate on the topic and provide examples to support the author’s view through objective information (Palmer and Van Lieu). All the data afforded in the body of the essay should refer back to the central point, upholding the opinion of the author or providing evidence against an opposing point of view. Thus, the function of the body paragraphs is to expand on the statements and arguments made in the introduction.

Body paragraphs differ significantly in structure and function from the introduction and the conclusion. Unlike the introductory segment of the essay, the body can be detailed and thorough as it expands on the argument outlined in the thesis. The introduction sets the topic and briefly outlines the main ideas. Contrastingly, the body elaborates on the points outlined in the introduction. In the body section, the author can discuss each of the arguments in detail and refer to previous literature and research on the topic, providing various examples to support their opinion. In addition, the opposing view can be addressed and argued against in the body. Overall, body paragraphs are the core of the essay as they help the writer discuss and defend their point of view.

Each body paragraph usually begins with a sentence encapsulating its essence and introducing the readers to its central argument. A topic sentence is defined as a statement that provides “a one-sentence summary of the point of the paragraph” (Palmer and Van Lieu). It limits the range of the section, identifies its direction, and provides support for the thesis statement. For example, the body paragraph in the paper on noise pollution can be written as follows: Prolonged exposure to elevated levels of noise can have adverse effects on one’s hearing. Overall, the topic sentences help the author to outline his argument throughout the essay.

Other sentences in the body paragraphs are utilized to elaborate on the central point in the topic sentence and provide evidence in its support. According to Purdue Writing Lab, specific examples should be carefully analyzed to illustrate how they defend the author’s argument through induction or deduction. Induction can be defined as logical reasoning that helps a writer come to a general conclusion based on a specific fact (Purdue Writing Lab). Thus, if statistics show that the proportion of people with hearing loss in an area near an airport is higher than the average, it can be concluded that elevated noise levels are responsible. In contrast, a deduction is reasoning that starts with a broad premise and ends with a specific conclusion (Purdue Writing Lab). Overall, body paragraphs can incorporate different rationale and evidence to defend the author’s point of view.

Conclusion

The conclusion is the last paragraph of an essay, and it serves to summarize the information conveyed in it. According to Palmer and Van Lieu, it should refer back to the central topic of the paper, restate the thesis statement from the introduction and illustrate how it was supported in the body. A conclusion can also suggest a solution to the discussed problem, a call for action, or propose further research. Overall, its primary function is to review the essay and recapitulate its main points for the readers.

Grammar and Punctuation

Grammar and correct punctuation are also of significance for essay writing. A paper containing many grammatical mistakes is unlikely to appeal to the readers, who may be distracted by them from the central argument the author is trying to make. Thus, to make their writing more varied, students can implement different types of sentences, including simple and complex sentences with subordination and coordination. For example, learners can use coordinating conjunctions: For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, and So (FANBOYS) to connect clauses and simple sentences and show the equal importance of both parts (The Writing Center). Furthermore, ENC1101 students can compose complex sentences with subordinate clauses to illustrate differences between two or more separate ideas using such conjunctions as though, unless, whether, and while (Palmer and Van Lieu). In addition, the correct use of punctuation marks, including commas, columns, and semi-columns, contributes to the text being more coherent. Overall, grammar and punctuation are critical for essay writing as they facilitate clear communication and allow the author to relay their ideas more precisely.

Conclusion

In summary, a written assignment can be a challenging task if the students are unfamiliar with the basic essay structure and its components. The ENC1101 students need to be aware of the structure and the function of the introduction, conclusion, and body paragraphs to provide concise writing. Moreover, learners need to be mindful of grammar and punctuation and know how to connect different clauses and sentences to support their perspective and ease reader comprehension.

References

Palmer, Karen, and Sandi Van Lieu. The RoughWriter’s Guide. Pressbooks, 2020. Web.

Purdue Writing Lab. “Body Paragraphs.”Purdue Writing Lab, 2020. Web.

The Writing Center. “Commas.”University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2021. Web.

Nominal pre-modifier

Pre-nominal modifiers refer to the possessive pronouns, numbers, and a few other descriptive modifiers that come before the noun. According to Radden and Dirven (2007), pre-nominal modifiers mainly involve the characteristics and permanent qualities of pronouns and/or numbers. The authors also emphasize on the need to arrange pre-nominal modifiers in such a manner as to generate natural language.

In order to achieve fluent utterances, one needs to first determine the pre-nominal modifiers. The way modifiers are arranged before a noun affects both the fluency of generated utterances and the meaning as well (Shaw & Hatzivassiloglou, 1999; Malouf, 2000). When using pre-nominal modifiers, position is critical.

Fries (1940) notes that “…position alone indicates modification and nouns are freely placed before others as modifiers…. each modifier tends to modify the unit immediately following….” (Fries 1940). The following is an example of a pre-nominal modifier from the journal is provided : One of my favorite novels is ‘Forbidden Love’ by Norma Khouri.

Contextual assumption

Colston (1999) has defined contextual assumptions as the background knowledge shared by both the communicator and the interpreter (Ariel 2010). The extent to which we consider contextual assumptions depends on whether one is dealing with a direct speech or an indirect speech. Contextual assumptions influence the way we understand an utterance.

In a situation whereby a negation has been used, a more complex contextual assumption is needed in order to facilitate understanding of the negation (Torra 1996). The following is an example of a contextual assumption from the journal: “I enjoy reading novels about romance and thrillers because I am drawn to the suspense created by writing styles in thrillers and also the mystery”.

In this example, we assume that the author is intrigued by reading romantic and thrilling novels on account of the suspense and mystery created by their writing styles. Although there could be another explanation, this one seems more potent.

Subordinating conjunction

Subordinating conjunctions is a term used in reference to conjunctions whose work is to link a dependent clause with an independent clause (Algeo 2010). The subordinate conjunction plays two crucial roles. To start with, subordinating conjuctions provide a much needed transition of ideas in a sentence. Also, subordinating conjunctions reduce the importance of one clause.

According to Algeo (2010), subordinating conjunctions enables the reader to both comprehend and differentiate the most important idea out of a set of two. In this case, the main clause contains the most significant idea.

On the other hand, a subordinate clause helps to introduce the less important idea into the sentence (Dryer 2005). the following sentence provides an example of a subordinating conjunction used in the journal provided: “Additionally on Facebook I rarely use grammatically correct phrases as it is a social networking platform that does not require the users to be formal”.

Exercise 2

Linguistic decisions are one set of decisions made by speakers who wish to “express in natural language information given in a semantic representation” (Daulos 1984). According to Herrera-Viedma et al. (2004), a linguistic decision is necessary in situations whereby the information can only be correctly assessed qualitatively, and not quantitatively.

For instance, we often use words and not numerical values while trying to qualify a phenomenon involving human perception. Chen and Hwanf (1992) note that a linguistic decision may be informed by various reasons for example, at times, it may be hard to quantify the information on account of its nature.

Therefore, the only way to state such information is to express it in linguistic terms. Levrat et al. (1997) observe that when assessing the “design” or “comfort” of a car, we can use such terms as “medium”, “good”, or “bad”. In other circumstances, however, we are less likely to state precise quantitative information due to its unavailability or on account of the high cost of its computation (Herrera-Viedma et al. 2004).

Therefore, we are more likely to tolerate an “approximate value” (for example, when assessing the speed of a car, we are likely to use such linguistic terms as “slow”, “fast”, or “very fast”.

Linguistic decisions involve such questions as the type of syntactic constructions/lexical items to choose (Radden & Dirven 2007), or the best way to cut the text into sentences and paragraphs from the journal entry provided, two linguistic decisions can be identified based on the order of information and the number of sentences used.

The first instance of a linguistic decision used by the author of the journal in question is provided in the following sentence: “On the whole my writing depends on the situation and who I am writing to, for example if I am writing an essay, I would use Standard English and ensure my work has no errors.” In this case, the writer opted to combine the two phrases in which the result and the act have been integrated into a complex sentence.

The writer also had the option of forming a text consisting of two sentences in which one describes the result, and the other one the act, as can be seen from the following sentence: “On the whole my writing depends on the situation and who I am writing to.

If for example I am writing an essay, I would use Standard English to ensure my work has no errors”. In this particular example, the writer has combined the phrases expressing the RESULT and the ACT to form a complex sentence.

An alternative formulation would have been to insert a semicolon as below: “On the whole my writing depends on the situation and who I am writing to; if I am writing an essay I would use Standard English and ensure my work has no errors”. In this case, the semicolon helps to connect the two closely related ideas.

The second linguistic decision that can be identified from this journal entails order of information. In this case, the writer decides whether the ACT should precede the RESULTS, or whether the RESULT should precede the ACT. Below is an example: “I enjoy reading novels about romance and thrillers because I am drawn to the suspense created by writing styles in thrillers and also the mystery”.

In the sentence above, the ACT (reading) comes before the RESULT (suspense/mystery). From this example, we get the impressions that the writer enjoys reading thrilling and romantic novels as he is attracted by the suspense and mystery of their writing styles.

An alternative format for the sentence would have been, “the suspense and mystery created by writing styles of romantic and thrilling novels draws me to read them”. However, in doing this, there is the risk of adding passive voice to the sentence.

Reference List

Algeo, J 2006, British or American English? A Handbook of Word and Grammar Patterns, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK.

Ariel, M 2010, Defining Pragmatics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Chen, SJ & Hwang, CL 1992, Fuzzy Multiple Attribute Decision Making-Methods and Applications, Springer, Berlin.

Colston, HL 1999.’”Not Good Is “Bad,” but “Not Bad” Is Not “Good”: An Analysis of Three Accounts of Negation Asymmetry’, Discourse Processes, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 237-256.

Dryer, MS 2005, “Order of adverbial subordinator and clause”. In Haspelmath, Martin; Dryer, Matthew S.; Gil, David; Comrie, Bernard. The World Atlas of Language Structures, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Herrera-Viedma, E, Mata, F, Martinez, L & Chiclana, F 2004, A Consensus Support System Model For Group Decision-Making Problems With Multi-Granular Linguistic Preference Relations. Web.

Malouf, R 2000, The order of prenominal adjectives in natural language generation. Web.

Fries, CC 1940, American English Grammar, D. Appleton-Century Company, New York.

Levrat, L, Voisin, A, Bombardier, S & Bremont, J 1997,’ Subjective evaluation of car seat comfort with fuzzy set techniques’, Internat. J. Intell. Systems, vol. 12, pp. 891–913.

Radden & Dirven, RJ 2007, Cognitive English Grammar, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Philadelphia.

Shaw, J & Hatzivassiloglou, V 1999, Ordering among premodifiers. Web.

Torra, V 1996,’Negation functions based semantics for ordered linguistic labels’, Internat. J. Intell. Systems, vol. 11, pp. 975–988.

Text for Analysis

Susan: Why don’t you want to go there with me, Teddy?

Theodore: Well… You see… Sue, I’m not really sure that I should. Besides, you are a smart girl and can do that on your own.

Susan: But… I thought we were going to the Jarreds’ together. And now… Now I do not want to go either.

Susan: Maybe I should call them and tell that we fell ill and this can be influenza?!

Theodore: Don’t, honey. They are waiting for you! And I…

Susan: You have to come with me! You are my boyfriend and I want my friends to know that and accept my decision.

Theodore: But, Sue… They don’t like me and we both know it. One doesn’t need to be a genius to know that. Look at yourself and look at me: We are from different galaxies and all your friends think so too. Did you ever notice how your friends look at me when I stand aside? No? And I did… And I didn’t like that at all. At all! Maybe you can be more successful if you find someone who fits you perfectly…?

Susan: Someone from the same galaxy? Don’t be ridiculous, Ted! I do not want to find a perfect match and don’t want to be judged by my friends. I like you and want to be with you. Isn’t that enough?

Theodore: Yes… Well, no… I don’t know what you mean. I think that you could just go without me to that stupid party…

Susan: So, now you think it stupid! Hah! I thought so. You don’t want to meet with my friends and do not try to make them like you. You just sit and moan, walk and moan, lie and moan.

What do you want me to do? Maybe I should have told them to like you, shouldn’t I? Of course! I should have taken you there and told them to be nice with you. But you are not a little boy and should take care of yourself. (She went out and slammed the door).

The Genre and the Cultural Context Variables

As the text is a composed one, it can be characterised in accordance with genre peculiarities as a fiction romantic novel (Eggins, 2004, p.56) where two main characters are involved in a dialogue. Besides, this can be treated as a dialogue between two people who have a romantic affair. It is obvious from the context that they are of different social status or have unequal background.

Munro (2008) explores researches by Halliday and other prominent linguists of the era concerning the concept of linguistics and of grammar in particular. In this respect, Halliday (2002) suggested a complicated analysis of grammar related to semiotics hence developing research on multi-functional nature and structure of language. Thus, the cultural peculiarities of the text under analysis cannot be defined.

However, the basic information can be retrieved from this text. For instance, the dialogue takes place between two people of different genders and none of them tries to take the role of another; a man and a woman have some differences in social position and do not have great difference in age.

The target readers of this passage are adults and young adults as the conversation in the text takes place between two adults. Men as well as women can be target readers of this text because it is only a passage. So, it can be a part of another text with another context.

Thus, it can be a dialogue retrieved from a romance novel or romance detective story. At the same time, this can be a kind of lyrical digression in a story aimed at male reading audience. The text does not propagate any ideological ideas or concepts. The basic idea in this excerpt concerns the relationships between men and women and complexity in understanding each other.

The text enlarges on ideas and beliefs of people and their expectations of relationships with other members of the same community. The words like ‘stupid’ mentioned by the male character concerning the party can be considered as those assessing the category of people to which his girlfriend belongs.

Table 1. Semantic choices illustrating beliefs and values

Description of Experiential Meanings

The most verbs are used in the function of material, behavioural, and identifying meaning hence signalling about the material nature of the conversation. There are many negations in the text that identify the inability of two people to compromise and find a sound decision.

Thus, excessive use of “want” and “should” with and without a negative particle meaning that the problems concerns expectations, ability, necessity, and desire to make some actions. The following table introduces this situation:

Table 2. Experiential meanings: Identification of processes

Description of Interpersonal Meanings, Power Relations, and Modality

The identification of participants appears to influence largely on the identification of discourse. In this respect, the main topics of concern of participants are her friends and his unwillingness to compromise.

In this respect, it is possible to suggests that this is a couple of people who are not married and who try to build their relations. There are many aspects and hidden conflicts that interfere with their feelings and true emotions.

Table 3: Participants

The text is based on interrogative and negative forms to emphasise the importance of the conflict and frequency of using mutual reproaches in the conversation. Both participants of the dialogue use incomplete sentences but the male character uses those incomplete sentences more often than the female signalling about shifted roles and her dominance on their couple.

Description of Textual Meanings and Textual Coherence

The clauses are not always organised in the way when a ‘theme’ occurs in the initial position as there are functional words in the initial position whereas a certain meaning is attributed to the initial position of a clause in a sentence. Thus, Rose (2001 as cited in Mushin & Baker, p. 34) suggests that the ‘theme’ refers to “this is what I’m talking about” while the ‘rheme’ is treated as “this is what I’m saying about it”.

The use of various types of grammar is emphasised in the study by O’Halloran (2011, p.19) where the author analyses the political debates.

Any type of conversation where more than one person is enrolled requires more complicated grammar. In this respect, the text under analysis can be characterized with the help of systemic functional grammar framework. Fawcett (2000) suggests a few principles of treating the theory of systemic grammar with a branch of syntax.

The textual interactivity of the text is very high as both characters use hesitators, pauses, and repetitions. For instance, ‘Well… You see…’, ‘And now… Now I do not want to go either’, ‘And i didn’t like that at all. At all!’, ‘Yes… Well, no… I don’t know what you mean’. Spontaneity of the text is obvious as there are many phrases with irregular structure and those where a nominal group is absent.

Even those phrases that should have been built in accordance with coordination of sentences were separated to make the text more emotionally coloured and make those pauses more meaningful. The text is coherent because it has a beginning, a climax, and a dénouement. All facts are presented in a clear way and explained by characters with the help of introduction of a conflict and mutual reproaches.

Classroom Applicability of This Text

The text can be used in the class for analysis because it has different grammatical forms, means of expression, and stylistic devices. Before introducing this text for analysis in classroom, it is necessary to discuss different situations that can occur between people that have various relationships.

It would be great to provide students with examples of situations and ask them to characterise the mood of each situation. For instance, even positive lexical units can be used in the situation marked with negative mood and vice versa. In this respect, lesson objectives and tasks can be the following:

1. Read the text and assess the situation given. Try to give constructive feedback on the content of the text. Critically evaluate the actions and cues of characters;
2. Analyse the characters and relations between them. Identify the level of intimacy between characters and their social distance (implicitly or explicitly shown in the text). Evaluate the usage of the words with positive and negative connotation and identify the effect produced by non-typical use of words with certain connotation;
3. Identify the mood of the text (the whole text if the mood did not change in the course of the story or mood of each part if the mood changed in the story);
4. Mark contacted forms and explain their meaning. Trace those cases when a contacted form is used in the same phrase as the full one. Explain such use of contracted forms and effects produced with the help of this technique. Assess the frequency of using short and full forms and emotional colouring of those cases.

Reference List

Eggins, S. (2004). An introduction to systemic functional linguistics. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Fawcett, R. P. (2000). A theory of syntax for systemic functional linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Halliday, M. A. K. (2002). On grammar. London: Continuum.

Munro, R. A. (2008). Probabilistic representation of systemic functional grammar. London: Endangered Languages Archive Department of Linguistics School of Oriental and African Studies University of London.

Mushin, I. & Baker, B. J. (2008). Discourse and grammar in Australian languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

O’Halloran, K. L. (in press 2011). Multimodal discourse analysis. In K. Hyland and B. Paltridge (eds.). Companion to Discourse. London and New York: Continuum. Web.

English is an international language, and learning it as a second or foreign language has become a necessity for many people around the world. Most scholarly texts are written in it or translated into it. English is the language of internet and business communication, it is used for the majority of literary and cinematographic works. People realise the significance of speaking English as not knowing it restricts them from access to a large amount of useful data.

Teaching ESL, as well as studying it, presents many challenges for educators and students. Each nation has language peculiarities which make it difficult to cope with some aspects of a foreign language acquisition. Teaching English for Arab students is not an easy matter. Most frequently, these learners have problems with various aspects of English grammar, such as the use of articles, tenses, prepositions, and other issues. Another difficulty is that not all students realise the importance of learning a foreign language and feel that they are forced to study it.

To manage these and other complications, teachers and scholars in the sphere of linguistics are constantly working to find novel methods of encouraging learners to master English. One of the most productive ways is corpus linguistics that provides ESL learners with access to authentic texts which can be used for educational purposes. Corpora are considered a valuable method for improving students’ grammar skills.

Arab Students’ Difficulties in Learning English Grammar

Knowing English gives people a lot of opportunities, but learning it as a second language presents many challenges that students may find rather difficult to overcome. In the Arab World countries, many improvements to the EFL program have been made with the aim of simplifying the learning process for the students. However, even with all these efforts, EFL programs still do not produce the expected outcomes, and the learners’ mastery of English is insufficient and does not correspond to the necessary level. Fareh (2010) identifies the following obstacles to proper mastery of English:

• poorly trained teachers or weak teaching methodology;
• activities that are centred on a teacher rather than on the students;
• lack of motivation and inclination to learning english;
• teaching language in compartments rather than using an integrated approach;
• focus on rote learning rather than on developing skills;
• inappropriate textbooks and other teaching materials;
• inadequate evaluation methods;
• insufficient exposure to English.

The problem with teachers’ preparedness is that most of those who teach English for Arabic students have certificates or degrees in English but do not possess any teaching experience and are not qualified for performing the educational process. Since it is up to them to create the atmosphere in the classroom and encourage students to be dedicated and diligent, it is crucial to pay thorough attention when hiring teachers of ESL (Fareh 2010).

The second difficulty is concerned with teachers’ concentration on average-level students and neglect of slower and faster ones. Thus, these groups of learners quickly become disinterested in the subject as they either already know the material or cannot catch up with the rest of the class (Fareh 2010). The next challenge is associated with the lack of motivation. Teachers frequently complain about students’ indifference, but they do not realise that it is up to them to arouse students’ interest. To make learners more involved, teachers should employ a variety of methods which may include linking the study material to real life or cooperation between teachers and parents (Fareh 2010).

Teaching English as integrity is another problem faced by many educators and learners. Because of insufficient preparation, educators tend to teach the language in separate blocks of material, while it is essential to present English as one single unity (Fareh 2010).

Focus on rote learning is a negative feature making learning more difficult. Instead of making students memorise large amounts of material, teachers should help them to develop logical thinking and make associations between various aspects of the language (Fareh 2010). The problem with textbooks is connected with their cultural inappropriateness which estranges students from learning and creates adverse attitudes.

Wrong assessment methods disable from the appropriate understanding of the learners’ achievements (Fareh 2010). Finally, an obstacle to proper mastery of ESL is connected with minimal exposure to English. Teachers frequently communicate with their students in Arabic, which does not provide a proper learning environment (Fareh 2010). Students’ critical thinking and creativity are neglected quite often.

One of the most critical issues in learning ESL by Arab students is the mastery of English grammar (Khan 2011). The main reason why learners find grammar so complicated is that there is too little opportunity for communicating in English since at home and other environments except for the classroom everyone speaks only Arabic. The lack of interaction in English, as well as many differences between the native and the second language, create a lot of obstacles in students’ understanding of English grammar (Khan 2011). The most common difficulties encountered by Arabic students who learn English are associated with tenses, articles, and prepositions.

Typical Article Errors Made by Arab Students

Arabic, as well as English, has definite and indefinite articles, which makes it easier for Arab students to acquire English grammar compared to the students whose native languages do not have articles. However, along with advantages, the presence of articles in Arabic grammar also causes difficulties for the ESL learners. The most common problem identified in the course of research by Alhaysony (2012) associated with the use of English articles among female Arab students is the omission errors. Among these, the most frequent case is the omission of indefinite article ‘a’ (Alhaysony 2012).

On the contrary, the omission of indefinite article ‘an’ is the most infrequent case. Such tendency is explained by the fact that article ‘an’ is not used very often and, therefore, the errors connected with its use occur less frequently.

What concerns the definite article, the most usual mistake is adding the article where it is unnecessary. Such pattern is associated with the fact that the definite article is used more frequently in the Arabic language than in English (Alhaysony 2012). Therefore, learners tend to add this article where it is not appropriate. Alhaysony (2012) notes that uncertainty about the use of definite article is not an interlingual problem but an intralingual one.

According to Alhaysony (2012), the biggest barrier to successful acquisition of English articles by Arab students is that there are too many exceptions, and learners cannot remember them all. Difficulties in learning English articles are also associated with the native language. Thus, teachers are advised to pay more attention to explaining the differences between the Arabic and English articles and cases of their use.

Difficulties in the Use of Present Simple Tense

The use of English tenses is another problem associated with the impact of native language (Muftah & Rafik-Galea 2013). Arab learners experience difficulties in mastery of the present simple tense. Namely, they frequently fail to understand the agreement morpheme -s of the third person singular (Muftah & Rafik-Galea 2013). The most typical errors in the acquisition of present simple tense are omission, substitution, incorrect suffixation, and phonological similarity (Muftah & Rafik-Galea 2013).

Such mistakes are most typically connected with insufficient understanding or application of grammatical rules. For instance, phonological similarity errors occur when a student has assimilated the way of tense formation but uses wrong orthographical forms while writing (Muftah & Rafik-Galea 2013). Suffixation with -ing or substitution of present simple verb forms with present continuous forms happens when learners are directly translating from Arabic.

Thus, such mistakes may be considered intralingual. Substitution of present simple verb forms with past continuous and suffixation with past simple morpheme -ed occurs when a student has mastered the English present tense form insufficiently (Muftah & Rafik-Galea 2013). Research shows that such errors are most typical in written tasks. Therefore, teachers are recommended to focus on training the students’ writing skills with a special emphasis on tense formation. An interesting and productive technique for minimising learners’ errors in the use of tenses is giving them a task to find mistakes in the proposed text (Muftah & Rafik-Galea 2013). In such way, students will concentrate on discerning the most appropriate tense-forming morphemes.

Mistakes in the Use of Prepositions

Errors in the use of English prepositions are frequent among Arab students. As well as any other aspect of learning ESL, this type of mistakes is more noticed in written speech. Mastery of English writing is of particular importance since research work of Arab students is closely dependent on it (Tahaineh 2010). Therefore, it is necessary to identify the causes of such errors and find ways of eliminating them.

Research shows that the majority of EFL students’ mistakes in the use of prepositions – 58% – are caused by the mother tongue interference (MTI) (Tahaineh 2010). Still, a significant number of difficulties – 42% – is also associated with the transfer strategies of the target language (Tahaineh 2010). Arab EFL learners use the prepositions correctly if there are correspondents to them in their native language.

The students tend to choose wrong prepositions when there are no suitable counterparts in their mother tongue. Finally, there is a problem with omission and addition of prepositions. In case if equivalents are not necessary in their native language, students tend to omit them in English. On the contrary, if their mother tongue requires the use of prepositions in some cases, learners add them in English (Tahaineh 2010).

Substitution of prepositions is considered an error caused by the impact of two factors: target language and MTI. This kind of mistakes has proven to be the most frequent among ESL students (Tahaineh 2010). The most typical mistakes of substitution are the use of at instead of in, by instead of for, from instead of of, on instead of in, between instead of among, and others (Tahaineh 2010). Prepositions most frequently added by mistake are of (“considering of the difficult circumstances”), from (“when you finish from learning”), and on (“assist the population on to find”) (Tahaineh 2010, pp. 94-95).

Errors of omission are the least frequent, but it is necessary to pay attention to their elimination, as well. Typically omitted prepositions are of (“requires knowledge ^ his Mother tongue”) and to (“I got ^ Amman airport”) (Tahaineh 2010, p. 96).

The analysis of errors made by Arab students reveals that most typically, the ESL learners have difficulties with the correct use of English articles, prepositions, and tenses. Problems may occur due to the insufficient preparation of teachers or the interference of the mother tongue. However, in spite of the difficulties in the academic process, students enjoy learning English and find it rather essential (Alkaff 2013). According to research performed by Alkaff (2013), only 10% of students admit that they study English because it is a compulsory course. The majority of the students consider mastering of this language important for their career prospects.

Arab learners resort to various ways of improving their English, such as watching TV programmes, looking up new words in the vocabulary, reading adapted literature, or talking in English with their friends or family (Alkaff 2013). Therefore, a conclusion can be made that while studying ESL brings a lot of challenge, students do their best to work on their mistakes and improve their knowledge.

Corpus Linguistics as a Means of Improving Teaching of Grammar: Testing the Learning Outcomes

Corpus (plural corpora) is considered by specialists a rather productive way of improving EFL. The progress in teaching English with the help of corpus linguistics is established in various domains, such as the development of materials, design of syllabus, and organisation of classroom activities (Alqadoumi 2013). With the help of corpus-based solutions, educators can enhance approaches to teaching reading, writing, vocabulary, and, most importantly, grammar. Corpus linguistics is a “collection of written or spoken naturally occurring language” that varies from several sentences to a large number of words (Alqadoumi 2013, p. 247).

Corpora are kept electronically so that educators and scholars could use them with the aim of finding out how linguistic concepts are employed. The advancement of technologies and a better access to them allows teachers to use authentic linguistic materials for the enhancement of their students’ knowledge. Teaching of grammar has always presented difficulties to Arab students concerning not only a second language but also their native one (Alqadoumi 2013).

The traditional method is to give learners grammatical rules and instruct them to memorise these rules. However, such methodology is hardly ever connected with consistent vocabulary, which makes it impossible to get learners acquainted with all aspects of grammatical rules. Therefore, the use of corpus linguistics is suggested by professionals as a means of enhancing the existing approach to teaching grammar. Researchers remark that the use of authentic language material will give students a notion about the use of grammar in specific situations (Alqadoumi 2013). Corpora can fill in the existing gap concerned with illustrating grammatical rules. Teachers can discern which features of the target language occur most frequently and concentrate their efforts on these features. As a result of such approach, students will obtain a more thorough understanding of when the specific regulations should be applied.

While corpus linguistics is considered an effective way of teaching English grammar, it does present some difficulties for teachers to implement and for students to understand. In their research, Vannestål and Lindquist (2008) analyse the ways in which corpus linguistics enhances learners’ motivation and autonomy while studying English grammar. Scholars remark that the use of corpora is a highly-appreciated method of understanding grammatical issues. During research, students were engaged in problem-solving tasks which required the development of their own rules established on the examples obtained from the corpus (Vannestål & Lindquist 2008).

Additionally, learners were required to explain grammar rules to their peers. While the study was intended to prove the exceptional benefits of corpora, the authors admit that a number of complications were noted in the course of their research. To begin with, students had problems with the use of technology which was necessary to get access to the corpora. Also, the majority of learners required a much higher level of explanation than researchers had expected. As a result, even though students realised the benefits of corpora, they also mentioned that learning grammar with its help was very time-consuming (Vannestål & Lindquist 2008).

The most crucial conclusion from the study is that work with corpora necessitates a lot of preparative and introductory work on the part of teachers. Also, instructors should provide permanent encouragement and support that will eventually make it possible to achieve students’ independence in using corpora for educational and personal purposes.

In spite of complications in the use of corpora, benefits do outnumber the disadvantages. With a continuous progress of computer technology, teachers engage new methodologies to instruct their students. Corpus linguistics for studying grammar is considered a perfect opportunity to enhance the learners’ knowledge and practice their skills. One of the crucial aspects of work with corpora is concordance (Conrad 2000).

Researchers note the significance of teaching grammar in close connection with teaching vocabulary. One of the complications of understanding grammar by ESL students is that there are many varieties of English, each of them having some peculiarities impossible to comprehend without proper preparation. Corpus linguistics can eliminate such difficulty as it allows to present a big range of grammar materials and tasks that help students to understand the differences between language diversities. Conrad (2000) performed a corpus-based study of linking adverbials. According to the researcher, the use of this grammatical category is rather diverse across registers (Conrad 2000).

For instance, linking adverbials are most frequently observed in academic literature. Also, they often occur in colloquial language. The rarest presence of linking adverbials is noted in newspaper writing (Conrad 2000). Therefore, as Conrad (2000) remarks, the use of these words varies considerably by register, giving preference to spoken over written language. The use of corpus linguistics, according to the author, helps to identify the differences between language use and enables the learners to comprehend the peculiarities of grammatical concepts and rules (Conrad 2000).

Syntax has always presented the biggest difficulty to ESL learners. Thus, using corpora to evaluate syntactic complexity measures may help to eliminate such problems. According to Lu (2011), the association between students’ proficiency and syntactic complexity is influenced by genre, institution, and timing of syntactic assignments. With the help of corpus linguistics, the researcher concludes that the outcomes of various factors (task-, learner-, and context-related) need to be controlled to provide proper syntactic complexity (Lu 2011). Therefore, the difficulties in mastering the most complicated part of English grammar – syntax – can be identified and eliminated with the help of corpus linguistics. While students may meet some difficulties using the technology, it is definitely beneficial for ESL teachers and learners.

Suggested Activities to Improve Grammar Skills

Before implementing corpus linguistics into the curriculum, it is necessary to make some preparations. First of all, the teacher needs to make sure that students have appropriate access to technological tools and know how to use them. Also, if the learners’ level is insufficient, is might be a good idea to try some traditional methods first. For instance, researchers note that ample practice gives the best results.

Thus, to improve the acquisition of articles, a lot of writing practice is recommended (Alhaysony 2012). When teaching tenses, the following methods might be used. A teacher should instruct the learners that only third person singular verbs add -s in present simple. Another advice is to give students a task of making a list of verbs which take suffix -s/es and a list of verbs whose present simple form requires some spelling modifications (Muftah & Rafik-Galea 2013). Above all, constant drill exercises are necessary to provide a better understanding of various grammatical rules.

When students are ready for the use of upgraded technology, corpus linguistics may be introduced to them. One of the best software tools that can enhance students’ grammar learning is StringNet Navigator introduced by Wible and Tsao (2010). This tool incorporates a large archive of the so-called “hybrid n-grams” that consist of a combination of lexemes, tags, and specific word forms (Wible & Tsao 2010, p. 25). With the help of StringNet technology, students can explore the multi-word units. The tool consists of two parts: the hybrid n-grams and the inter-relations among the hybrid n-grams symbolised by indexes (Wible & Tsao 2010).

Hybrid n-grams may be represented by the following four categories of grams: word form, lexeme, detailed parts of speech (POS), and rough POS (Wible & Tsao 2010). With the help of StringNet, students can easily identify the common words or lexical combinations used in academic vocabulary.

Another productive tool for implementing corpora is the Key Academic Word List (Coxhead 2011). This list consists of 570 word families. The academic corpus used for creating this list is divided into four areas based on various disciplines: science, arts, law, and commerce (Coxhead 2011). By using this tool, teachers encourage learners to identify the words used in their writing. KAWL is an extremely useful method of identifying students’ language background. While it is necessary for educators to support their students’ comprehension of the behaviour and character of words in various academic disciplines, the use of corpus linguistics and, particularly, such tool as KAWL, helps to reach this aim.

Technology tools gain more and more recognition among educators and scholars nowadays. The advantages of implementing technologies at the lesson are twofold: they develop students’ skills of working with equipment and enhance their language acquisition. The use of various software programs allows learners to search for information, communicate with people from around the world, improve language skills, check and correct their work, and gives many other opportunities (Kasapoğlu-Akyol 2010). It may be difficult to learn the basic rules of operating the corpora, but once the students are instructed how to do it and receive enough practice, there will be a number of advantageous outcomes.

To ensure the best results of using the tools of corpus linguistics and other methods for ESL learning and teaching, several common recommendations are suggested:

• teachers should be highly-qualified;
• modern technologies should be utilised in the learning process;
• teachers should create the most suitable environment for their students;
• the use of native language at the lessons should be minimised;
• students’ creative skills should be developed and encouraged;
• objectives should be realistic and achievable;
• regular assessment should be performed, and teachers should make conclusions about further steps and methodology (Fareh 2010).

Conclusion

Learning English as a second language might come as a challenge for students as well as teachers. Many factors prevent learners from easy acquisition of the peculiarities of English. For Arab students, the most common complications are concerned with English grammar. To eliminate the problems in learning ESL and make the study process more accessible and stimulating, various methods are suggested.

One of the most productive tools is the use of corpus linguistics (corpora) – a collection of authentic texts which are available for public use and can be employed for educational purposes. Corpora are stored in electronic form, which means that students need to possess necessary technology skills to be able to use them. However, in spite of probable complications at the initial stages of using corpora, scholars and teachers note the exceptional advantages presented by such methodology. By using authentic language material, students receive a better comprehension of difficult issues in the process of ESL acquisition.

Reference List

Alhaysony, M 2012, ‘An analysis of article errors among Saudi female EFL students: a case study’, Asian Social Science; vol. 8, no. 12, pp. 55-66.

Alkaff, A A 2013, ‘Students’ attitudes and perceptions towards learning English’, Arab World English Journal, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 106-121.

Alqadoumi, O M 2013, ‘Using corpus linguistics as a tool for reform in English language teaching and learning: the case of public schools in Arab countries’, in IEEE computer society: proceedings of a conference, University of Bahrain, Bahrain, pp. 246-252.

Conrad, S 2000, ‘Will corpus linguistics revolutionize grammar teaching in the 21st century?’, TESOL Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 548-560.

Coxhead, A 2011, ‘The academic word list 10 years on: research and teaching implications’, TESOL Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 355-362.

Fareh, S 2010, ‘Challenges of teaching English in the Arab world: why can’t EFL programs deliver as expected?’, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 3600-3604.

Kasapoğlu-Akyol, P 2010, ‘Using educational technology tools to improve language and communication skills of ESL students’, Novitas-ROYAL, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 225-241.

Khan, I A 2011, ‘Learning difficulties in English: diagnosis and pedagogy in Saudi Arabia’, Educational Research, vol. 2, no. 7, pp. 1248-1257.

Lu, X 2011, ‘A Corpus-based evaluation of syntactic complexity measures as indices of college-level ESL writers’ language development’, TESOL Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 36-62.

Muftah, M & Rafik-Galea, S 2013, ‘Error analysis of present simple tense in the interlanguage of adult Arab English language learners’, English Language Teaching, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 146-154.

Tahaineh, Y S 2010, ‘Arab EFL university students’ errors in the use of prepositions’, Modern Journal of Applied Linguistics, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 76-112.

Vannestål, M E & Lindquist, H 2008, ‘Corpora in grammar teaching – towards higher motivation, deeper understanding and more solid proficiency in English grammar’, Authority for Networking and Cooperation in Higher Education, Växjö University, Sweden, pp. 1-25.

Wible, D & Tsao, N-L 2010, ‘StringNet as a computational resource for discovering and investigating linguistic constructions’, in NAACL HLT workshop on extracting and using constructions in computational linguistics: proceedings of a conference, Association for Computational Linguistics, Los Angeles, pp. 25-31.

Grammar as an inseparable element of the language lesson is of significant importance for developing the communicative skills of the students. There have been many views on the very essence of grammar, but they all come down to the statement that it a set of rules helping put words together in some allowable order to make the speaker’s thought understood (Amogne 145). The role of grammar can be viewed from different perspectives. First of all, it can be investigated from the standpoint of oral communication, even though grammar is often ignored in this aspect. What is more crucial for the research is the role of grammar in the writing context whether it be formal or informal written communication.

Problem statement

The role of grammar instructions has long been neglected as the factor that influences the development of writing skills. Since recently, it has been acknowledged that it has a significant impact on writing because students are expected to follow certain rules or have a certain level of knowledge of grammatical instructions (Myhill et al. 78). What has long been ignored, however, is the role of teaching grammar in the writing context. It was not until recently that the concept of pedagogical content knowledge was included in the study curriculums, as they recognized that the level of teacher’s knowledge of grammar, besides other factors such as disposition to learning languages or whether the student is the native speaker of the language studied, also has a robust effect on developing students’ writing skills.

Research questions

The purpose of the research is to address numerous questions. They are:

1. What specific aspect of writing does grammar contribute?
2. How does sentence combining improve writing?
3. What is the role of a teacher in teaching grammar in the writing context?

Research method

The proposed research will be based on three methods – literature analysis and investigating the teachers’ and the students’ perspectives on the role of grammar in developing writing skills. As part of the study regarding the literature analysis, the researcher will consider theoretical approaches to the teaching of grammar with the special focus made on the acknowledgment of the importance of grammar and including it in the writing curriculums (Myhill and Watson 45). Moreover, the study will focus on the empirical researches on the teaching of grammar with paying special attention to sentence combining as a tool for improving writing (Myhill and Watson 49). This step is essential for providing the theoretical background for the study.

The second part of the research will focus on the teachers’ perspectives on the teaching of grammar and its role in developing writing skills. The study will use a comparatively small and similar group of the participants, all being the teachers of the English language in schools and colleges. The researcher will exploit the purposeful sampling selecting the participants based on the level of their knowledge of grammar. This step is necessary to understand whether the perspective of the respondents will be truthful during the study. The additional criterion is the number of years of teaching experience (Jones et al. 1247).

The third part of the study will focus on the students’ perspective on the teaching of grammar and its role in developing writing skills. The research will again use a relatively small and similar group of participants with the only difference that they will not be tested to become a respondent. The criterion for choosing them is that they are the students of the teachers mentioned in the second part of the investigation.

Data collection method

The primary tools for data collection for the second and the third part of the study will be in-depth interviews with the teachers and tests written by the students. The objective of the study is to define whether the level of the teachers’ knowledge of grammar influences the level of the students’ writing skills.

The process of data collection will comprise of four stages. The first phase will be the test for the teachers aimed at defining whether they will be truthful respondents during the study. The teacher will be provided with the abstract from Pride and Prejudice and a set of questions concerning it. They will center on word classes, sentence structure, the function of the word in the sentence, etc. (Myhill et al. 81). The objective of the test is to discover the level of pedagogical content knowledge.

The second stage of the research will include in-depth interviews with the teachers. They will be separated into two parts. First, what the respondents think about the role of grammar teaching in writing. This part should be their reflections on the topic. In the second part of the in-depth interviews, the research will ask the teachers about what they think grammar teaching is with special attention to the use of grammatical terminology (Watson 4).

Finally, the students will be asked to write a narrative passage with a focus on grammar and style. To avoid bias, first, the topics will not include the questions that imply answers pointing out the gender, and, second, all papers will be anonymous (Amogne 147). The only criterion for selecting the students is that they attend the teachers’ classes.

Data analysis

The data analysis will comprise of few steps. First of all, the researcher will check the preliminary tests of the teachers and develop charts with the results, the most typical right and wrong answers, and the average result of the test. This step will help determine the level of pedagogical content knowledge that will later be used for discovering the correlation and whether there is a relation between the teaching experience and the answers.

The second step of data analysis will include studying the in-depth interviews. The objective of this phase is to find whether there are some trends in the teachers’ answers. Based on this action, the researcher will make up a list of all similar responses and define what are the most frequently met perspectives on the role of teaching grammar in developing writing skills.

The next stage is analyzing the writing skills of the students. The focus will be made on the grammar and style mistakes. The researcher will as well develop a chart of the most typical mistakes. What is crucial about this stage is trying to find out whether there is a correlation between the writing skills of the students and their teachers’ knowledge of grammar. The pollster will try to detect the similar mistakes made by the students and the teachers in the tests they passed prior to in-depth interviews. The task here is to determine whether the students of the teachers who showed better results in the tests and used more grammatical terms in the interviews are higher than of those whose teachers’ results were lower. The researcher will focus on developing a chart representing the results by pointing out individual discrepancies if such is detected.

Works Cited

Among, Dawit. “The Effect of Communicative Grammar on Journalism Students’ Writing Skills.” Journal of Media and Communication Studies 6.9 (2014): 144-149. Print.

Jones, Susan, Debra Myhill and Trevor Bailey. “Grammar for Writing? An Investigation of the Effects of Contextualized Grammar teaching on Students’ Writing.” Reading and Writing 26.8 (2013): 1241-1263. Print.

Myhill, Debra and Annabel Watson. “The Role of Grammar in the Writing Curriculum: A Review of the Literature.” Child Language Teaching and Therapy 30.1 (2014): 41-62. Print.

Myhill, Debra, Susan Jones and Annabel Watson. “Grammar Matters: How Teachers’ Grammatical Knowledge Impacts on the Teaching of Writing.” Teaching and Teacher Education 36. (2013): 77-91. Print.

Watson, Annabel Mary. “Conceptualizations of ‘Grammar Teaching’: L1 English Teachers’ Beliefs about Teaching Grammar for Writing.” Language Awareness 24.1 (2013): 1-14. Print.

English is an international language and significantly contributes to modern communication. In essence, proficiency in English greatly relies on how learners manage to understand its essential elements well. Grammar is one of the integral elements of English language as it contains major components, which determine individual’s speech.

It is imperative to understand reading and writing, as they are integral elements of grammar. In this paper, I will base my discussion on the reflections of my first English teacher and compare the grammar approaches outlined by Derewianka and Tompkins et al.

I am a slow leaner and my teacher had difficulties in teaching me the basics of grammar. My teacher made us translate words from our native language to English and we could construct and deconstruct texts.

My teacher insisted on functional grammar, whereby, the use of language means understanding every word in a text, and how the word relates and affects all the other words in the text (Winch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl, & Holliday, 2010).

For example, when the teacher narrated a story, we had to describe the orientation of the narrative, give a descriptive summary of the narrative, provide a life lesson, and express our feelings and thoughts about the narrative. I noticed that Derewianka’s instructional techniques formed an important part of my grammar learning.

We had to understand the relationship between grammar and genre. Generally, Derewianka’s teachings focused on functional grammar, where, grammar is taught in context at a whole text level. As suggested by both Derewianka and Tompkins, learning grammar is a continuing process, with each experience strengthening and improving consecutive learning process.

By the time I reached my third year of K-12 education, I could utter and write simple words. Thereafter, Tompkins et al. (2012) teachings of grammar started taking effect as my teacher employed them in teaching us grammar in a gradual learning process. After learning a series of words (nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives), I constructed a sentense.

I can remember learning the first word, “eating,” and after a series of transitions, I learned a simple sentence containing a process, a circumstance and a participant, “John is eating.”

I can remember my teacher using symbols to describe English words, we could directly translate a sentence from our native languages to English for a start, and with time, English became part of us. I saw myself graduate from mastering a simple sentence to mastering complex sentenses. Tompkins et al. (2012) focused on building the student’s knowledge about the components of language before applying it to whole texts.

In conclusion, it is noteworthy that both teachings insist on a gradual process of learning and the use of meta-language in building a robust foundation of English. Both teachings assert that the use of scaffolding, modeling, and simple progressive instructions enables slow learners to grasp elements of grammar.

Therefore, when teaching grammar, it is important to understand grasping level of students, application of functional grammar, as well as practical illustrations such as scaffolding to bring a clear understanding.

References

Anderson, J. (2006). Zooming in and zooming out: Putting grammar in context into context. English Journal, 95(5): 28-34.

Annandale, K., Bindon, R., Handley, K., Johnston, A., Lockett, L., & Lynch, P. (2004). First steps writing resource book. Melbourne, Vic: Rigby Heinemann.

Derewianka, B. (2011). A new grammar companion for teachers. Riverwood, NSW: Primary English Teachers Association.

Tompkins, G., Campbell, R., & Green, D. (2012). Literacy for the 21^st century. A balanced approach. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Australia.

Winch, G., Johnston, R.R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2010). Literacy: Reading, writing and children’s literature (4th ed.). South Melbourne, Vic: Oxford University Press.

Introduction

The mode of use, the language of the user, the level of the user and the aims of use are the main factors that determine the fall of grammar into four basic types: pedagogical grammar, reference grammar, theoretical grammar, and teach-yourself grammar. The current paper focuses on the first two types of grammar with the purpose to find key distinctions between them and illustrate how the two types of grammar would deal with prepositions and prepositional phrases.

Starting with the definition of the two types of grammar under consideration we should say that, going by Terence Odlin (1994)

Main text

Although it could cover more areas, the term pedagogical grammar usually denotes the types of grammatical analysis and instruction designed for the needs of second language students. The unique character of this analysis and instruction may be difficult to see without also seeing how pedagogical grammar is related to other conceptions of grammar […] grammar as prescription, grammar as description, grammar as internalized system, and grammar as an axiomatic system (p.1)

David Little calls the concept of pedagogical grammar a slippery one. He claims that it stands to denote

1. Pedagogical process – the explicit treatment of elements of the target language system as (part of ) language teaching methodology;
2. pedagogical content – reference sources of one kind or another that present information about the target language system; and
3. combinations of process and content (Odlin, 1994, p. 99)

As far as the definition of the reference grammar is concerned The Glossary of Linguistic Terms edited by Eugene E. Loos defines it as “a prose-like description of the major grammatical constructions in a language, illustrated with examples.” (LinguaLinksLibrary, 2004)

Depending on the organization and the intended user’s reference grammar is divided into two types which are as follows.

Intended Users:

1. Native speakers who want to understand their mother language better;
2. Linguists who strive for information on the language that they use for comparative purposes.

Organization:

1. Based on the forms that the readers make use of, but do not realize their significance to the grammar as a whole.
2. Based on a universal outline form that helps the reader to make comparisons between the language under analysis and other languages.

Examples to illustrate this distinction are the sections of the definite and indefinite articles in the English language. In the first type of the reference grammar for English speakers there might be sections on the and a, in the second ones the and a may be treated in a section on ‘identifiability’ (LinguaLinksLibrary, 2004)

Comparison between the two types of grammar under consideration can be done according to the following principles:

• Purpose of use – a reference grammar serves as a reference tool when seeking specific details of the language, the aim of a pedagogical grammar is to teach students how to use a language;
• Organization – a reference grammar is organized according to universal structural categories, whereas organization of a pedagogical grammar is based on the principles of usefulness and ease of learning;
• Composition – chapters that a reference grammar consists of are longer than a pedagogical grammar has, the latter is characterized by short and brief grammatical explanations; a reference grammar chapters provide an explanation and one or several examples of every issue mentioned, a pedagogical grammar focuses on exercises that encourage the reader to practice and internalize the material learned;
• Target audience – a reference grammar is intended for those who see language as a universal phenomenon and want to know how this or that particular language correlates with the universal understanding of human language, a pedagogical grammar has a broader target audience – it is designed for everyone who is interested in learning a language.

Below follows the demonstration of how prepositions and prepositional phrases may be treated through grammatical and pedagogical perspectives.

Grammatically, there exists the following classification of prepositions:

• Simple – at, through, from, without;
• Compound – into, onto;
• Complex – as well as, according to, in favor of.

Prepositions do not stand alone, they need a complement:

• Noun, pronoun – at dawn, after you;
• Other parts of speech – by then, in short;
• Followed by –ing clause – Do not be ashamed of asking questions, this will enlarge your knowledge significantly; followed by wh- clause – For what we are about to meet is to exchange our knowledge.

Prepositions generally introduce prepositional phrases that look like: preposition + optional modifiers + noun, pronoun or gerund: at home, according to us, in the overcrowded bus.

Some prepositions may also function as subordinate conjunctions: after, as, before, since and until.

Pedagogical grammar will focus on the following characteristic of prepositions.

Meaning:

• Space and time – at;
• Cause and purpose – for;
• Agent and instrument – by, with;
• The versatile of.

Conclusion

If reference grammar focuses on more theoretical basis of the problem of prepositions and prepositional phrases, pedagogical grammar will suggest more exercises to practice the knowledge acquired.

Thus, we analyzed the difference between reference grammar and pedagogical grammar. The distinction is obvious if various principles are applied. Some examples of how two types of grammar treat prepositions and prepositional phrases were given. We are inclined to believe that both types of grammar along with those that this paper did not touch upon are equally important for students and teachers who deal with languages.

References

LinguaLinksLibrary. (2004). What is a reference grammar? Web.

Odlin, T. (1994). Perspectives on pedagogical grammar (Cambridge applied linguistics). Cambridge University Press.

Introduction

The program of ‘contrastive linguistics’ was formulated in the 1960s and 1970s with the primary goal of making foreign language teaching more efficient. Its basic assumptions can roughly be characterized as follows:

• first language acquisition and foreign language learning differ fundamentally;
• similarities between L1 and L2 will cause no difficulties (‘positive transfer’), but differences will, due to ‘negative transfer’ (or ‘interference’); and
• on the basis of a systematic comparison of languages it will be possible to make foreign language teaching more efficient.

Even though these assumptions are intuitively plausible, the ‘contrastive program’ met with several problems and was seriously criticized before long for being too undifferentiated and simple in most of its hypotheses.

Moreover, the goal of producing comprehensive and detailed comparisons for pairs of languages was never convincingly realized. It was therefore not surprising that after a period of eager activity, the expectations initially invested into contrastive linguistics were greatly disappointed and many of its adherents abandoned it in favor of empirical studies of learners’ behavior. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, a new, more theoretically oriented direction of contrastive research developed, basically instigated by John Hawkins’ monograph A Comparative Typology of English and German: Unifying the Contrasts (CUP, 1986).

Hawkins regards contrastive analysis as the complement of a typological study: instead of comparing a large number of languages with respect to a single variant property, only two languages are compared with respect to a wide variety of properties. This separation from strictly application-oriented research has made contrastive studies more attractive for a wider circle of linguists, and new methods and the availability of large data collections (esp. corpora) have provided a more solid empirical basis.

Basic terms and notions

theoretical: crosslinguistic regularity/ constraint/ tendency, language universals, “tertium comparationis, translational equivalence applied: transfer, interference, over-/ under-representation of forms, hypercorrection, avoidance strategies, learner interlanguage some illustrations … crosslinguistic constraint:

Tom told Harry that he would be in trouble.

* Tom told Harry that Tom would be in trouble.

* Tom told Harry that Harry would be in trouble.

Thomas sagte Harry, dass er in Schwierigkeiten geraten würde.

* Thomas sagte Harry, dass Thomas in Schwierigkeiten geraten würde.

* Thomas sagte Harry, dass Harry in Schwierigkeiten geraten würde.

Translational equivalence

N.N. leitet das parkinglab, ein Laboratorium für die Stadt der Zukunft. Es ist ein Team, bestehend aus einer Architektin, Städtebauerin, Stadtforscherin/ Wissenschaftlerin und Künsterin, das Parkraum als zentrale städtebauliche Frage begreift und auf dieser Basis Ideen, Strategien, Ausstellungen und Lösungen entwickelt.

N.N. heads parkinglab, a laboratory for the city of the future. It is a team consisting of an architect, a town planner, an urban historian/ sociologist of urban life and an artist who are united in their belief that parking is a central challenge for contemporary urban design. […]

N.N. heads parkinglab, a laboratory for the city of the future. It is an all-female team consisting of an architect, a town planner, an urban historian/ sociologist of urban life and an artist who are united in their belief that parking is a central challenge for contemporary urban design. […]

Transfer

zwei kleine, rote, japanische Autos two small red Japanese cars

*zwei japanische, rote, kleine Autos *two Japanese red small cars interference/ interference-caused errors:

differ/ distinguish (“(sich) unterscheiden”):

* Scholars differ between direct borrowings from Latin and semantic loans.

“Möglichkeit”:

* immigrants are often attracted by economic possibilities

* what makes mothers go for part-time employment is the possibility to combine children and a career.

under-representation of forms

it is very difficult to work with that kind of student

that kind of student is difficult to work with

that is a difficult kind of student to work with

hyper-correction

[veri wel] * [veri vel] * [weri wel]

the verbal wit in Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield works very well

* Words from the Continental period are showing early borrowing by corresponding forms in other Germanic dialects, or by their phonological form.

avoidance

I drank them all under the table. Only after these language-planning measures have been accepted by the public will the current discrimination against women end.

some authentic examples of learner performance

Freiberg students …

Some of the Latin which entered this early the English vocabulary “can be credited with a considerable degree of probability to the ancestors of the English in their continental homes.” (student term-paper)

This loanword must have been borrowed at the beginning of Christianisation (7th century) as many terms of the church life were borrowed at that time. (student term-paper)

But following Gneuss it can only limitedly be talked of a semantic loan as the change in meaning is here motivated by the act of writing rather than by the Latin verb scribere.

German-language academics

‘Scientific texts’ (ScTs) form a specific text type. They underlie pragmatic constraints due to the aims of production and reception. (German-speaking professor of “Germanistik”, in print)

In particular he has already in school successfully participated in abroad programs and more recently toured Spain and England on his bike.

This is especially remarkable as he studies three (instead of our customary two) subjects.

N.N. has taken my “Introduction to the Study of English” a year ago.

One can tell that she has set herself a goal and firmly intends to reach it all the way.

Ms. N. was participant in one of my language courses last semester.

Beware of pseudo-English

*last not least, *happy end, *dressman, *showmaster, *handy [=mobile phone], *beamer

“English viss a Cherman ecksent”: contrastive phonetics and phonology

a foreign accent is a two-fold problem:

• content: it makes comprehension difficult
• atmosphere: it conveys possibly unwanted stereotypes.

Stereotype 1: heel-clicking Prussians and Nazi brutes

Put simply, the image of Germans, especially in the entertainment media, but also in informational media in the United States is linked with images of the Third Reich.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.

Ich, ich, ich, ich,

I could hardly speak.

I thought every German was you.

And the language obscene

An engine, an engine

Chuffing me off like a Jew.

A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.

I began to talk like a Jew.

I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna

Are not very pure or true.

With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck

The phonemes of English and German: consonants

English (R.P.)

Stops: p, b, t, d, k, g

Affricates: tS, dZ

Fricatives: f, v, T, D

sibilants :s, z, S, Z

nasals : m, n, N

other (liquids, glides/ semi-vowels, glottal): l, r, j, w, h

German

Stops :p, b, t, d, k, g

Affricates : tS, pf, ts

fricatives :f, v, X, C

sibilants: s, z, S

nasals :m, n, N

other (liquids, glides/ semi-vowels, glottal) : l, r, j, h

The phonemes of English and German: vowels

Aal a:

a: car

alle a

V bud

Esel e:

e bed

Ernte E

& bad

3: earth

ihn i:

i: seat

in I

I sit

offen O

Q hot

Ofen o:

O: caught

Unzeit u

U book

Ufer u:

u: boot

Causes or errors

1. inability to produce English phonemic distinctions.
2. inability to master distributional/ phonotactic regularities of L2.
3. inability to produce target-language realisations on the subphonemic/ allophonic level.

A German accent: suprasegmental aspects

word stress: level-stress compounds

“weak forms”

intonation/ rhythm

Preliminaries

surprising and arbitrary structural parallels …

it is unfair of you to do this es ist unfair von dir, das zu tun

it is unfair to him to do this es ist ihm gegenüber unfair, das zu tun

* it is unfair of you to him to do this * es ist ihm gegenüber von dir unfair, das zu tun

and many drastic differences:

that’s got to be put an end to ???

a type of military tent that sleeps up to eight people ???

jetzt wird wieder in die Hände gespuckt ???

hier liegt sich’s gut ???

er tat/ gab/ … seiner Frau Oliven in den Martini

* he put/ gave/ his wife olives in the Martini

(but: he put olives into his wife’s Martini)

English

Subject : position before the verb

direct object: position following the verb

German

Subject: morphologically marked

direct object : morphologically marked accusative case

Begin at the wrong end… That is the German idea.”?1 – Towards a comparative grammar of English and German consequence 1: the passive in English and German

1. sie unterstützten ihn/ er wurde unterstützt
2. sie halfen ihm/ * er wurde geholfen
3. he was helped/ supported
4. she was given/ awarded the prize the prize was given/ awarded to her
5. she was read her usual bedtime story the usual bedtime story was read to her

Consequence 2: “funny” (i.e. non-agentive) subjects

1. 250 pounds would have bought you a Caribbean holiday ten years ago mit 250 Pfund hätte man sich vor zehn Jahren einen Urlaub in der Karibik leisten können
2. this hotel does not allow/ forbids sandals in diesem Hotel sind Sandalen nicht erlaubt/ verboten
3. her violin broke a string during the concert an ihrer Geige riß während des Konzerts eine Saite
4. the star’s memoirs sold a million copies during the first year von den Memoiren des Stars wurden im ersten Jahr eine Million Exemplare verkauft
5. tonight will be fine in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area heute abend wird es in der Gegend von Dallas-Fort Worth schön sein
6. Dallas-Fort Worth will be very humid tonight in Dallas Fort-Worth wird es heute abend sehr schwül sein
7. the tank was leaking/ oozing kerosene

Consequence 3: fused constructions

they wanted/ us to sell our car [as against: they forced us/ to sell our car]

The passive test

they wanted our car to be sold

*we were wanted to sell our car

*they forced our car to be sold

we were forced to sell our car

Pronoun substitution

they wanted it

they forced us into it

Expletive or “dummy” subject elements in “object” position

we want it to rain

who wants there to be another war

*we encourage it to be quiet

*we encourage there to be a good discussion

Pronoun substitution

they wanted it

they forced us into it

Expletive or “dummy” subject elements in “object” position

we want it to rain

who wants there to be another war

*we encourage it to be quiet

*we encourage there to be a good discussion

Important contrasts not covered by Hawkins’ generalisation aspect and tense

where do you come from?/ where’re you coming from?

I’m being an idiot, aren’t I/ I’m an idiot he died when he learned of the firm’s imminent bankruptcy/

he was dying [“lag im Sterben”] when he learned the firm’s imminent bankruptcy

they were crossing the river in a canoe/ they crossed the river in a canoe

wie lange liest du das Buch schon?

how long have you been reading the book (for)

she hasn’t been to school since last Friday

sie war seit letzten Freitag nicht mehr in der Schule

interference-caused errors in the use of the English gerund

* she avoided to meet her ex-boy friend whenever she could

* I was not interested to hear your stupid stories

* you’ll get cancer unless you stop to smoke immediately

* we must prevent that young people get hooked on drugs

* We consider the countermotions unfounded and suggest to reject them. (“Countermotions for Deutsche Telekom AG’s Shareholders’ Meeting in Hanover on 4 June 1998”, flyer)

Explicit notional subjects in nonfinite clauses

Infinitives

(1a) she asked to be admitted

(1b) she asked for more members of the public to be admitted

(2a) are you anxious to go?

(2b) are you anxious for your parents to go, too?

Gerunds

(3a) she insisted on leaving

(3b) she insisted on her companion(‘s) leaving

(4a) I’m tired of complaining

(4b) ‘m tired of him (his) complaining

Participles

(5a) she stood there waiting

(5b) she stood there, her hair blowing in the wind

(6a) she stood there, (her clothes) drenched with sweat

Specific potential counter-evidence to Hawkins’ generalisation (Rohdenburg):

I hate to see you waste your money just like that (“dass”)

the mystery surrounding the ship Marie-Celeste (“um”)

a crate containing nineteen more beer bottles (“mit”)

the texts accompanying the photographs (“zu”)

McCreary coming on for Tommy Jackson… (“für”)

McCreary converted the penalty to make it three all (“zum”).

“If you want to speak really natural English, and you have already spent some time abroad or so…” – the pragmatic accent of the German-speaking learner.

Conclusion

Despite the preceding discussion, it must be admitted that the attestation problem for the West Germanic ‘give’ existential does not disappear (nor do the similar problems with the Latin and Irish *ghabh- existential), so that questions must inevitably remain regarding the history of German es gibt and English what gives.

What one is left with is nothing more than some very suggestive parallels — whatever the suggestion, however, clearly the etymology of geben offers some interesting questions concerning the existential usage es gibt. This may be a methodologically somewhat unsettling outcome, but it is perhaps a realistic one. Finally, from a methodological standpoint, one important result is that while Meillet’s dictum about reconstructing from anomalies is undoubtedly useful, it cannot be applied blindly — as with all good historical work, the relevant data must be sifted carefully and each potential comparison must be evaluated critically.

References

Contrastive grammar to typological comparisons of language pairs: Hawkins’ (1986) generalization.

Grammar is important in the lives of individuals, primarily for communication purposes. With the correct usage of grammar, one is in a position to express himself or herself. Grammar can either be prescriptive and descriptive grammar. The structure of a language as used by writers and speakers defines descriptive grammar. On the other hand, the structure of a language as people think it should be used defines prescriptive grammar (Bickley, 2001, p.4). Certain rules are applicable for each of the two categories of grammar. There are certain rules that are used in each case and there are certain institutions that regulate the use of languages. For example, the Academie Francaise which is a French institution that safeguards the French language, its richness and heritage.

There are other institutions that have been formed to regulate certain languages so that writers and speakers can use them in an effective way. Such institutions determine the standards of acceptable grammar and vocabulary that can be used in the language. They also add new words to the language, in effect helping it. Consequently, this adds meaning to the language. In addition to adding new words and meanings, such institutions also help in adding new definitions to existing words. These institutions make all words in a language available to the speakers and writes of a language. This gives the speakers and writers choices of words, thereby enabling them to express themselves with clarity.

Institutions that moderate the use of grammar in a certain language are worthwhile because they provide the structure of a language as it should be used. This means that a specific language can have different structures that are meant to give the same meaning but there is only one structure that is accepted to be grammatically correct. For example, there are certain words that a descriptive language accepts to be a noun and a verb at the same time. Prescriptive language confirms whether such words can be used only as a noun or a verb or can be used in both cases. If it is possible for a word to be used both as a noun and as a verb, these institutions show instances when the word should be used as a noun and when to be used as a verb (Crystal, 2000, p.47).

Society benefits from institutions that regulate the use of a language in that the institution educates them on how to structure a language so that it is grammatically acceptable. The books that such institutions provide are meant to benefit individuals in the society where the language is used. Teachers use such books to guide students on the correct use of grammar (Lowth, 2002, para.2). This helps individuals in the society to express themselves in the correct manner when writing or speaking in the language.

These institutions have many advantages to society but they can prevent the development of informal writing in the society. There are certain languages that develop in society as individuals interact. These institutions will mostly refute these languages as unacceptable.

By defining the structure of a language that is grammatically accepted, these institutions help in preserving a language. Adding new meanings to existing word while still maintaining previous definitions helps in maintaining the heritage of the language. The institutions ensure that the structure of the language that was used and acceptable many years ago is still in existence.

Reference

Bickley, A. T. (2001). Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar in Language Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Crystal, D. (2000). Words on Words: Quotations about Language and Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lowth, R. (2002). Descriptive versus Prescriptive Grammar. Web.