UNIT 1 GRAMMAR

Grammar refers to the arrangement of words to form sentences or phrases that have meaning. We are always using grammar at the moment of listening, reading, speaking or writing. Even more when we are teaching any grammatical point to our students because we are always referring to forms and uses. For example, grammatical forms like parts of speech, affixes and grammatical structures.

First, there are 9 parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions and exclamations. Which have a specific function in a sentence. For instance, in the following sentence the conjunction "but" has the function to join two clauses: *I studied but I didn't get a good grade. Another example could be the pronouns whose function is to substitute a noun. Pronouns can also be divided into subcategories: personal pronouns (I, he, she, it, they, we, and you), possessive pronouns (mine, his, hers, ours, yours, its, and theirs), relative pronouns (, whom, which, whoever, whomever, whichever, and that) and reflexive pronouns (myself , yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves).

Second, affixation refers to prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes are a set of letters placed at the beginning of a word. Example: impolite. While suffixes are a set of letters placed at the end of a word. Example: richness

Third, grammatical structures have more than one use. Example: "will" is used to predict the future and make promises too.

Predict the future: It will rain

Make promises: I will help you

Finally, as the main purpose of learning English is communication I would apply some meaningful activities to my students in order to teach grammar. First, for teaching future simple "be going to", I would make my students talk about their future plans in pairs. Then, they have to share their answers with all the class and think about the structure they were using to talk about their future plans. All this process is called "inductive grammar" that according to Hird (2015) it is rule-discovery being that students find out the rule by their own. Second, I would apply activities that develop accuracy in form and use because according to Bensky (2017) it is important in order to express correctly what we want to say and be easily understood by others. For example, when teaching first conditional students have to know how to use it (form) and in which situations (use).

Extra information to teach grammar effectively:

References:

Hird, J. (2015). Inductive and deductive grammar teaching: what is it, and does it work?. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 22 April 2017, from https://oupeltglobalblog.com/2015/04/24/inductive-and-deductive-grammar-teaching/

Bensky, P. (2017). Why is important to use correct grammar?.Trackerpress.com. Retrieved 22 April 2017, from http://www.trackerpress.com/reference/why-is-correct-grammar-important.php

Eldaly, E. (2015). How to Teach Grammar Effectively. YouTube. Retrieved 22 April 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAbGCV2oBPk