UNIT 1 - GRAMMAR

UNIT 1 –  GRAMMAR

What is grammar? Grammar is the structure and the system of a language created by a group of rules that form sentences. However, Spratt,  Pulverness, and Williams  (2011), say that  grammar refers to the way to combine, organize and change words or a group of words to convey meaning. Moreover, Chung and Pullum (2015), claim that grammar is the grouping of principles that define the way to structure a sentence.

The grammar is composed of grammatical forms. Grammatical forms are how words are formed. In grammatical forms, we can identify parts of speech, grammatical structures, and affixes (prefixes and suffixes). According to the College of St. Rose (2008), parts of speech are words that are defined in terms that refer to their intended place and meaning. For instance, verbs, nouns, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, determiners, adjectives, and exclamations. Nordquist (2019), explains grammatical structures are the order of words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. For example, structures like present simple or passive voice. Affixes are the root of a word that is added to another to change the meaning.

Besides, grammar is also related to grammatical uses, which refers to how grammatical structures are used to convey meaning as mentioned in “The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3”.

To conclude, I could learn that grammar is the way we organize, combine and change words to create sentences. It is composed of grammatical forms in which we can identify parts of speech, grammatical structures, and affixes. Also, grammatical uses refer to the way how the grammatical structures are used in grammar.

An English teacher can apply grammar in a classroom following these activities.

-        -   The teacher takes a modern song to the class that contains the grammar he will teach, for example, the song of Shawn Mendes - Treat You Better has the present continuous as a grammar. The teacher repeats the song and emphasizes the part that focuses on grammar. Students write 2 or more sentences that have the respective grammar and go to the blackboard to write. Finally, the teacher explains the grammar rules of the present continuous.

-        -  The teacher can create sentences with a specific grammar such as the past continuous perfect. Then the teacher must cut the sentences word for word and divide the class into groups of 4 or 5 people. Then, the teacher gives a group of clipped words to each team and they have to organize the sentence in the correct grammatical order. The first team to order the sentences wins a point.

References

Center, T. C. (2008, 10). Retrieved from https://www.strose.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Parts-of-Speech-Handout2.pdf

Nordquist, R. (2019, 7 8). Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/sentence-structure-english-grammar-1691891

Sandy Chung and Geoff Pullum. (2015). Grammar. Retrieved from https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/Grammar.pdf

Shawn Mendes - Treat You Better (2016). [Motion Picture].

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Module 1, 2, 3 (Second). Cambidge: Cambridge University Press.

Szczegielniak, A. (2011). Introduction to Linguistic Theory. Retrieved from https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/adam/files/phonology.ppt.pdf