Sentence Construction

A common question from learners concerns their lack of understanding around the meaning of grammatical terms, or word class/group, such as noun, verb, adverb, adjective and so on. It might be expected that these questions would emanate from E3 or Level 1 learners but I have had Level 2 learners ask about the same topic. For example, I received a call from a learner yesterday concerning the meaning of adverbs and adjectives, and the person concerned is studying level 2 Literacy. My aim in researching this resource is to produce an easily understood explanation of the word group and to produce a resource that can meet visual and kinaesthetic learning preferences. Auditory preferences can also be addressed with voice input. If we consider what a sentence actually is, we can then define what a word class/group is and what types of terms are included in that generic title. This will then allow us to consider the meaning, improve the understanding and enhance the application or use of the terms from the learner's viewpoint. Grammatical words have little actual meaning by themselves, but instead serve to express grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence. These highlight the structural relationships that words have to one another and are the glue that holds sentences together. Thus, they serve as important elements to the structures of sentences. My objective will be to define each word class/group and, with the aid of illustrations of various sentences, to demonstrate the relationship between the various word class/groups to the potential learner The outcome will be to allow the learner to become more proficient in their accuracy in creating sentences that are grammatically correct. The relevance of this to our currently available courses is that learners can appreciate the principles of explanatory text, interesting articles, instructive language, imaginative storytelling, descri ptive comments, persuasive and formal texts. This can also result in the added value of correct spelling. Let me now give an acceptable definition of the various elements of word groups. . VERB This is an 'action/doing' word that informs the reader/listener what is happening in the sentence, e.g. they ran to the bus, where 'ran' is the verb. . NOUN This is a word that signifies a person, an item, a place. E.g. woman, pianist, field, station These are called 'common nouns' and, in addition, there are proper nouns such as a specific person, place or event, e.g. Leicester, John, Easter, Sunday. Note that the latter begin with a capital letter. . PRONOUN One of a class of words that serves to replace a noun phrase that has already been or is about to be mentioned in the sentence, e.g. Steve and Jane have arrived. They are in the lounge, where 'they' is the pronoun. . ADVERB This is used to qualify the action of the verb in the sentence and generally ends in ...ly ,e.g. carefully, silently - he worked 'carefully', she listened 'silently'. . ADJECTIVE This is a descri ption word and gives extra information about a noun, e.g. 'beautiful' beaches, 'diligent' learner, 'excellent' work, where the adjectives are beautiful, diligent and excellent. This illustrates that adjectives generally appear before the noun . CONJUNCTION These words create longer sentences or even make a simple. sentence into a compound or complex sentence, e.g. I had to stop my work because it was late, where 'because' is a conjunction. Another example could be 'She has a cat and a dog' where the conjunction word is 'and'. Exercise The aim is for the learner to identify the relevant grammatical terms/word group in the following article. The learner would list the terms against the relevant headings and submit to their tutor for comment.

TWO TALL GIRLS WERE WALKING DOWN THE STREET, BOTH WEARING BLACK TROUSERS AND GREY SWEATERS, ALTHOUGH IT WAS RAINING HEAVILY. THEY STOPPED OUTSIDE THE FIRST SHOE SHOP AND CAREFULLY STUDIED THE CONTENTS OF THE DISPLAY. ONE GIRL ASKED THE MALE ASSISTANT IF SHE COULD TRY ON A PAIR OF GREY BOOTS. SHE TOLD HER FRIEND THAT SHE LIKED THEM BECAUSE THEY WERE BEAUTIFULLY-STYLED AND WOULD COMPLIMENT HER CLOTHES.

VERB -

SUBJECT -

NOUN -

ADJECTIVE -

ADVERB -

CONJUNCTION -