Doctor Wilson, President Obama. [309915]

[anonimizat] I

Coordonator științific:

Conf. univ. dr. ILEANA JITARU

Profesor grad.II,

Ciutacu (Stoica) Gh.Villialina-Vochița

CONSTANȚA

2019

UNIVERSITATEA OVIDIUS DIN CONSTANȚA

FACULTATEA DE LITERE

DEPARTAMENTUL PENTRU PREGĂTIREA PERSONALULUI DIDACTIC

TEACHING NOUNS IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Coordonator științific:

Conf. univ. dr. [anonimizat] (Stoica) Gh.Villialina-Vochița

CONSTANȚA

2019

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………………………4

CHAPTER I. THE GRAMAMAR OF NOUNS ……………………………………….6

I.1 According to the way of perception ……………………………………………….8

I.1.1. Concrete ……………………………………………………………………….……..8

I.1.2. Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………8

I.2 According to their individualization capacity ………………………….……………8

I.2.1. Proper ………………………………………………………….……………………..8

I.2.2. Common …………………………………………………………………..………….9

I.3 According to their number…………………………….……………………………..10

I.3.1. Countable nouns. ……………………………………………………………………10

I.3.2. Uncountable/ Mass nouns. …………………………………………….……………11

I.3.3. Individual nouns. ……………………………………………………………………12

I.3.4. Unique nouns. ………………………………..……………………………………13

I.3.5. Collective nouns. ……………………………………………………………………14

I.4 According to their formation ………………………………………………………..14

I.4.1. Simple nouns. …………………………………………….………………………..14

I.4.2. Compound nouns ……………………………………………………………………14

I.4.3. Derivation…………………………………………………………………………….17

a). Nouns derived from adjectives.

b). Nouns derived from verbs.

I.4.4. Deflection …………………………………………………………………………….18

I.4.5. Affixation (Subtype or Derivation) ……………………..…………………………..18

Nouns formed with prefixes

Nouns formed with suffixes.

I.4.6. Abbreviations and acronyms ………………………………………………………..22

I.4.7. Function of Nouns. ………………………………………………..………………..24

I.4.8. Declination of Nouns or Case of Nouns. ……………………………….………….26

I.4.9. The Nominative. ……………………………………………………………………26

I.4.10. The Genitive/ Possessive Case. ……………………………………..…………….27

I.4.11. The Synthetical or Saxon Genitive. ……………………………………………….29

I.4.12. The Analytical or Prepositional Genitive. …………………….…………………..31

I.4.13. The Dative. …………………………………………………………..…………….32

I.4.14. The Accusative. ……………………………………………………….………….34

CHAPTER II. METHODS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING NOUNS…………..36

II.1. What does learning nouns involve? ………………………………………………….36

II.1.1. Approaches to the teaching of nouns in English ……………………………….….37

II.1.2. Basic Principles for nouns teaching ………………………………………………..45

II.2. How to teach nouns ………………………………………………………………….48

II.2.1. Teaching nouns Inductively vs. Deductively ………………………………………48

II.2.2. How to teach nouns from rules ……………………………………………………51

II.2.3. Methods, techniques and activities of teaching nouns ……………………………. 54

II.2.4. Activities and tasks …………………………………………………………………63

II.2.5. Examples of activities for teaching nouns or noun related grammar issues ……….81

II.2.6. How to teach nouns from examples. ………………………………………………94

II.2.7. How to teach nouns through texts ………………………………………………..95

II.2.8. How to test grammar noun …………………………………………………………98

CHAPTER III. ASSESSMENT OF NOUNS IN THE CLASSROOM ……………110

III.1. Assessing course books: approaches to nouns …………………………………….110

III.2. Nouns in coursebooks ……………………………………………………………..118

III.2.1. Set Sail 1 (See Annexes no.1-2) ………………………………………………… 118

Set Sail 2 (See Annex no. 3)

Set Sail 3 (See Annexes no.4-5)

Set Sail 4 (See Annexes 6-7)

III.2.2. Fairyland 3A (See Annexes no. 8-9) ……………………………………………..126

Fairyland 3B

Fairyland 4 (See Annex no. 10)

III.2.3. Snapshot Starter (See Annexes no. 11-13) ………………………………………..129

Snapshot Elementary Students’ Book (See Annex no.14)

Snapshot Pre-Intermediate Students” Book (See Annex no. 15)

Snapshot Intermediate Students’ Book (See Annexes no. 16-17)

III.3. How to deal with noun errors ………………………………………………………135

III.4. Tests: presentation, evaluation of results ………………………………………….137

CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………….143

BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………………145

WEBSIDE ………………………………………………………………………………145

ANNEXES: See Annexes no. 1-17 ……………………………………………………148

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this dissertation is to outline the importance and effectiveness of teaching nouns and to provide a model for developing and consolidating the communicative competence through their correct use.

It will be seen that while the main concern was primarily the setting out of the theoretical background, the practical side has not been neglected either. That is why most of the theoretical points are illustrated with practical examples or suggestions.

It should be highlighted that the first part of this paper will deal with a detailed presentation of all types of nouns-classified according to different criteria and of all noun categories- gender, number and case; whereas the second part focuses on varied methods and activities of teaching nouns and the choice of the most effective ones.

Chapter 1.- refers to the criteria used in classifying nouns( the way of perception, the ability of individualization, their number and their formation) with relevant examples for all of them. It also enlarges upon the categories of noun- gender, number and case – illustrating everything in contexts.

Chapter 2. – shows the way in which nouns are taught in EFL classrooms insisting on methods and activities used to teach nouns to young learners and students of elementary, pre-intermediate and intermediate level.

Chapter 3 is meant to be an analysis of the activities proposed by alternative textbooks/ course books in order to practice the use of nouns.

I will focus on the type of exercise and problems encountered by my students- and also choose the most efficient ones in order to meet my students’ needs.

Thus the structure of this paper expresses the belief that there is a major need for the study of these aspects of language acquisition and that this paper is a successful attempt in this approach.

In this respect I think that it is appropriate and useful to apply the students’ knowledge and their level of thinking and understanding to the study of the English language not only strictly as a set of fixed grammatical rules or morphological transformations but also from a semantic point of view.

Considering what has been said so far, I shall conclude that activities used to teach nouns should be carefully looked at, projected and developed in order to obtain a generous aim- linguistic competence and to pursue this we have to choose the most effective, pleasant and challenging teaching methods and activities appropriate for our students. Teachers of second languages must not only help L2 learners acquire linguistic competence but these endeavors should be complemented by an equally systematic approach to helping them develop their competence as learners.

CHAPTER ONE

THE GRAMMAR OF NOUNS

INTRODUCTION

About 400 years ago, Shakespeare wrote a full of wisdom question in his famouse masterpiece Romeo and Juliet. An immortal question that lives through times and to which he halve answers himself with a complemenary question.

“What’s in a name?

That we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet?” (Shakespeare W. Romeo and Juliet, II, ii 47-48)

Obviously, knowing the plot of Romeo and Juliet, we realize that this question is closely related to the characters of the play, but if we are to generalize and focus on the first part only, we can come up with several answers to ‘’What’s in a name?’’.

Removing all the beautiful philosophical routes in which we could give an answer to this question, we can say in the most pragmatic way that a name is a noun. As simple as that. And that is because every thing in our world has a name, which morphologically it is called a noun. The word ‘’noun’’ is derived from the Latin word ‘’nomen’’ that meant ‘’name’’.

Based on the organisation of language, nouns are names of things, people, places, creatures, nature, feelings and abstract concepts. Nouns make up the biggest category of word classes. Saying that, we are able to firmly confirm that nouns are at heart of the English language and as important to any other language on this Earth as well. People cannot communicate without nouns. There cannot exist verbal communication between human beings without nouns. The first words that a baby will speak are most of time nouns. When our children start learning a foreign language, they would start with nouns.

Nouns can be classified into categories according to four main criteria: the way of perception, their individualization capacity, their number and their formation.

I.1 According to the way of perception, nouns can be classified into concrete nouns and abstract nouns. This categorization is based on the idea that nouns can relate to two types of things: tangible things and intangible things. The tangible things that people can name are those ones that can be physically touched and seen. On the opposite, the intangible things are those that cannot be touched or seen as they exist under the form of ideas, concepts, qualities. To give examples for each of these two categories, we can list the following: child, table, bird, sky, storm, garden, dog, leaf, sea, James and same others as concrete nouns; and we can list: liberty, love, truth, beauty, happiness, poverty, democracy, communism, reality and same others as abstract nouns.

I.2 According to their individualization capacity nouns can be divided into two types: proper nouns and common nouns.

I.2.1 Proper nouns are unique names. They refer to a specific person or thing. Even if more than a person is called Maria, the proper noun Maria refers to that particular person who is unique. When we refer to person’s names that does not mean we take into consideration only first names but surnames too.

Therefore all proper nouns will be spelled with a capital letter. Proper nouns are not only imaging human beings’ names as in Elena, George, Smith or Ionescu. They define unique creatures’ names: Max (the dog), Garfield (the cat), Froggy (the turtle), Jerry (the hamster), Leo (the lion), Martin (the bear), Dolly (the dolphin). These proper nouns are names that people attribute to certain animals they encounter in their life. When we consider animal breeds, the name of the breed does not merit capitalization in general. For example we would write cocker spaniel as a common noun. In particular, there are quite a few exceptions such as the German shepherd, the Siamese cat, the Thoroughbred horse. For these exceptions it is always advisable to check a reliable source before spelling.

When it comes to plants, proper nouns spelling rules become even more interesting. Words that refer to names of plant species are generally spelt as common nouns: oak, daisy, poppy. Exceptions occur when one or more of the words is named after a person or geographical location: California poppy. Proper nouns are also types of fruit and vegetables: Gala apples, Early Girl tomatoes; and names of cultivars or cultivated varieties: Brassica oleracea (a kind of broccoli. As we notice, in the binominal nomenclature, a system of Latin-inspired scientific names for life-forms, only the first element, the genus name is capitalized and the second one, the species name is not; even if this second linguistic element is derived from a place name: Artemisia California).

Proper nouns are names of places as in names of countries: Romania, France, Sri Lanka, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, The United States of America and all others.

The names of the cities, towns and villages are also proper nouns: Bucharest, Paris, Ilfov, Edingurgh, Glasgow, Voluntari, Braila etc.

Proper nouns are also names of distinct places and things as names of continents: Africa, Europe, Asia, names of planets: Jupiter, Mars, Pluto, the Earth, names of companies and corporations: Toyota, Microsoft, Lego, Coca Cola, Google, names of sights: the Grand Canyon, the Underground, the Empire States Building, Buckingham Palace, names of books, films, paintings and prizes: the Bible, The Old Man and the Sea, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Mona Lisa, the Oscar, the Nobel Prize, the Whitelock Award, names of mountains, rivers, seas, oceans: Mount Everest, Ben Nevis, Carpathian Mountains, River Thames, Amazon River, Danube, Black Sea, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Arctic Ocean; names of events, festivals and celebrations: Christmas, Easter, Oktoberfest, Thanksgiving, Ramadan, Diwali; names of boats and ships: Titanic, Santa Maria, The Queen Mary; names of schools and universities: Oxford University, All Saints Primary School, St Crispins Secondary School; names of someone’s title: Doctor Wilson, President Obama.

Unlike the Romanian language, the English days of the week and months of the year are proper nouns and are spelt with a capital letter no matter their place in a sentence. E.g. I go to school Monday to Friday from September til July. It is the same situation with the names for nationalities and languages which in English are encounted as proper nouns. E.g. I was pleasantly impressed to notice that almost all the Dutch speak English and German at a good conversational level.

I.2.2 Common nouns:

Things: book, pencil, desk, table, chair, house, factory etc.

Human beings: woman, man, girl, boy, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin etc.

Fauna and flora: cat, dog, lion, frog, fish, snake, grass, tree, flower etc.

Names of materials and substances: salt, bread, butter, juice, sugar, water, oxygen, iron etc.

Actions: teaching, learning, reading, writing, singing, going, walking, playing etc.

Attributes: kindness, beauty, bravery, foolishness, ugliness etc.

Feelings: courage, love, fear, anxiety, depression, joy etc.

Relations: friendship, loyally, care, brotherhood, intimacy etc.

I.3 According to their number

I.3.1. Countable nouns

Countable or ‘unit’ nouns refer to nouns that can be counted. e. g. one notebook – two notebooks. These countable nouns have both singular and plural forms and a definite number can be used before a countable noun.

e. g. We need two notebooks.

Countable nouns can be singular and plural.

e. g. My cat is playing.

My cats are hungry.

We can use the indefinite article a/an with countable nouns:

A pig is an animal.

When a countable noun is singular, we use a word like a/the/this/my with it:

I want an orange.

Where is my cup?

When a countable noun is plural, we can use it alone:

I like oranges.

Cups can break.

Nouns which can be countable or uncountable.

We can think of a single substance or thing, e.g. chocolate, hair, chicken, egg, stone, iron, paper

There are only four chocolates right in the box.

We’ve got chocolate on our T-shirt.

There’s a hair in his soup.

He’s got short dark hair.

Have you read today’s paper?

They need to go and buy some paper for the printer.

Nouns are used to refer to particular varieties, e.g. country, wine.

I’d like to have a house in the country.

I’m worked in four different countries.

Would you like some wine?

This is a very good wine.

Words for some drinks, e.g. beer, coffee. The countable noun means a cup of, a glass of etc.

Shall I have a coffee and a piece of cake?

Coffee is produced in South America and Africa.

Words for time, room, space.

We didn’t have a very good time at the party.

There’s no time to talk- we have to rush!

This is her favourite room in the whole house,

There’s room for five people in the car.

There’s no space right. I’ll have to get another bag.

Fill in the spaces with the correct form of the verbs in brackets,

I.3.2. Uncountable or ‘ mass’ nouns have no plural and these nouns that cannot be counted or separated into individual parts, e.g. bread , water, milk. Nouns which describe liquids, substances, materials and abstract qualities, e.g. milk, putty, marble, success are uncountable. The following are common nouns that are uncountable: sugar, meat, English, ( and all other languages), advice, behavior, accommodation, bread, copper( and all other metals), progress, news, research, rice ( and all other grains and cereals), health, knowledge, information, furniture, luggage, maths ( and other school subjects), salt ( and all other condiments), spaghetti, scenery, transport, traffic, travel, trouble, water ( and all other liquids), work, weather.

Some uncountable nouns ending in –s are uncountable and followed by singular verb, e.g. maths, genetics, physics, athletics, aerobics, news.

The news is bad, I’m afraid.

I.3.3. Individual Nouns.

The Plural of Nouns: Forms and Examples

Most nouns add –s to form the plural.

Examples: cat – cats; truck – trucks; book – books

Nouns that end in –s, -ss, -sh, -ch, -x, or –z, add –es to form the plural.

Examples: brush- brushes; fox-foxes; match-matches; tax – taxes; kiss – kisses, bus – buses; church – churches

In some cases, nouns ending in –s or –z, require that the double the –s or –z, add –es to form plural.

Examples: fez – fezzes; gas – gasses

Nouns ending in –f or –fe change the fe or f to v and add –es.

Examples: wife – wives: wolf – wolves

Exceptions: roof – roofs; belief – beliefs: chef – chefs; chief – chiefs; cliff – cliffs; life – lives; leaf – leaves; knife –knives; shelf – shelves; calf – calves.

Nouns ending in –y and the letter before the –y is a vowel, add an –s to make it plural.

Examples: ray – rays; boy – boys; monkey – monkeys; donkey – donkeys

Nouns ending in –y and the letter before the –y is a consonant, change the y to i and add –es to form the plural.

Examples: puppy – puppies; city – cities: family – families; trophy – trophies; country – countries; baby – babies; party – parties; study – studies

Nouns ending in –o, add –es to make it plural.

Examples: potato – potatoes; tomato – tomatoes.

Exceptions: photo – photos; piano – pianos; radio- radios; soprano – sopranos.

Nouns ending in –us, the plural ending is frequently –i.

Examples: focus – foci; cactus – cacti

Nouns ending in –is, the plural ending is –es.

Examples: analysis – analyses; crisis – crises; diagnosis – diagnoses; hypothesis – hypotheses; parenthesis – parentheses; axis – axes

Nouns ending in –on, the plural ending is –a.

Examples: criterion – criteria; phenomenon – phenomena.

Nouns of Greek or Latin origin: datum – data; medium – media; formula – formulae; index – indices.

Some nouns don’t change at all when they are pluralized.

Examples: deer – deer; species – species; series – series; sheep.

Irregular Plural Nouns from Old English are formatted by a vowel change or taking an additional letters. E.g. man – men; woman – women; foot – feet; child – children; ox –oxen; goose – geese; mouse – mice; person – persons, people; die – dice.

Nouns which are always plural: glasses, scissors, spectacles, binoculars, compasses, clothes, pajamas, pants.

Nouns which are always singular: information, advice, knowledge, work, equipment, money, furniture, luggage.

Nouns which are plural in form but singular in meaning: news, pools, billiards, mumps.

The plural forms of the abbreviations: add an – s to form the plural. E. g. VIPs ( very important persons); UFOs ( unidentified flying objects)

I.3.4. Unique Nouns are preceded by the definite article the: the Moon, the Sun, the Earth, the Stars, the Sea. They are natural elements on our planet; elements that make life possible for us. The definite article ’the’ are a mark of their being unique.

e.g. The Earth moves round the Sun.

I.3.5. Collective Nouns are names for a number of people, things or for a collection. For example: family, team, crew, fleet, government, ministry, army, club, council, corporation can take a singular or plural verb; singular if we consider the word to mean a unit or a single group.

Their team is the best.

Or plural if we take it to mean a number of individuals:

Their team are wearing their new T-shirts.

The public was impressed by the new trains. ( We think of the public as a single unit.)

The public were impressed by the new trains. ( We think of the public as a number of individuals.)

We can use a plural verb after a collective noun, but collective nouns cannot be pluralised.

e.g. Some members of the public liked buses.

Many collective nouns have other meanings in which they are countable.

e.g. The team have been wearing the same colours for years. ( It’s a particular team.)

Some teams have worn the same colours for years. ( They are several different teams.)

I.4. According to their formation

Simple nouns and compound nouns

I.4.1. Simple nouns are made up of a single word and cannot be separated into other parts of speech as well: pupil, school, pen, ink, letter, man, goat, bear, juice, milk etc.

I.4.2. Compound nouns are made up of two or more words that designate an object, an animal, a person, a relationship and an action. These nouns can be written in one word, linked by hyphen or separately.

Examples:

Noun + noun: classroom, seaside, masterpiece, postman, countrywoman, landlord, bedroom, cupboard, cheese pie, apple tree, wineglass, keyboard, kitchen table, winter clothes, Tower Bridge, sky – jacker.

Noun + gerund: car driving, horse riding, surf- riding, stamp collecting, fruit picking, weight – lifting.

Noun + preposition + noun: commander- in – chief, brother –in – law, editor – in chief etc.

Noun + verb: chimney – sweep.

Gerund + noun: dining – room, swimming pool, driving licence, parking area etc.

Adjective + noun: gentleman, sweetheart, blue jeans.

Adverb + verb: welcome, welfare.

Verb + noun: breakfast, scarecrow etc.

Verb + verb: make – believe.

Verb + adverb: make up, take off, drawback, fly – over etc.

Other ways in which these combinations can be used:

The first noun cam indicate the time of the second .

spring flowers

summer holiday

November fogs

Sunday paper

The first noun can indicate the place of the second.

street market

country lame

city street

When the second noun belongs to or is part of the first.

college library

picture frame

garden gate

church bell

The first word can indicate the purpose of the second:

notice board

skating rink

tin opener

football ground

chess board

coffee cup

reading lamp

The first noun can state the material of which the second is made

stone wall

silk wall

gold medal

wool and wood are not used here as they have adjective forms: woolen and wooden

gold has an adjective forms golden, but this is used only figuratively

golden hair

a golden handshake

a golden opportunity

The first noun can also state the power fuel use to operate the second

petrol engine

oil stove

Work areas, such as mine factory, farm etc., can be proceded by the name of the article produced:

Gold – mine

Fish – farm

Oil – rig

These combination are often used of occupations, hobbies, sports and the people who practice them:

pop singer

sheep farmer

wind surfing

and for competitions :

car rally

football match

beauty contest

I.4.3. Derivation .

Nouns can be formed by derivation, deflection and affixation.

A. Some nouns derived from adjectives may have singular and plural forms, others only singular, others only plural.

Nouns that have both singular and plural forms: a native – several natives; a European – a few Europeans.

Nouns that have only singular form:

a) Language names: English, Romanian, Russian, French, German, Hungarian.

e.g. Hungarian is very like Finish.

b) Abstract nouns derived from adjectives: the new, the old, the present, the past, the future, the beautiful.

e.g. Forget the past. Look ahead to the future.

c) Colour names: white, red, yellow, blue, green etc.

e.g. Green looks good on you.

d) Geographic names: the Mediterranean ( Sea), the Pacific ( Ocean)

Nouns that have only plural form: the poor, the rich, the deaf, the blind, the dumb, sweets, but also names of nations like: the Romanians, the English, the French.

e.g. The blind, as well as, the deaf – and – dumb, need special attention.

B. Nouns derived from verbs:

In expressions: to have a drive, to have a drink, to have a smoke, to have a walk, to have a go.

Derivate with past participle: the fallen, the unemployed, the accused, the deceased.

I.4.4. Deflection is a derivation by vowel change of a verb or adjective: to sing – song, to choose – choice, to sing – song, long – length, strong – strength, deep – depth.

I.4.5. Affixation ( Subtype of Derivation). The most common type of derivation is addition of one or more affixes to a root, as in the word derivation itself and affixes consist of prefixes and suffixes. A prefix is an addition made at the beginning of a world.

a. Nouns formed with prefixes.

anti- : indicates precedence

ante- : indicates precedence, opposition or obstacle

dis- : indicates opposition and negation

inter- , intro – : express interaction

non – : it looks like someone or something is not real.

over- : it looks like something is too much, over, beyond or outside of.

super- : indicates something that is more, bigger or stronger

under- : indicates something that is under or less.

PREFIX EXAMPLES

But: Noun Adjective

indecision undecided

inability unable

injustice unjust

instability unstable

inequality unequal

imbalance / unbalance unbalanced

b. Nouns formed with suffixes. A suffix is an addition made at the end of a world.

1. Nouns describing people doing some activity ( often an occupation) and people experiencing some activity ( suffix –ee ).

SUFFIX EXAMPLES

But: physician = medic doctor

physicist = scientist with special knowledge of physics

2. Nouns describing ( small ) size.

SUFFIX EXAMPLES

3. Nouns describing devices.

SUFFIX EXAMPLES

4. Nouns formed with other suffixes.

SUFFIX EXAMPLES

But. Adjective Noun Verb

Strong Strength strengthen

Long length lengthen

Wide width widen

Broad breadth broaden

5. Nouns describing abstracts

SUFFIX EXAMPLES

I.4.6. Abbreviations and acronyms. These are the ways in which words may be formed.

Abbreviations formed from the first letter of a group of words, pronounced as one word (acronyms)

NASA = National Air and Space Administration

NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization

radar = radio detecting and ranging

laser = light amplification and stimulated emission of radiation

Abbreviations pronounced as individual letters

a). Formal CV = curriculum vitae

PC = personal computer

ID = identity card / document

NB (nota bene) = note well

e.g. (exempli gratia) = for example

i.e. (id est) = that is

UWB = University of West Bohemia

CTU = Czech Technical Universisty

UN = United Nations

UK = United Kigdom

US = United States

Ltd. = (private) limited company

EU = European Union

CEO = Chief executive officer

b). Informal asap = as soon as possible

DIY = do it yourself

Abbreviations common in e-mail messages

FYI = for your information

AFK = away from keyboard

BTW = by the way

C = see R = are U = you EZ = easy

2 = to; too; two 4 = for

Nouns having the same form as verbs

In English, there are a number of nouns with the same forms as verbs.

Examples:

Study, copy, comment, look, plan, reply, hope, design, debate, charge, contract

In some cases, the nouns differ from the verbs in

a). stress : with nouns, the stress is on the first syllable,

with verbs, on the second.

Examples: transfer, record, research, progress, increase, present, import, export, contrast, decrease

b). spelling:

noun practice verb practise (BE)

but : practice practice (AE)

c). pronunciation:

noun use [ju:s] verb use [ju:z]

d). both spelling and pronunciation

noun advice [s] verb advise [z]

device [s] devise [z]

I.4.7. Functions of Nouns

A noun can function as a subject, an object (object of the preposition, direct object, indirect object), and a subject complement in a sentence.

Examples:

Arya Stark is really cool.

In this example, the underlined noun serves as the subject in the sentence.

They were supposed to meet at noon.

The noun in this sentence functions as an object of the preposition. (at is the preposition)

Jeremy is a swimmer.

This sample sentence has two nouns, “Jeremy” and “swimmer”. “Jeremy” is a noun that serves as the subject, while the underlined noun acts as the subject complement.

The beavers built a dam.

In this sentence, “beavers” is the subject, the word “built” is the verb, and the underlined word is the noun that serves as the direct object (the thing that is acted upon).

He gave Maria a love letter.

This example has two nouns, “Maria” and “love letter.” The thing that is acted upon (direct object) is the “love letter,” while the indirect object is “Maria.” Simply put, an indirect object refers to the recipient or the one who gets the direct object.

I.4.8. Declension of Nouns or Case of Nouns

The inflection of nouns is called declension. The individual declensions are called cases, and together they form the case system. Nouns are declined in four cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative.

I.4.9. The Nominative

The nominative answers the questions Who?, What?, Which?

The nominative indicates the subject of a sentence. The girl loves the book

The functions of the noun in the nominative case are:

Subject or part of a subject: My brother could be a teacher if only he passed an exam.

Predicative name: Ann is a graduate in foreign languages.

Apposition: Daniel, my brother, is very fond of music.

Subject of a verb to infinitive in the construction Nominative with the Infinitive: This team is known to have prepared the festival.

Subject of a verb to present participle in the construction Nominative with Participle construct: The thief was seen opening the back door of my neighbors’ house.

Subject of a verb in a impersonal way in the construction Nominative Absolute: The audience having left the hall, all the lights were turned off.

Nominative addressing: Will you give me a helping hand, Bob?

I.4.10. The Genitive (Possessive Case)

This case is called and possessive case. The genitive indicates possession.

E.g. the girl loves the boy’s book.

This case answers the questions Whose?, Of What?, Of Which?

The genitive case is when we add apostrophe S (‘s) to show possession and we normally use the ’s with people, animals though it can also be used with places, organizations and companies (which suggest a group of people).

It is not common to use the ’s with non-living things.

1. Singular nouns

add 's (apostrophe S)

My brother’s house is next to the beach. (= the house of my brother)

Robert’s car was stolen last night. (= the car of Robert)

Tomorrow, we’re all going to see the museum’s new art exhibit.

2. Plural nouns ending in –s

only add the apostrophe ' (without the S)

The players’ boots were dirty and smelly after the game. (= the boots of the players)

The two sisters’ house is next to mine. (= the house of the two sisters)

The plumbers’ tools were rusty. (= the tools of the plumbers)

Notice that the pronunciation is the same for certain possessives:

My friend’s house = the house of my friend = 1 friend

My friends’ house = the house of my friends = 2 or more friends

You can usually distinguish whether the speaker is referring to one or two friends by listening to the context of what the speaker says.

3. Plural nouns not ending in –s: add 's

The presidential candidate is often called the people’s favorite politician.

Be careful not to trip over the children’s toys. (= the toys of the children)

The women’s bathroom is currently flooded with water.

4. Singular noun ending in –s:

It depends…
a. Most names: add  's (apostrophe S)

We spent the day admiring Frances’s new car.

They had a really good time at James’s barbecue last Sunday.

b. Classical or religious names: add ' (only the apostrophe)

Sophocles’ plays are still performed today.

Jesus’ disciples carried out the teachings of Jesus.

5. Possessive nouns as part of a phrase

Sometimes more than one word/noun is a possessive. The same rules as above are still valid:

I had to give my boss two weeks’ notice that I was leaving the company.

The King of Sparta’s wife was called Helen.

The President of Chile’s speech was very long.

I accidentally took someone else’s bag home by mistake.

If there are two owners of something, we add 's to the final name:

Henry and Steve’s car is quite old.

But, if each person owns a car, then add 's to both names:

Henry’s and Steve’s cars are quite old.

Notice how the verb is in plural form.

6. No Noun

If the meaning is clear, we can use the possessive without a noun after it.

Whose bag is this? It’s Jane’s.  (= Jane’s bag)

Her hair is longer than Tom’s. (= Tom’s hair)

We ate at Mary’s last night. (= Mary’s Diner or Mary’s house)

I.4.11. The Synthetical or Saxon Genitive

The Saxon Genitive is formed by adding apostrophe and ‘s after singular nouns. When there are plural nouns already ended in “s” according to the general rule of forming plural for nouns, Saxon Genitive comes with an apostrophe only.

Have you seen Mary’s dress?

I haven’t seen my friends’ house yet.

For plural words not ending in –s, we will add ‘s at the end of the word:

Here is the children’s room and here is the patents’ room.

Groups of words and compound nouns receive the genitive mark after their last word.

The House of Commons’ debates have lasted the whole day today.

Do you know who was Henry VIII’s second wife and Elizabeth’s mother?

When there are two or more different objects, each noun that names the owners gets the genitive mark.

Mary and John’s parents have promised to pay them a trip to England.

Bob’s and Ben’s parents are good friends.

There are cases when the genitive is elliptical which means that the object possessed is not mentioned in order to avoid repetition or it is missing because it is understood from the context.

a). Nouns that are not mentioned to avoid repetition:

Mr. Benson’s bicycle is older than his son’s, but it is much better.

b). Nouns referring to underlying locations as:

I’m going to call an my in-laws’ this afternoon

If you go to London, you should visit St. Paul’s, which is one of the greatest cathedrals in Europe.

They say there are some sales at Macy’s next month.

Wax figures were first exhibited in Madame Tusseaud’s, but you should also see those at Warwick Castle.

The best food we’ve ever eaten is at the Red Lion’s.

The Saxon Genitive is used with:

Nouns that name people and animals:

The teacher is worried about George’s spelling mistakes.

I’m afraid I’ve lost the dog’s leash. Haven’t you seen it?

Nouns that refer to own family or close people to the speaker such as:

Have you seen Grandmother’s spectacles?

I left the baby in Nurse Smith’s care.

Collective nouns such as:

The whole staff is waiting for the board’s decision.

The company’s half year balance sheet will be made public next week.

Nouns that call units of measurement ( time, size, distance, weight|):

The meeting was resumed after a ten minutes’ break.

The corner shop is at a stone’s throw from my place.

The event can be read in today’s newspapers.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play by Shakespeare, and another is The Winter’s Tale.

Last week’s weather was rather rainy.

The flat was flooded because of two holes in the pipe’s length.

She came carrying a twenty pounds’ bag full of fruit.

Nouns that refer to elements of nature and natural phenomena:

The Earth’s crust is the hard outer layer of our planet.

Live is possible only due to the sun’s rays.

They stayed listening for a long time to the night’s whispers.

Geographical names:

Britain’s rivers are not long, but they are navigable.

The Danube’s waters are much more polluted than they used to be in he past.

Bucharest’s bumpy streets are a real nightmare for car drivers.

Nouns in the genitive case with attribute value.

As soon as she gets her master’s degree, Lucy is going on a two-week trip to the mountains.

It is said that a ship’s captain must be a tough man.

I.4.12. The Analytical or Prepositional Genitive

In Prepositional Genitive, the noun that designates the possessor is preceded by the preposition of.

The Prepositional Genitive is used:

When the possessor is a thing or a small animal:

The furniture of this school has been totally changed.

The wings of butterflies are covered with a fine powder.

In the case of compound geographical names:

The United States of America is situated in the North American continent.

The Strait of Bering divides Asia from North America.

After the noun month followed by its name and after the ordinal numbers when a specific date is mentioned:

The month of February is the shortest of the year.

The 31st of December is the last day of the year.

When the possessor is a adjectival noun:

Both the local and the central authorities are responsible for the protection of the disabled.

When the noun designating the possessor is followed by a long attribute or a preposition:

The eyes of the girl in blue are the same colour as her dress.

The eyes of the girl that is dancing with your cousin are the same colour as her dress.

After nouns derived from verbs.

Call me up whenever you are in need of help.

Disposable syringes have been invented in order that the transmission of infectious diseases be avoided.

I.4.13. The Dative

The dative case indicates indirect object. The dative cases’ s main function is to show the indirect object of a verb. E.g. the girl gave the book to the boy.

The dative answers the questions: to whom?, to what?, to which?

The indirect object of a sentence is the recipient of the direct object. We can find the direct object by finding the verb and asking “What?” or “Whom?”. Here are some examples of the dative case with an explanation of how to find the indirect object.

We gave a bone to our dog.

Step1. Find the verb = “gave”

Step 2. Ask “What?” = “a bone”

Step 3. Recipient? = “our dog”

Therefore, the direct object is a bone. The recipient of the direct object is our dog. The words our dogs are in the dative case.

Nouns and pronoun in the Dative case that have syntactic value of indirect object, can be used as:

a). After some nouns followed by preposition to : attitude to / towards, cruelty to, duty to, kindness to.

The villagers’ attitude to / towards the doctor changed after he had saved the child’s live.

b). After a noun followed by the preposition ‘like’, the indirect object is preceded by the preposition ‘to’, in order to express a comparison : like a father, like a child, like a doctor, like a prophet.

Her elder sister has been like a real mother to Rowena, since their mother died.

c). After some adjectives followed by preposition to : cruel, kind, faithful, grateful.

They say that life can be kind to some people and cruel to others.

d). After some adjectives expressing a comparison and which are followed by the preposition ‘to’, such as : adequate, corresponding, equivalent, inferior, proportionate, similar, superior:

I’m quite glad that your opinions are similar to my point of view.

Apposition of a noun in the Dative case, is in the Dative case as well.

You should mention to the history teacher, Mr. Peterson, what bibliography you have consulted for your paper.

I.4.14. The Accusative

The accusative case indicates direct object. The accusative case’s main function is to show the direct object of a verb. We can find the direct object by finding the verb and asking “What?” or “Whom?”. Here are some examples of the accusative case with an explanation of how to find the direct object.

The dog ate our turkey.

Step 1. Find the verb = “ate”

Step 2. Ask “ What?” = “our turkey”

Therefore, the direct object is our turkey. The words our turkey are in the accusative case.

The leopard chased him for an hour.

Step 1. Find the verb = “chased”

Step 2. Ask “What? or Whom?” = “him”

Therefore, the direct object is him. The pronoun him is in the accusative case. It has changed from he to him.

The nouns or pronouns in the Accusative Case can be preceded by a large number of prepositions and can have various syntactic values.

The well-known syntactic value of a noun or pronoun in the Accusative, is Direct Object but they can be other syntactic values such as:

Prepositional Object:

Let me have a glance through this magazine.

– question: Through what?

The nurse has to look after baby eight hours a day.

– question: After whom?

2. Apposition of a noun in the Accusative Case:

I talked with Mr. James Smith, the teacher, about my daughter’s latest school records.

Adverbial of:

time (How long ?) : I haven’t seen my favourite students for years.

place (Where ?) : We met in front of the cinema.

manner (How ?) : She spoke in a low voice .

Chapter Two

METHODS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING NOUNS

II.1. WHAT DOES LEARNING NOUNS INVOLVE?

Before planning the organization of our teaching, we need to have clear in our minds exactly what our subject-matter is: What sorts of things are included under the heading noun, and what is involved in a structure?

The sheer variety of all the different structures that may be labelled grammatical is enormous. Some have exact parallels in the native language and are easily mastered; others have no such parallels but are fairly simply in themselves; while yet others are totally alien and very difficult to grasp. Some have fairly simple forms, but it may be difficult to learn where to use them and where not others have relatively easy meanings, but very varied or difficult forms. Some involve single – word choices (a/an/some), others entire sentences (conditionals|).

When we teach any one of these types of structures, we are, or should be getting our students to learn quite a large number of different, though related, bits of knowledge and skills: how to recognize the examples of the structure when spoken, how to identify its written form, how to produce both its spoken and written form, how to understand its meaning in context, and produce meaningful sentences using it themselves. All these ‘bits’ may be presented in the form of a table thus:

ASPECTS OF THE TEACHING / LEARNING OF STRUCTURES

Some teachers, and / or the coursebooks they use, have a tendency to concentrate on some of these and neglect others: they may spend a lot of time on getting the forms right and neglect to give practice in using the structure to convey meanings: or they may focus on written exercises and fail to convey the oral aspects satisfactorily. It is important to keep a balance, taking into account, of course, the needs of the particular class being taught.

II.1.2. APPROACHES TO THE TEACHING OF NOUNS IN ENGLISH

In language teaching theory, a distinction is often made between teaching approaches and teaching methodologies. For ease of understanding, I will refer to all the following as methods. I have described the methods in chronological order, starting with traditional methods and moving towards more contemporary methods. It should not be assumed that the first ones I describe are the most prominent or ones I recommend.

1. Grammar translation method

This method was prevalent in schools throughout the beginning of the 20th century; its use continued long afterwards and many cultures still expect language to be taught using this method.

The method consists of studying written texts, translating them into the students’ own language and carrying out a study of grammar. There is little attention given to the use of the spoken language. Through this method the learner will be able to read and translate complicated texts but unable to buy a loaf of bread when I going on holiday.

It has been replaced by methods that focus on spoken language and it is advisable that learners should familiarize themselves with these newer methods and to use them. However, if you’re going to teach in a traditional culture that values the grammar-translation method, we could do the occasional activity of that type just out of respect for students’ preferences.

2. Audio-lingual method

This method grew out of behaviourist psychology. It involves providing a stimulus to which students respond; if the response is correct, the students are praised in order to reinforce the correct use of language and ultimately to reinforce learning. Language is presented in a very controlled way; i.e. one language point at a time is studied and worked on. Grammar explanations are kept to a minimum and progress is made through repetition.

In a typical lesson, the teacher might show pictures of people in various situations: for example 3 people with their possessions; one woman has got a big house, a beautiful car, etc; one man has a small house and an old car and one man has nothing.

The assumption is that the students know the words: house, car, some and any. The teacher shows a picture and says “she’s got a big house”, the teacher repeats the phrase and invites students to repeat. Students are praised if they get it correct. If they get it wrong, the teacher repeats and asks students to say it again. The teacher then moves onto the next picture and says, “ he’s got an old car” this is repeated by the teacher and then students are asked to repeat. The teacher continues with the third person and the phrase “he hasn’t got any money”. The teacher continues until all forms have been presented and practised. The teacher might then show pictures randomly (known as a prompt) and invite students to say what possessions the characters have got.

Oral prompts can also be given and students are invited to make sentences with the prompts. For example:

Teacher (T) says: she / big house

Students (Ss) say: she’s got a big house

T: he / old car

Ss: he’s got an old car

T: she / old car

Ss: she hasn’t got an old car

Such exercises are known as drills and are used to encourage automatic use of language; i.e. students respond automatically without stopping to think about what they’re saying.

When students have mastered the structure (in the same lesson or in the following lesson) the teacher might present the question form by showing the picture of the woman and saying “big house; has she got a big house?”. The lesson will continue in the same way as above. This description of a lesson has been adapted from the course book “Streamlines”.

Lessons in this approach are very predictable but at lower levels they provide a familiar environment where students at least get the chance to produce the phrase orally and correctly. This method has been criticised for not being communicative; i.e. there is no real communication; there is no need to say ‘she’s got a big house; everybody can see she has!

3. Communicative approach

This approach developed out of a need to have students communicating for real. It is based on the theory that children acquire language rules by using language rather than through the study of nouns. It involves creating situations where the students have a genuine need to say something, just as children do. I’ll illustrate this by describing two approaches to the same activity.

Let’s say you’ve set up an activity where your students are planning a dinner party. They’ve decided what food to cook and serve and have the recipes as well as ingredients and quantities required. They’re about to go shopping and are writing up their shopping lists. We could give each student the list of ingredients and quantities and tell them to perform the following dialogue:

Ingredients and quantities:

1kg lamb

1 kg potatoes

500g tin of tomatoes

50g butter

500g apricots

1 pot of yoghurt

Conversation:

How much lamb do we need to buy?

1 kilo will be enough.

Do we need any butter?

Yes, 50g will be enough.

This will provide speaking practice but will not create a real need for communication; students already know what they need to buy from the shops because they all have the list.

If you prepare 2 lists – each contains all the ingredients needed but on one list the quantities for some items are noted and the other list contains the quantities needed for the remaining items. Thus:

List A List B

1kg lamb lamb

1 kg potatoes potatoes

500g tin of tomatoes tomatoes

Butter 50g butter

Apricots 500g apricots

Yoghurt 1 pot of yoghurt

You can now give list A to one student and list B to another student and instruct them to carry out the dialogue below in pairs:

How much lamb do we need to buy?

1 kilo will be enough.

Do we need any butter?

Yes, 50g will be enough.

There will be a real need for communication because the student with list A doesn’t know how much butter is required. Similarly, the student with list B doesn’t know how much lamb is needed. Such activities are called information gaps because there is a gap between the various bits of information the students have.

The communicative approach often refers to speaking activities, however the other skills can also be practised in a communicative way. The essential element is to ensure that there is a reason for carrying out the task other than just practicing language.

4. PPP

PPP stands for presentation, practice, and production. It is a fairly traditional way to structure a lesson that was popular throughout the 1980’s. It proved to be beneficial at lower levels and is still widely used today.

Presentation involves, as the name suggests, presenting a language point. This is usually done by the teacher. Presentation might be similar to the audio-lingual approach through the use of pictures and focused learning. It can also be achieved through explanation and demonstration. Practice refers to controlled practice; it involves students using the target language in a controlled way. This might involve drills, controlled written and speaking activities, and repetition. Production refers to freer practice; students use the target language in sentences of their own. They might also combine it with other language they know. It is not the same as free speaking practice. For example, after studying “have you ever” question forms to talk about experiences (e.g. have you ever been to Mexico? Have you ever eaten snails?) students work in pairs to ask each other about their own experiences. The structure “have you ever” will be the same throughout, but the vocabulary will vary. This is known as freer practice.

5. Task-based learning

In a task-based lesson, the teacher sets a task for students to do that involves the use of language not yet studied in class or language studied previously that the teacher wishes to revise. The language point chosen is known as target language. The task might be an activity from the course book that was intended as practice of a language point or an activity from a supplementary source. The teacher sets up the task and observes students as they get on with it. The teacher pays particular attention to the students’ performance with the target language. The teacher should note down errors but not correct them during the activity. For example in an exercise to check students’ knowledge of prepositions of time, the teacher might set up an activity which involves students deciding when and where to meet. While students are speaking, the teacher might note the use of prepositions (both good and poor use): on Monday, in the afternoon, at 5pm, etc.

Depending on how well (or how badly) students performed, the teacher will decide whether to conduct thorough presentation and practice of the language or whether to revise and practise it briefly. The decision is made according to performance on the task. This can then be followed up with a repetition of the original activity or one that is similar. You and your students can compare performance on the original and final task.

I am outlining the structure of a task-based lesson but I do not advise its use if you are very new to teaching. It requires thorough knowledge of the language point and an ability to handle unexpected questions about the language. You will need to know about it because some course books (e.g. Cutting Edge) follow this format. You can experiment with this approach when you are more experienced and with a language item you know well.

6. ESA

ESA stands for engage – study – activate. Let’s take a look at each individual component.

Engage involves getting the students’ attention or interest, getting them involved. You could achieve this through the use of a personal story told by the teacher, a picture that stimulates discussion or anything else that awakens students’ interest. The idea is that if students are involved or engaged, they are more open to the learning process.

Study as the name suggests involves focus on a language point. This could be grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation or how a written text is organised. The possibilities are endless. It can involve the teacher explaining or students working out the rules for themselves using examples as a basis.

Activating involves having students use the language, preferably in a realistic context that is as close to real life as possible. Try to incorporate activities that have students using any language they know and not just focused on one structure (controlled language use).

We can use all three ESA stages in one lesson but not necessarily in that order. We could engage the students, then activate language through a speaking activity and then study language difficulties arising from the activity. We might also have a lesson devoted wholly to the skill of speaking; in which case students would be engaged and language activated. Language study could take place in the previous lesson.

I particularly like this method because it highlights the necessity of engaging students in what they are doing.

7. Humanistic

The involvement of the whole person in the learning experience is central to the humanistic approach. A supportive atmosphere is encouraged in the classroom where students are listened to, their comments accepted without judgement and they are encouraged to share their feelings and experiences. Activities are used that involve students talking about their feelings and experiences. Students may be involved in fixing the aims for the course or for one lesson. A teacher may enter the classroom with no plan and just ask students what they want to do that day and the teacher goes with the flow (maybe not an approach to be adopted by a very new teacher). I think care is needed in this type of approach; some people or some cultures might be uncomfortable unveiling their feelings in front of people they might not know well. However, I fully agree with the advantages of creating a supportive, non-judgemental learning environment.

8. Lexical approach

The underlying principle of this method is that grammar and vocabulary cannot be strictly divided as is often the case in traditional teaching methods. A further notion is that language is made up of lexical items using grammar to support them rather than being made up of grammatical structures incorporating lexis. Lexical items are words or chunks of words, which have their own meaning. For example, the following combinations of words have different meanings to the individual elements that make them up: by the way, look into, video recorder. Longer structures are also considered to be lexical items, e.g. I just wanted to say that….

The theory is that we learn a language by learning lexical items and not by learning grammar. Accordingly, the main focus of the work is lexical items rather than syntax or grammatical rules. Critics have said that it is difficult to know in which order lexical items should be taught. Proponents of this method counter this by saying that the syllabus is organised according to collocation. Collocation refers to words that are frequently used together, e.g. make a phone call, make an appointment, heavy rain, by accident.

A further principle of this method is to teach through: observation, hypothesis and experimentation. The observe phase involves being exposed to language, for example a text to be read. Students are encouraged to deduce the meaning of unknown language (this will be covered in Chapter 3), this phase is known as hypothesis. The experiment phase involves using the language.

9. A final word on teaching methods

Of course there are other approaches to teaching, however, the above are the main ones you should be aware of. I suggest you look at any course book you’re about to use and see whether it favours one of the approaches above. You will find that after some time teaching, you will have a preference for one (or more) approach over the others. You might also find that different approaches work well with different students and with different levels. Don’t worry too much about methodology at the beginning; just do what feels right to you and what you see produces results in your classes.

II. 1.3 BASIC PRINCIPLES FOR NOUNS TEACHING.

The E-Factor: Efficiency = economy, ease, and efficacy

Given that dealing with noun is only a part of a teacher’s activities, and given that classroom time is very limited, it would seem imperative that whatever noun teaching is done as efficiently as possible. If, as has been suggested, the teacher’s energies should be at least partly directed at getting learners to communicate, prolonged attention to grammar is difficult to justify. Likewise, if a grammar activity requires a great deal of time to set up or a lot of materials, is it the most efficient deployment of the teacher’s limited time, energy and resources? When considering an activity for the presentation or practice of grammar the first question to ask, is: How efficient is it? Efficiency, in turn, can be broken down into three factors economy, ease, and efficacy.

When presenting nouns, a sound rule of thumb is: the shorter the better. It has been shown that economy is a key factor in the training of technical skills: when learning how to drive a car or operate a computer, a little prior teaching seems to be more effective than a lot. The more the instructor piles on instructions, the more confused the trainee is likely to become. The same would seem to apply in language teaching: be economical.

Teachers should be economical, too, in terms of planning and resources. The ease factor recognizes the fact that most teachers lead busy lives, have many classes, and simply cannot afford to sacrifice valuable free time preparing elaborate classroom materials. Of course, the investment of time and energy in the preparation of materials is often accompanied by a commitment on the part of the teachers to making them work. But, realistically, painstaking preparation is not always going to be possible. Generally speaking, the easier an activity is to set up, the better it is.

Finally, and most importantly: will it work ? That is to say, what is its efficacy? This factor is the least easy to evaluate. We have to operate more on hunch than on hard data. Learning, like language, resists measurement. Of course, there are tests, and these can provide feedback to the teacher on the efficacy of the teaching/learning process. Nevertheless, testing is notoriously problematic. Moreover, there is much greater skepticism nowadays as to the extent that teaching causes learning. This need not undermine our faith in the classroom as a good place for language learning. We now know a lot more about what constitute the best conditions for learning. If teachers can’t directly cause learning, they can at least provide the optimal conditions for it.

As we have seen, a prerequisite for learning is attention. So the efficacy of a grammar activity can be partly measured by the degree of attention it arouses. This means trying to exclude from the focus of the learner’s attention any distracting or irrelevant details. Attention without understanding, however, is probably a waste of time, so efficacy will in part depend on the amount and quality of contextual information, explanation and checking. Finally, understanding without memory would seem to be equally ineffective, and so the efficacy of a presentation will also depend on how memorable it is.

The A-factor: Appropriacy

No class of learners is the same: not only are their needs, interests, level and goals going to vary, but their beliefs, attitudes and values will be different too. Thus, an activity that works for one group of learners – i.e. that fulfills the E-factor criteria – is not necessarily going to work for another. It may simply not be appropriate. Hence, any classroom activity must be evaluated not only according to criteria of efficiency, but also of appropriancy. Factors to consider when determining appropiancy include:

the age of the learners

their level

the size of the group

the constitution of the group, e.g. monolingual or multilingual

what their needs are, e.g. to pass a public examination

the learners’ interests

the available materials and resources

the learners’ previous learning experience and hence present expectations

any cultural factors that might affect attitudes, e.g. their perception of the role and status of the teacher

the educational context, e.g. private school or state school, at home or abroad

Activities that fail to take the above factors into account are unlikely to work. The age of the learners is very important. Research suggests that children are more disposed to language learning activities that incline towards acquisition rather than towards learning. That is, they are better at picking up language implicitly, rather than learning it as a system of explicit rules. Adult learners, on the other hand, my do better at activities which involve analysis and memorisation.

Cultural factors, too, will determine the success of classroom activities. Recently there have been a number of writers who have queried the appropriacy of indiscriminately and uncritically applying methodologies in context for which they never designed. Communicative Language Teaching (CTL) has ben a particular target of these criticism. CLT values, among other things, learner-centredness, that is, giving the learners more responsibility and involvement in the learning process. This is often achieved through discovery learning activities (for example, where learners work out rules themselves) and through group work as opposed to the traditional teacher-fronted lesson. CTL also takes a relatively relaxed attitude towards accuracy, in the belief that meaning takes precedence over form. Finally, CLT has inherited the humanist view that language is an expression of personal meaning, rather than an expression of a common culture. Such notions, it is argued, derive from very Western beliefs about education and language. Its critics argue that CLT is an inappropriate methodology in those cultural contexts where the teacher is regarded as a fount of wisdom, and where accuracy is valued more highly than fluency.

Of course, no learning situation is static, and, with the right combination of consultation, negotiation, and learner training, even the most entrenched attitudes are susceptible to change. The teacher is therefore encouraged to be moth adventurous as well as critical, when considering the activities involved en teaching nouns.

Overt Nouns Instruction

This technique focuses on rules, explanations and instructions given to the students upon different language forms. The goal is for students to acquire grammatical competence by following the set of the target language rules. It is a formal instruction that learners follow in order to attain accuracy. This technique enables students to understand and assimilate noun structure in a foreign language. Students should be provided with accurate and appropriate examples. The examples should be related to particular topics so that students would be able to make the connection between grammar and vocabulary.

Relevance of Noun Instruction

This issue relates to the Communicative Approach which focuses on language functions, not language as a set of rules. The activities are centered on learners’ ability to use language to communicate, to produce and understand sentences that are appropriate to a particular situation. Thus, learning nouns mean focus on the language of which grammar is a part. It does not mean learning by heart rules and applying them, but acquiring a language structure that is particular to a certain situation.

Error Correction

When it comes to this issue, teachers need to be careful not to focus on error correction to the detriment of communication, as this will “shake” the students' confidence in their ability to use the language, and will probably determine students not to communicate any more for fear they will make mistakes. Thus they will focus more on the grammatical structures and not on the content of their communication; and this does not achieve a communicative purpose. There is disagreement among teachers about what, when, and how to correct, although error correction needs to be done in order to improve language acquisition. However, teachers can help their students by using error correction when students are doing activities that focus on development of new language skills but not when they are engaged in communicative activities.

II.2. HOW TO TEACH NOUNS

II. 2.1.TEACHING NOUNS INDUCTIVELY VS. DEDUCTIVELY.

There are two main approaches to teaching nouns. These are the deductive and the inductive approach.

A deductive approach is when the rule is presented and the language is produced based on the rule. (The teacher gives the rule.)

An inductive approach is when the rule is inferred through some form of guided discovery. (The teacher gives the students a means to discover the rule for themselves.)

In other words, the former is more teacher centred and the latter more learner centred. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. In my own experience, the deductive approach is undoubtedly time saving and allows more time for practising the language items thus making it an effective approach with lower level students. The inductive approach, on the other hand, is often more beneficial to students who already have a base in the language as it encourages them to work things out for themselves based on their existing knowledge.

An inductive activity is one in which students infer the rule or generalization from a set of examples. In a deductive activity, on the other hand, the students are given the rule and they apply it to examples. For instance, when practicing an inductive approach to the mass / count noun distinction in English, students could be presented with a language sample, such as a grocery advertising circular. They then would be encouraged to make their own observations about the form of mass and count nouns. The teacher might summarize by generalizing about the two categories of nouns. If practicing a deductive approach, the teacher would present the generalization and then ask students to apply it to the language sample.

As we see, if a teacher has chosen an inductive approach in a give lesson, a further option exists – whether or not to give or have students articulate an explicit rule. Earlier, we stated that equating the teaching of nouns with the provision of explicit rules was an unduly limited view of what it means to teach nouns. We said this because what we are trying to bring about in the learner is linguistic behavior that conforms to the rules, not knowledge of the rules themselves. Having said this, we see no reason to avoid giving explicit rules as a means to this end, except perhaps if one is working with young children. Usually students request rules and report that they find them helpful. Moreover, stating a rule explicitly can often bring about linguistic insights in a more efficacious manner, as long as the rules is not oversimplified or so metalinguistically obtuse that students must struggle harder to understand the rule than to apply it implicitly (Robinson 1966).

Returning now to the inductive versus deductive question, we again find that the choice is not one resolvable with an either / or approach. There are many times when an inductive approach such as using a consciousness-raising task is desirable because by using such an approach one is nurturing within the students a way of thinking, through which they can arrive at their own generalization. In addition, an inductive approach allows teachers to assess what the students already know about a particular structure and to make any necessary adjustments in their lesson plan. Clearly, a teacher’s anticipation of where the challenge lies is not always borne out when he or she assesses students’ actual behavior.

Other times, when students have a particular cognitive style that is not well suited for language analysis or when a particular linguistic rule is rather convoluted, it may make more sense to present a noun structure deductively.

Deductive nouns or rule-driven teaching is based on facts and statements and it focuses on the learners’ logic. It leads from an explicit presentation of a set of isolated language rules (together with model sentences), to their application to concrete L2 representations and practice tasks. That is, the learners are given the grammatical rule and they are supposed to apply the rule to new sentences. They are typically expected to memorise the rule. The advantages of this kind of teaching are:

It is time-saving, as it focuses on a specific grammar point;

It involves a cognitive process in language acquisition;

This type of teaching can be related to the traditional way of teaching.

Inductive nouns teaching or rule-discovery teaching is based on experiments. It rejects the idea of giving the learners a ready-made rule. The learners learn from discovering, from trying different things, from carefully selected intelligible linguistic data in context, usually in the form of a text illustrating the use of the particular noun structure. On the basis of the model they are supposed to formulate their own explanation of the rules governing the presented material. Through experimenting they figure out the grammatical rules all by themselves. The elicited students’ rules will then, if necessary, be corrected by the teacher, and the language structure practised.

Teaching nouns inductively is favourable to communicative acquisition and enables the learner acquire communicative competence. Learners need to know how to use language in context, when, where and how to use a grammatically correct sentence. An example could be:

how to ask for directions;

how to address people in different real –life situations;

how to respond to different requests, invitations, or apologies.

Discovery techniques can make nouns lessons enjoyable.

Whatever method for teaching nouns we ultimately choose, we should make sure we provide students with various practical classroom ideas and procedures. But keep in mind that students do best in classes wherein the teacher varies the approach in order to accommodate all learning styles.

II. 2.2. HOW TO TEACH NOUNS FROM RULES

Presentation, practice and production (PPP)

A deductive approach often fits into a lesson structure known as PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production). The teacher presents the target language and then gives students the opportunity to practise it through very controlled activities. The final stage of the lesson gives the students the opportunity to practise the target language in freer activities which bring in other language elements.

In a 45/ 50-minute lesson each stage would last approximately 15 minutes. This model works well as it can be used for most isolated grammatical items. It also allows the teacher to time each stage of the lesson fairly accurately and to anticipate and be prepared for the problems students may encounter. It is less workable at higher levels when students need to compare and contrast several grammatical items at the same time and when their linguistic abilities are far less uniform.

Presentation

In this stage the teacher presents the new language in a meaningful context. I find that building up stories on the board, using realia or flashcards and miming are fun ways to present the language.

For example, when presenting the possessive case, I often draw a picture / present the photo of a family tree.

I ask my students who certain people are and introduce the target language.
e.g. Tommy is Paul’s son.

I practise and drill the sentence orally before writing them on the blackboard / in their notebooks.

I then focus on form by asking the students questions. E.g Who is …….? Whose son / daughter is … ?

When I am satisfied that my students understand the form and the meaning, I move on to the practice stage of the lesson. During this stage of the lesson it is important to correct phonological and grammatical mistakes.

Practice

There are numerous activities which can be used for this stage including gap fill exercises, substitution drills, sentence transformations, split sentences, picture dictations, class questionnaires, reordering sentences and matching sentences to pictures.

It is important that the activities are fairly controlled at this stage as students have only just met the new language. Many students' books and workbooks have exercises and activities which can be used at this stage.

When teaching the possessive case, I would use split sentences as a controlled practice activity. I give students lots of sentence halves and in pairs they try and match the beginnings and ends of the sentences.
Example: "If I won the lottery," …. "I'd travel around the world."

I would then do a communicative follow up game like pelmanism or snap using the same sentence halves.

Production

Again there are numerous activities for this stage and what you choose will depend on the language you are teaching and on the level of your students. However, information gaps, role plays, interviews, simulations, find someone who, spot the differences between two pictures, picture cues, problem solving, personalisation activities and board games are all meaningful activities which give students the opportunity to practise the language more freely.

When teaching the 2nd conditional, I would try to personalise the lesson at this stage by giving students a list of question prompts to ask others in the class.
Example: do / if / win the lottery?

Although the questions are controlled the students are given the opportunity to answer more spontaneously using other language items and thus the activity becomes much less predictable.

It is important to monitor and make a note of any errors so that you can build in class feedback and error analysis at the end of the lesson.

Lewis 1997). Indeed, connectionist modeling has demonstrated that morphology (Ellis and Schmidt 1997) and syntax (MacWhinney 1997) acquisition may be accounted for by simple associative learning principles (N. Ellis 1998), rather than as a product of rule application.

Another challenge to equating the teaching of rules with the teaching of grammar comes from Larsen-Freeman's (2000a) suggestion that teachers concentrate on teaching "reasons, not rules." Larsen-Freeman points out that although rules don't allow for change, language is changing all the time. A consequence is that most rules have "exceptions." Furthermore, many rules appear arbitrary because they are form based, ignoring the meaning and use dimensions. For instance, rather than telling students they must use an indefinite noun phrase after the verb in a sentence beginning with existential there, There is a snowstorm coming. help them understand the reason: there introduces new information in the noun following the verb, and in English, new information is marked with indefinite determiners. This reason is broad based and explains a number of English word-order phenomena. While rules provide some security for learners, reasons give them a deeper understanding of the logic of English and help them make it their own. Besides, reasons are meaning based and use based and are in keeping with the more robust view of grammar we have been promoting in this chapter.

Tips for teaching nouns

Students should be aware of the fact that grammar affects meaning, so incorrect grammar can lead to confusion. To avoid such situations (as far as the students are concerned), a teacher needs to give clear examples and explanations, and must find a balance between accuracy and simplicity in examples, he or she must present a structure's form and meaning in a simple, accurate and helpful way.

Here are some tips you can follow when teaching grammar:

When teaching nouns, a teacher needs to take into consideration a bound between examples and form, meaning, and context;

Make sure you make use of the mother tongue while explaining;

Explanations must be simple and clear;

Provide students with plenty of examples of the grammatical structure;

Make sure the learners understand when and how to use the presented grammatical point;

Explanations must cover the majority of instances because students are sure to encounter exceptions along the way;

Give the learners the opportunities to compare the grammar point to the same grammar structure in their mother tongue;

Do not overdo the teaching of too many grammatical structures in one grammar lesson; it will be confusing for the students;

Give students the chance of practicing by “playing” with the sentences so they can get a feel for the language;

Language games can be fun and give students the opportunity to use a grammatical structure practically.

II.2.3. Methods, techniques and activities of teaching nouns.

Any generation about the “best” way to teach nouns what kinds of teaching procedures should be used and in what order will have to take into account both the wide range of knowledge and skills that need to be taught, and variety of different kinds of structures subsumed under the heading “grammar”. Thus the organization suggested here represents only a general framework into which a very wide variety of teaching techniques will four stages are suggested.

Presentation

Isolation and explanation

Practice

Test

Presentation

We usually begin by presenting the class with a text in which the grammatical structure appears. The aim of the presentation is to get the learners to perceive the structure –its form and meaning – in both speech and writing and to take it into short-term memory. Often a story or short dialogue is used which appears in written form in the textbook and is also read aloud by the teacher or students. As a follow-up, students may be asked to read aloud, repeat, produce from memory, or copy our instances of the use of the structure within the text. Where the structure is a very simple, easily, perceived one, the presentation ’text’ bay be no more than a sample sentence or two, which serves as a model for immediate practice.

Isolation and explanation

All this stage we move away from the context, and focus on the grammatical items themselves: what they sound and look like, what they mean, how they function –in short, what rules govern them. The objective is that the learners should understand these various aspects of the structure. In some classes we may need to make extensive use of students’ native language to explain, translate, make generalization.

In more academic classes, or where the structure is particularly difficult for students to grasp, this stage may take some time. However, where the students is very simply, or very close to a parallel in the native language, or when the students tend to learn the language intuitively rather than intellectually, it may take only a minute or so or be entirely omitted.

Practice

The practice stage consists of a series of exercises done both in the classroom and for home assignments, whose aim is to cause the learners to absorb the structure thoroughly or to put it another way, to transfer what they know from short term to long term memory. Obviously, not every grammar practice procedure can ‘cover’ all aspects of structure, therefore we shall need to use a series of varied exercises which will complement each other and together provide thorough coverage.

With a structure whose formal rules are difficult to grasp, we might start by devoting some time to manipulation of the written and spoken forms, without relating particularly to meaning. Such practice is usually given through exercises based on ‘discrete items’. Commonly found exercises of this type are:

Slot-fillers ( the learner inserts the appropriate item)

e.g. He is …..girl. I have ……..umbrella. ( a/an)

Answer: He is a girl. I have an umbrella.

Transformation ( the learner changes the structure in some prescribed manner)

e.g. This is a man. ( put into the plural)

Answer: They are men.

The function of such exercises is simply to help make the rules of form clearer and to ensure that they are learnt more thoroughly. A learner who has worked through a series of them may find it easier, eventually, to express him or herself correctly, in language that will be acceptable to a native speaker. But because they give no practice in making meanings with the structure these exercises have limited usefulness; so we should move on to meaning-based practice as soon as we feel our students have a fundamental grasp of rules of form and their application.

Another category of practice procedures still stresses the production or perception of correct forms, but involves meanings as well –though as yet unlinked to any general situational framework-and cannot be done without comprehension. Such exercises are again, usually based on discrete items, and tend not to be open-ended. Some examples:

Translation, to or from the native language.

Slot-filling, or multiple-choice, based on meaning.

All the (roofs, roves roovs) were covered with snow .

e.g. There are no certain …. that he is quiety

there are no certain proofs that he is quietly.

Matching : e.g. He an animal.

She is soldiers.

I are a woman.

The men am a student.

The dog a soldier.

Answers: He is a soldier, etc.

The language is still not being used to ‘do’ things, but merely to provide examples of itself (it is, in other words, not ‘communicative’) but at least the exercises cannot be done through mere technical manipulation. They are certainly more interesting to do than purely form-based ones and provide learning value.

The third, and probably most productive-certainly most interesting- type of exercise is that in which the stress is on the production or comprehension of meanings for some non-linguistic purpose, while keeping an eye, as it were, on he way the structures are being manipulated in the process. Such practice may be obtained through information- or opinion-gap communication techniques or through activities based on the production of entertaining ideas. For examples, the students might discuss or write about the possibilities arising out of a dilemma situation using the modals may, might, could, should etc.(see17.8 Dilemmas), or make up stories to practise the past tense (23.11 Cooperative story).

If all three of the type of practice exercises described here are in fact used, they are likely to come in the order they have been laid out here-though not always. We may in the course of a communicative activity find that the students are making consistent mistakes in a certain structure and decide to return temporarily to an exercise that focuses on correct forms. Or it may be found feasible in some cases to do only one kind of practice (usually the third, as described above), if the structure is very easily mastered.

Most coursebooks and grammar practice books provide plenty of examples of the first and second types.

Test

Learners do tests in order to demonstrate –to themselves and to the teacher –how well they have mastered the material they have been learning. The main objective of tests within a taught course is to provide feedback, without which neither teacher nor learner would be able to progress very far. We have to know where we are in order to know where to go next.

Formal examinations, usually preceded by revision on the part of the learners, and followed by written evaluation on the part of the teacher, are only one kind of testing, arguably the least useful for immediate teaching purpose. ( I do not give here a list of techniques that can or should be used for formal grammar testing, since the subject is outside my terms of reference.) most testing, however, is done automatically and almost unconsciously by teacher and learners as the course proceeds, the most valuable- though necessarily impressionistic – feedback on learning being supplied by the learners’ current performance in class and in home assignments. Often ’practice’ exercises are used to supply such informal feedback, In which case they may function virtually as tests: but if this aspect is stressed, their effectiveness as practice techniques is usually lessened.

Of the four stages in grammar teaching described above, the practice stage is, I think, the most important, in that it is through practice that the material is most thoroughly and permanently learnt. So let us consider next what a grammar practice techniques entails, and what makes it effective.

Practice

The practice stage comes after the initial presentation and explanation, when the learner is assumed to have perceived the material and taken it into short-term memory, but cannot be said to have really mastered it yet. Practice may be defined as any kind of engaging with the language on the part of the learner, usually under teacher supervision, whose primary objective is to consolidate learning. During the material is absorbed into long-term memory and the learner enabled to understand and produce examples of it with gradually lessening teacher support. A practice technique may involve reception – ‘passive’ exposure to spoken or written input – or ‘active’ production of language items and discourse.

What makes a language practice – or, more specifically, a grammar practice – or, more specifically, a grammar practice – procedure effective? There is, of course no one generalization that will answer this question, but some of the factors that definitely contribute to successful practice are the following:

Pre – learning

Volume and repetition

Success orientation

Heterogeneity

Teacher assistance

Interest

Pre-learning

Practice is the second or third stage in the process of learning a structure (as described in the previous chapter) – not the first. The function of a practice procedure is to familiarize learners with the material, not to introduce it; learners should not be asked to practise material they have not yet been taught. This sounds obvious, but it is surprising how often teachers do in fact launch into practice activities in the classroom without sufficient initial presentation of the material. If effective pre-learning has not taken place prior to the practice – that is to say, if the material has not been clearly perceived and taken into short-term memory by the learners – then much time will be wasted on incomprehension or unacceptable responses, forcing the teacher to interrupt the procedure for explanations and corrections, and lessening the time available for real practice. If there is virtually unlimited time available, of course, as in a ‘total immersion’ situation, this does not matter so much; the learners will gradually understand and absorb the material through the practice itself. But such is not the case in most language courses.

There are apparent exceptions to the principle of pre-learning: when, for example, you introduce a structure for the first time a brief sentence or two and then go straight into a perfectly well-functioning practice procedure. This happens where the structure’s form and meaning are very straightforward, or consist of a simple variation of something already learnt, and the learners grasp it after being exposed to only one or two examples. Pre-learning has, however, still taken place, though using a rapid and almost casual presentation appropriate to the simplicity of the structure.

Volume and repetition

By ‘volume’ I mean the sheer amount of (comprehensible) language that is spoken, heard, read or written in the course of the activity. Crudely speaking, the more language the learners are exposed to or produce, the more they are likely to learn: this means devoting plenty of time to practice sessions, and exploiting that time efficiently. When the material to be practised is non-specific, as in fluency exercise, this just means spending as much time as possible using the language in general (as distinct from talking about it). When, howefer, the material is specific, as in the learning of a grammatical structure, most of the volume should consist of repetition of the items to be learnt. In other words, we want to design procedures that eill induce the learners to engage with the items to be learnt as many times as possible. This does not mean mere mechanical reiteration of forms, but repeated reception and production, in speech and writing, of different examples of the structure’s form and meaning.

In a brief exercise where there is insufficient volume and repetition, the learners may provide you with some feedback on what they kow, or do not knou, but they will not get much opportunity to consolidate their learning. In other words, the procedure will probably function as an iformal test rather than as a practice.

In simple terms, the principle of repetition means that you have to get the learners to produce or perceive examples of the structure – say, sentences using the present perfect tense – over and over again. This would seem to be a perfect recipe for boredom. Howevwe, the two features of interest and repetition, tough not easily combined, are by no means mutually exclusive; and thinking of ways to achieve both of them simultaneously is perhaps the central challenge facing the teacher and materials writer in designing effective practice tchniques.

Success – orientation

Although it is certainly true that correction of mistakes does contribute towards learning (on a conscious, intellectual plane), the kind of thorough, semi-intuitive absorption material we are aiming for in language teaching can only be achieved if, after mistakes have been eliminated, learners have plenty of experience of ‘doing it right’. Thus practice in general is most effective if it is based on more or less successful performance, and practice activities should be designd and presented in such a way as to make it likely that learner responses will be acceptable.

Besides immediate efficiency of practice, this principle of success-orientation has wider pedagogical implications, no less important. A student whose performance is consistently successful wil develop a positive self-image as a language learner, whereas one who frequently fails will be discouraged and demotivated. It should also be noted that tension andc anxiety are fairly high if learners feel there is a possibility of ‘failure’ (that is, if they are in a sense of being tested), and are correspondingly lowered if they are confident of success. Thus, success-orientation contributes significantly to a positive classroom climate of relaxation, confidense and motivation.

On the other hand, the fact that there is not risk of failure in producing acceptable language lessens the challenge of the activity for some participants, so we have to find ather ways of making it interesting.

Heterogeneity

A ‘heterogeneous’ exercise, as I am using the term here, is one which may be done at various different levels. Because most (all) classes are in fact composed of mixe-ability groups, a ‘homogeneous’ exercise cannot possibly provide effective practice for all the students: it will be too difficult for the weaker ones, and/or lacking in volume and challenge for the stronger. It is, however, possible – and desirable – to design practice tasks that can be interpreted and performed at whatever level the individual student feels appropriate, so that some will be able to do more than others – in terms of both quality and quantity.

An example of an exercise lacking heterogeneity is one based on multiple-choince questions; for example:

All of a sudden there was a loud … of thunder and it started to rain.

flash b) drop c) clop d) piece

Such an item can only be done by students above a certain level of proficiency, but on the other hand gives no opportunity for the really advanced ones to exercise their capabilities. An example of a heterogeneus task might be to give an initial sentence model, and ask students to contribute further axamples. For instance: There was a clap of thunder what nouns can you use with the other alternatives.

An exercise which is not heterogeneous will provide you with more realiable feedback on on learner performance, because the task is standardized and it is possible to assess the relative acceptability of different learner responses. But if this aspect is seen as a major objective, then the procedure is probacly being used as an informal test, and is likely to be less effective as practice.

The use of heterogeneous exercises not only ensures that a higher proportion of the class get learning value out of the practice; it also, like success-orientation, has a positive effect on lerner attitude abd motivation. Response at many different levels can be ‘right’, hence these exercises provide an opportunity for the teacher to give slower or less confident students the approval and encouragenment they need.

Teacher assistance

Having presented the practice task, we then need to make sure that our students do in fact perform it successfully, and fairlybbriskly (to get through as much volume of language as possible and to maintain interst). There should be very little correction of mistakes if there has been proper pre-learning, and if the exercices is really success-oriented. Teacher activity in the course of the practice should therefore be largely directed towards supporting and assisting the students in their production of accepptable responses rather than towards assessing and correcting. Examples of such assistence are: simply giving extra time to reread or think; repeating or simplifyng a text; approving the beginning of an utterance in order to encourage production of the whole; suggestions, hits, prompts. All this means that we have to be very alert to sense when and where help is needed and what form it should take. Again, there is a eider ‘message’: I, the teacher, am here to help you, the learner, succed and progress in your learning, not to judge, scold or make you feel inferior.

It may be argued that if we constantly help our students to get it right, we will never know if they can manage by themserves or not. Part of the answer to this is, of cours, that we should be sensitive enough to feel ehen they are going to be able to produce acceptable utterances on their own, and not rush in to help unnecessarily. If, on the other hand, we let them get it wrong and then correct, there wil have been virtually no practice: only a brief (failed) test, followed by representation of the correct form.

Interest

Interst in language-practice procedures may derive to some extend from extrinsic motivation: for instance, a student may be motivated to take part and succed in exercises if by doing so he or she may earn class ‘credit point’ or ‘starts’, or if he or she badly needs to know the language for promotion at work. But such factors are based on success or failure in test-like procedures and therefore do not operate well in success-oriented practice; and they are often completely beyond our control and unpredictable (like ow much the learner needs to know the language forvcarrer purposes). Thus, in most practice activities, motivation has to derive rather from the intrinsic interest of the activity itself: its (non-linguistic) topic and the task to be done. If, the class is interested in what it is doing, its members will not only learn more efficiently, they are also likely to enjoy the process and to want to continue.

Effective practice procedures, then, are usually characterized by the features of pre-learning, volume and repetition, success-orientation, heterogeneity, teacher assistance and interest. Any one particular exercise may of cours lack one or more of these and still be effective in gamming specific objectives; but if too many of them are absent, the exercise is likely to become a virtual test, and provide little learning value.

Unfortunetely, ‘virtual test’ procedures are extremely common in the classroom – being much more convenient to design and administer than real practice ones – and teachers and coursebook authors are often unaware that they are testing more than teaching.

So far we have looked at topics connected with the place of grammar in language teaching and how it may, or should, be taught, and we have considered some aspects of language practice, within the context of grammar teaching, it now remains to turn to the third word in the title of this book and see how some of the theoretical ideas dealt with up to now can be applied in the design and presentation of classroom activities.

II. 2.4 ACTIVITIES AND TASKS

Teachers can also make grammatical structures salient through such communicative activities as analytical activities, describing pictures, playing games, problem solving, telling stories and demonstrations. The activities must, as Nunan(1989:36) points out, "require conclusion, and construct their own (grammatical) rules from instances and examples of language use".

Larsen-Freeman(1991) offers several communicative activities for teaching specific grammatical features which expose learners to grammatical structures in the context of meaningful communication or contextualized activities. Likewise, Celce-Murcia and Hilles(1988) suggest a variety of useful techniques for grammar instruction.

Developing Noun Activities

Usually, courses and textbooks are organized in a specified sequence of grammatical topics. When this is the case, classroom activities need to reflect the grammar point that is being introduced or reviewed. On the other hand, when a course curriculum is organized on a topic sequence, grammar structures will be studied as they come up.

For those courses that focus on grammatical forms in a specified sequence, teachers need to develop activities that relate form to meaning and use.

Describe noun structure, talking about form, meaning, and use, and give examples;

Ask students to practice the noun structure in communicative drills;

Involve students in communicative tasks, providing opportunities to use the grammar structure;

For those courses that follow a sequence of topics, teachers need to develop activities that relate different topics to meaning and form. Language structures should be shown in authentic contexts so that they will cater for the learners’ different needs. Such courses develop grammar in context, and probably the best way to do it is to get the students attention on a specific linguistic feature in a text that has been already processed (as far as meaning is concerned); this helps students understand and consolidate their knowledge of a foreign language. Teachers need to provide oral or written materials (audiotape, reading selection) that relate to the topic.

Review the noun structure, using examples from the materials;

Ask students to practice the noun structure in communicative drills keeping to the topic;

Ask students do a communicative task on the topic.

For example, students who intend to apply for a job will need to know how to answer certain questions in a job interview. Teachers can use audiotapes to simulate real situations; moreover, teachers need to teach the grammatical forms that typically occur in such situations; and then ask students to practice by asking and answering questions that relate to the topic.

In both cases, the key- word for the developed activities is practice. Students should do this in order to be able to use the language they have been exposed to, as the supreme goal is acquiring fluency.

However, teachers should keep in mind the three types of drills:

Mechanical drills – that focus on patterns or rules; they are not very useful as they do not resemble a real communication situation. Learners do not need to understand or communicate anything so such lessons are boring;

Meaningful drills – that focus on the correlation between form and meaning; from this point of view such drills can help students understand the grammar rules, but the impediment is that they have only one correct answer, so their resemblance to real communication is limited;

Communicative drills – that focus on the relationships among form, meaning, and use. In such drills students become aware of the mentioned relationship and develop their ability to use language for communicative purposes. Another advantage is that multiple correct responses are possible and students use the grammar point under consideration focusing on their own content and experience.

The paper does not set out to provide a comprehensive taxonomy of all the types of grammar exercises available to the teacher, but rather to suggest a number of interesting, game-like or communicative practice techniques that can be used to supplement those provided by regular coursebooks. In this chapter, we move on to a discussion of topics to do with the practical design of such techniques: the structure of the task on which they may be based; factors that contribute to interest; various useful models of learner activation.

The task

The task the learners are asked to do may be overtly language-based (‘Give me some examples of “yes/no” questions’) or apparently non-linguistic, producing use of the structure as a natural by-product (‘Guess what I’m thinking of’). The function of the task is simply to active the learners in such a way as to get them to engage with the material to be practiced. ‘Activating’ the learners, incidentally, or the phrase ‘active language use’, usually means actual production of instances of the structure on the part of the learners themselves – but not always: in many cases learners are rather perceiving, discriminating, understanding or interpreting – processes which also involve a high degree of mental ‘activity’.

The two essential characteristics of a good language – practice task are: a clear objective accompanied by the necessity for active language use.

a) CLEAR OBJECTIVE

The task objective may be language-based, in which case it may be generally defined as ‘getting the language right’. However, the objective ’getting the language right’ on its own often leads to the composition of rather boring, meaningless language-manipulation tasks, such as putting a series of sentences into the plural.

If the main objective, however, is to get some non-linguistic result the task is usually much more interesting and has more learning value – provided, of course, that achieving the objective involves using the grammar. This objective may be, for example, to solve a problem, to get someone to do something, to create some kind of pleasing composition, to explore a situation, to get to know one another.

In the most successful grammar exercises, the two kinds of objectives are combined, the non-linguistic one being the main motivating focus, while both teacher and students are aware of the ‘secondary’, linguistic one. You may say, for example: ‘I want you to guess what I’m thinking of –and use “yes/no” questions as you do so. ‘The amount of attention paid to each aspect varies: if students get involved in discussing personal feelings while describing past experiences, it obviously will be inappropriate to ask them to concentrate on using the past tense correctly; but if the objective is to produce or edit something for publication, correct usage will be stressed.

In any case, the objective should be a simple one that can be defined in a few words, so that students ate clear in their minds at all stages where they are going, and what the point is of what they are doing. It is very much easier to define an objective if there is a tangible result to be achieved: a list to be written out, a solution to be found and displayed, a story to be narrated, a picture to be drawn or marked. In such cases, we can explain the non-linguistic objective in terms of the end product(‘Find and write down the solution to this puzzle…’) rather than in terms of the process (‘Suggest some ways you might solve this…’).

b) ACTIVE LANGUAGE USE

The learners should be able to attain the objective only by an exertion of effort in some kind of active language use; though this, as noted above, may involve the s-called ‘passive’ skills, listening and reading. And this active language use should provide for repeated exposure to or production of the structure(s)being practiced. In order words, our task must provide for volume and repetition.

First we should make sure that the activity is in fact based mainly on using language and does not waste too much time on mime, artistic creation or silent brain-racking. This may sound obvious, but it is surprising how many otherwise excellent language-practice tasks fall into this trap. It is tempting to think that if students (particularly children) are happily absorbed in doing a task in an English lesson, they are therefore learning English – but it is not always so. They may, of course, be achieving other equally – or more – important educational objectives, for the sake of which we may opt, temporarily, to sacrifice language – learning efficiency. But in any case, we need to be aware of what is really going on to keep a careful eye on how much they are actually engaging with the language they are supposed to be practicing.

Second, we may need to put certain constraints on the process of achieving our task objective in order to make sure that maximum language use in fact takes place. For example, if you ask students to fill in information (using the right quantifiers) on an empty grid by referring to another, completed, grid, then they will simply copy out each bit of text into the appropriate square. If, however, you put them in pairs, where one student has one partially-filled grid and his or her partner the other, and they have to ask and answer in order to get the information, the amount of language used will be much more, and will include oral work and both interrogative and affirmative forms.

If we design our task in such a way that it has clear linguistic and non-linguistic objectives and obliges learners to engage repeatedly with the structure that is being learnt in the process of achieving them, then we have the basis for a good grammar practice activity. But it is only the basis. Learners may still not do it very well if they find it boring.

Interest

Learners may, as already noted, be motivated to participated in a learning exercise by extrinsic factors that have nothing to do with the nature of the activity itself – they may very much need to know the language, for example, or want to be approved of. But we are concerned here with intrinsic motivation: what kinds of features within the activity itself arouse learners’ interest and attention and make them want to take part in it?

a). TOPIC

The (non-linguistic) content of the activity is obviously a major factor in arousing – or deadening! – learner interest. The importance of the topic as a focus varies: if the activity is a discussion or essay on a controversial subject, then obviously the topic must be one that holds the learners’ attention; but if the activity is a game-like one where the emphasis is on problem-solving or creating amusing juxtapositions – as in an exercise like 17.3 Desert island equipment – then the subject matter becomes relatively unimportant, and the task itself is what provides the interest.

There is no single ‘recipe’ for the selection of subjects that will arouse learner interest, but it may help to ask yourself the following questions: is my topic something my students can relate to because they know something about it and it arouses definite positive or negative reactions? Or alternatively, something they would like to find out more about, and can do so through participating in the task? Is it something which stimulates their imagination or curiosity? Or something they already familiar or personally involved with and would like to discuss or tell other about? It is something I am interested in and can communicate my enthusiasm about to the class?

A more reliable piece of advice is: vary! A common reason for the dryness of many language textbooks is the lack of variety of their subject matter. They tend to concentrate only on anecdote, or only on the domestic doings of a set of characters, or only on informational news-paper articles, for example, and fail to cover a sufficiently wide range of subject matter. The same is true of teachers: many of us get into the rut of certain types of subjects, and neglect to change them. Not only does a frequent change of topic in itself help to maintain attention and interest in the classroom, it also makes it more likely that sooner or later every student may get to something that interests him or her.

A good range of subject matter on which to base grammar practice might include the following types:

Factual information on topics of general interest: history, geography, psychology, politics, science, etc.

Controversial subjects of local or general interest

Personal viewpoints, experiences, feelings, tastes

Fiction: novels, short stories, anecdotes, folk tales

A musing or pleasing ideals as expressed in poetry, proverbs, quotations,

Entertainment: films, plays, television programmes

Personalities: locally known people, famous celebrities, imaginary characters

b). VISUAL FOCUS

It is very much easier to concentrate on thinking about something if you can see that something, or at least see some depicted or symbolic representation of it. Learners (particularly, but not only, younger ones) who are asked to discuss or listen to something without any visual focus often find their attention wandering. This is because sight is an extremely powerful and demanding sense: if you do not provide your students with something to look at, they will seek and find it

elsewhere, in objects that have nothing to do with the learning task and that may distract them. An exercise that uses both aural and visual cues is likely, therefore, to be more interesting that is only speech-based.

A written text may provide sufficient visual focus in itself; but accompanying graphic material often improves comprehension and performance if it helps to elucidate difficult content, adds meaning to a very short or boring text, or is used to compare and contrast (‘The text says she’s dancing but in the picture she’s sitting down’). Such naterial is usually in the form of a picture – a poster, a magazine cut-out, a slide or overhead transparency – but it may of course be a representation of the information being talked bout in brief notes or a diagram. You yourself are often an excellent visual aid, when using your own facial expression and physical movement to ilustrate a topic; so are your students and the classrom environment.

c). OPEN – ENDEDNESS

A task that is open-ended allows for lots of different learner responses during its performance, and is therefore conducive to the production of varied and original ideas.

Even if the basic structural framework of the response is prescribed in advance, learnes’ motivation to participate rises significantly if they are allowed to choose the actual ‘content’ words to use: the contributions, writen or spoken, become less predictable and more interesting. For example, supposing we want to practise the plural of nous, one technique is to ask the students to turn certain sentences from singular into plural. The result is boring because it is predictable and of a slightly uninteresting content. But if students are asked to describe certain pictures practising the singular and plural forms of nouns, the exercise becomes more interesting. True, it also means they have to find their own vocabulary: but usually they can manage with what they know; and you can always supply the occasional new word as needed.

However, it is not true to say that all closed-ended tasks are boring. When you want to driil certain patterns that the learners still have difficlty in producing on their own, there is a place for activities based on very controled responses; and these can be made more interesting by varying intonation, facial expression and gesture, by the use of visuals, or by introducing game-like featurs such as competition, time limits, role play and so on.

d). INFORMATION GAPS

The existense of information gaps should not be taken to be the sole criterion of genuine ‘communication’: there are many examples of language use that is obviously communicative in spite of theirabsence (greetings, for example, or joking repartee). But it is true that the transmission of new ideals from one participant to another does occur in most real-life language-based transactions; and when this factor is built into a classroom language learning task, the effect is to add a feeling of purpose, challenge and authenticity which improve learner interest.

For example, learnes are often asked to practise the interrogative by taking an answer and reconstructing the question; a useful exercise for sharpening awarenes of interrogative forms, but certainly not outstandingly interesting. If, however, students interrogate each other in order to get the necessary information to fill out a form (15.8 Filling in forms), then they are asking questions whosw answers they do not know in advance, but need in order to perform a task; and their interest in both question and answer is likely to be much greater.

A variation of the ‘information gap’ is the ‘opinion gap’, where the communication involves a transfer of ideals or opinions rather than facts. The interest generated by opinion-gap activities is similar to that of information-gap ones, but with the added feature of ‘personaliation’.

e). PERSONALIZATION

By personalization I mean the use of interaction based on the students’ personal experiences, opinions, ideas nd feelings.

Too many textbooks seem to see the learners merely as potential containers of knowledge, and neglect to relate to them as individual people. This expresses itself in exercises which ask them only to do things such as to express objective facts, or to manipulate texts about unknown characters, or to discuss issues that do not touch their (the students’) own lives, and in a lack of tasks demanding any kind of subjective judgement or individual variation. Fro the point of view of interest, to feelings is to deprive ourselves of an excellent source of interesting activities.

As an example of a non-personalized exercise, learners can be asked to practise present perfect forms by discussing how long something shown in a picture has gone on, or has been going on. This can be a useful, heterogeneous exercise providing plenty of use of the structure. But a much higher level of interest is likely to result if we ask students to talk about things they themselves have done or have been doing (as in 26.8 I have lived here for …). Their contributions are intresting not only because they are unpredictable and likely to be very varied and original, but also because there is an element of personal investment: the students are ‘giving’ of themsekves to each other. This not only raises the level of attention to what is said, it also tends to contribute to an atmosphere of warmth and friendliness within the class.

A word of caution, however: asking students to be very intimate or frank with one another can sometimes cause embarrassment or even distress; we have to be sensitive to their personalities and relationships, and not ask them to ‘give of themseves’ more than they feel comfortable doing.

f). PLEASURABLE TENSION

The reason why most games are interesting is that they provide their participants – and sometimes spectators – with a feeling of pleasurabble tension; and this feature can contribute also to the interest of language-practice activities.

The introduction of pleasurable tension, however, does not necessarily mean that the activity may be called a ‘game’. There is a fundamental difference between a true ‘game’, played for fun and recreation, and a ‘game-like’ language practice procedure which is a serious goal-oriented activity, performed primarily for the sake of its contribution to learning. The distinction is, it is true, largely one of pedagogical approach and presentation rather than of practical design; but it is, I feel, an educationally valid and significant one.

A grammar practice activity, then, should be presented to the class frankly as such, but may be made more enjoyable and interesting to do by the introduction of an element of tension associated with game-playing. Such tension is enjoyable because it is rooted in the drive to achieve some stimulating and clearly-defined objective, with the spice of uncertainty as to results, but without any threatening real-life consequences attending failure.

The factors which produce this kind of pleasurable tension are: the motivation to perform a clearly-defined, attainable but not too easy task; the added challenge caused by the introduction of extra constraints and rules, such as a time limit; the drive to compete with others (or with oneself, as in activities based on breaking one’s own previous record).

g) ENTERTAINMENT

Another source of interest is sheer entertainment:the reception or creation of ideas or graphic forms that are in some way aesthetically pleasing or amusing, or both. Listening to stories or songs of watching films or plays or television programmes can obviously give pleasure; perhaps more effective for our purposes are those activities where the entertainment is supplied by the students’ own contributions?

h) PLAY – ACTING

Learners often enjoy ‘being’ someone else, or being themselves in an imaginary situation. And a temporary departure from reality, incidentally, is not only a means of motivating learners to participate, it is also a very effective way of widening the range of language available for use: if the students are acting the roles of explorers in the jungle, or soldiers in an army, or young children arguing with adults, they will be able to use varieties of language not usually appropriate for learners in the classroom.

There is a difference between role-play, where each ststudent takes on a particular personality for an individual purpose, and simulation, where the entire group is taking through an imaginary situation as a social unit – though the two may,of course, be combined. Either may provide a framework for some excellent grammar practice, both controlled (15.1 Dialogues) and relatively free (20.6 Election campaign). Many information gap and opinion gap activities can function far more interestingly and effectively if given the added dimension of a simulated non-classroom situation. For example, exchanges bassed on giving and taking can be given the imaginary context of shopping (8.3 Shopping); or problem-solving can be made more immediate if the participants role-play the people involved (17.8 Dilemmas).

3. Learners activation

A well-designed grammar practice activity, then, should be based on a task has clear objectives and entails active use of the structure beingpractised; and it shouldmaintain learner interest and motivation through careful choice of topic, use of information-gap procedures, role-play, personalization, etc.

But much of the effect of all this may be lost on a large proportion of the class if we do not something to ensure maximum, balancedparticipation of its members.

The way learners are activated when performing an exercise, moreover, may affect not only the amount of participation, but also the level of motivation and involvement, and the learning value of the practice given, and here we are talking about reading, writing and listening as well as speaking. Some modes of activation are more and efficient appropriate and efficient than others for certain types or stages of practice.

In this section I shall describe the main techniqes of learners activation available to the teacher – some of which are rarely if ever used in many classrooms – and try to assess the advantages and disadvantages of each for various teaching situations or kinds of practice activities. The techniques are set our more or less in the order in which they are likely to be used in teaching. In the first two, which are based on language reception with little or no learner response, it is the teacher who does most, if not all, of the language production, and clearly controls what little learner activity there is. In one-to-one teacher – student exchanges –probably the most common form of classroom activation – the teacher will still dominant, but there is increasingly active participation on the part of the learners. This participation increases still further in brainstorming or ‘chain’ techniques; and in most form of pair or group work, nearly all the actual language production is the hands of the learners, the teacher merely providing instructions and materials and acting as monitor and helper.

a) RECEPTION WITH NO OVERT RESPONSE

Initial presentation of grammar is often done through showing learners the structures within a written or spoken context, without demandingfrom them any immediate response beyond general comprehension. This technique can be used also to provide some very useful practice at the early stages. Listening to or reading large amounts of ‘comprehensible input’ is a far from passive preocess and arguably one of the best ways of familiarizing learners with acceptable forms – certainly one of the most natural and simple. Its use is most affective in situations where the learners are young, or learn better through institution than through intellect, and where there is plenty of time available – as in a ‘total immersion’ type of course.

Texts used for simple exposure in this way should be selected or composed to present instances of the noun structure being learnt in as natural a context as possible: an advertisement, for example, is likely to produce instances of comparative and superlative adjectives.Such texts can later serve as models for compositions, or bases for interactive tasks.

However, silent listening or reading by students can be boring, especially if the topic is uninteresting; and it provides no opportunity for the teacher to monitor their learning: are they in fact engaging with the language or not? Sometimes you can tell simply through ‘body language’; but it is easier if they have to give some overt response.

RECEPTION WITH MINIMAL RESPONSE

As well as giving the teacher an opportunity to monitor their learning, the necessity to make responses helps learners to concentrate on the exercise as a whole, and focuses their attention on the particular points being taught.

In minimal-response activations the learners are given a written or spoken text – which may be an isolated sentence or a longer passage of discourse – and asked to react to some aspect of it by physical gesture, brief answers, or written symbol. Discrimination exercises, for example, where the learner picks out examples of specific items(5.1 Looking at advertisements) come under this category, as do those requiring brief physical or verbal responses to questions (11.1 Bingo, 12.1 Simon says)

But of course there is still no production by learners of the grammatical structure in full-sentence contexts.

TEACHER – STUDENT EXCHANGES

The most common kind of verbal interaction in the classroom is the teacher-student ‘Ping-Pong’ exchange: the teacher asks a question or elicits responses in some other way, a student responds, the teacher approves or correct and asks again, another student responds, and so on. The choral response – where two or more students answer together – is a variation of this, as are the ‘performances’, where students recite longer given texts or dialogues in response to teacher requests. Essentially, the teacher is the focus of attention, and is in full control of learner responses, largely able to determine what these will be, and in a position to monitor them.

This technique is most convenient to use at an early stage in practice when you wish to make sure that the learners are heaving and producing acceptable forms; but it has disadvantages. There is usually (except in the case of extended ‘performances’) a high proportion of teacher talk, hence relatively little language production by the learners; and the cues, since each demands only one response, tend to be geared to a single level, thus not providing very useful practice for very slow or very advanced members of the class. Since each exchange is ‘closed’ to participation by other members of the class, they often do not bother to listen to each other’s responses and another potential source of learning is lost.

The parallel in writing is the textbook exercise where the learner writes the answers to a series of questions or cues. Here, of course, there is no problem of activating only one student at a time, and these exercises, given as homework, can provide a useful controlled follow-up to a classroom exercise.

STUDENT – TEACHER EXCHANGES

There is also the possibility of a reverse ‘ping-pong’, where the student initiates the exchange, and the teacher responds. This is a useful technique which is rarely used – perhaps because teachers do not like to forgo the initiative! Its advantage is that while the teacher can still monitor learners’ utterances and provide good models of acceptable grammar, the learners themselves can decide on the content, and initiate their own ideas. Because of the originality of their contributions, students tend to listen to each other much more than in the conventional ‘ping-pong’ described above. This technique is particularly good for practicing interrogative forms (15.10 Preparing interviews).

BRAINSTORM

In a brainstorm, the students are given a single stimulus which serves as the cue for a large number of responses. The stimulus may be a question with plenty of possible answer (2.4 What do you do when..?); or a picture to be described, commented on or asked about (16.1 Describing pictures); or a phrase or brief text than can be expanded in different ways.

The advantages of this technique are that it provides a larger volume of productive language practice on the part of the learners relative to the contribution of the teacher, and that it allows students to compose utterances at levels convenient to them. It also encourages originality and humour, and many brainstorming activities produce interesting and amusing results.

However, the very openness of the exercise and the emphasis on learner initiative may sometimes confuse and embarrass students who are more used to being told exactly what to say. In such cases it is important to define very clearly the kind of response required, and use the more confident and imaginative students to provide some initial examples. Also, participants may not know the words they need to contribute new ideas: so you can either supply these as requested, or provide a ‘pool’ of useful words at the beginning. But as far as possible, learners should be encouraged to make do with what they know.

Brainstorms can be given as written work as well, in class or for homework assignments, or written and oral work can be combined, as when learners are asked first to note down all the ideas they can think of and then to share them.

CHAIN

As in a brainstorm, instruction and a initial cue are given by the teacher, resulting in a large number of responses by the learners. The difference is that whereas in a brainstorm all these responses relate to the original cue, in a chain only the first does, and thereafter each learner utterance is made in response to the one before. The simplest form of this is question-and-answer: A asks B a question, who answers and then asks C something, using the same, or a parallel, formula:

A: What do you have to buy?

B: I have to buy three bottles of lemonade. What about you ?

C: I have to buy two pots of strawberry yoghurt.

Like the brainstorm, this technique produced a high proportion of learner talk, while allowing the teacher to monitor. There is usually some flexibility of response, giving students a chance to express individuality (23.3 Chain story); but not always (11.3 Detectives). A variant is the ‘cumulative chain’, where each student has to repeat all the previous contributions, in order, before making his o her own addition (8.2 Piling up stores).

Even if the actual responses are fairly controlled in form, the interaction in general is more learner-cent red than in types previously mentioned; the student’ attention is on each other rather than on the teacher or the board.

In writing, the chain technique provides a legitimate framework for a favourite (but usually disapproved-of) student pastime: passing notes. Papers are passed from one student to the next, each one contributing a further step to the story, description, or whatever (23.11 Cooperative story). The advantage of the written chain is that the whole result – often entertaining or aesthetically pleasing – is available at the end for public gloating.

Up to now in all the types of interaction described, only one learner has been speaking at a time, allowing the teacher to monitor all utterances. However, if several interaction are being carried on simultaneously in class, the amount of productive practice carried on is greatly increased – at the expense, obviously, of direct teacher control of learner language. Thus, interaction of this type are useful when you are fairly confident that learners can produce acceptable of the structure without prompting – if they think about it – and you what to provide a large volume of practice that will make them more fluent in its use.

FLUID PAIRS

The basic idea for a transaction-based exchange between two students is provident by the teacher, often in the form of a prescribed dialogue. Each learner performs only one transaction with any one transaction with any one partner, and the goes on to do the same with another. For example, in a beginner class, the simple dialogue:

A: Do you have …?

B: yes, I do, here you are. / No, I’m sorry, I don’t have any.

is used by ‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’ in a shopping simulation , as the ‘buyers’ move around trying to acquire the different items on their lists (8.6 Shopping list).

If the information provided in the exchange is based on individual tastes or opinions, then the same question will produce different answers with different people, so there is some point in asking it again. Some activities, for example, are based on doing a mini-survey (14.2 Opinion questionnaire): learners go from one to another of their classmates to find out the answers to their questions.

The fluid-pair technique provides an extremely useful framework for repetition – with a communicative purpose – of set questions or exchanges.

SEMICONTROLLED SMALL GROUP TRANSACTIONS

The teacher provides a ‘skeleton’ dialogue, or idea for a conversation, which the learners perform in pairs or small groups. The language to be produced by students is semi-controlled: that is to say, they are told to make use of certain patterns or kinds of sentences – but the exact content is left up to them. Usually such transactions are based on an information–gap task. For example, students may give each other directions or commands (25.4 Describe and arrange) or convey or request specified information (19.6 Exam results). This too can be done in writing, again through passing notes or short letters in a kind of intimate, immediate correspondence (31.1 Written enquiries).

This is a very effective type of activation for students who are well on the way to mastering the structure.

FREE GROUP DISCUSSION

This is the least controlled form of interaction. The teacher gives a task, whose performance is likely to involve use of the grammatical structure being practiced, and simply lets the students get on with it, with minimum intervention. The size of the group transaction as described above – and may even be the full class. Sometimes students move from one kind of grouping to another within the same activity, as when a task done in small groups is later assessed in a full class discussion.

Because of the relative lack of teacher control over what is said, this model is best used at the stage where the learners can be relied upon to produce acceptable forms of the structure in prescribed or controlled contexts, and you want to give them experience in using it more naturally and spontaneously in their own self-initiated speech.

This is perhaps the most advanced type of communicative grammar practice: if the students succeed in using the structure correctly and appropriately in group discussions, you can be fairly sure that they have mastered it – at least in its spoken form.

The follow-up, or parallel, in writing – though lacking the element of interaction – is the free creative essay; again it is up to you to choose a topic and setting that will be likely to generate use of the structures being practiced. This brings us full circle back to the techniques described in the section, since the kids of texts presented to learners at the earliest stages of receptive practice are precisely those we may suggest they try to produce themselves at this, the most advanced level of language production.

Conclusion

When teaching nouns, there are several factors we need to take into consideration and the following are some of the questions we should ask ourselves:

How useful and relevant is the language?

What other language do my students need to know in order to learn the new structure effectively?

What problems might my students face when learning the new language?

How can I make the lesson fun, meaningful and memorable?

Although I try to only use English when teaching noun lesson, it is sometimes beneficial to the students to make a comparison to L1 in the presentation stage. This is particularly true in the case of more problematic grammatical structures which students are not able to transfer to their own language.

It is also important to note that using the PPP model does not necessarily exclude using a more inductive approach since some form of learner-centred guided discovery could be built into the presentation stage. When presenting the 2nd conditional I sometimes present the language in context and then give the students a worksheet with a series of analysis questions to do in pairs.

PPP is one model for planning a lesson. Other models include TTT (Test, Teach, Test), ARC (Authentic use, Restricted use, Clarification and focus) and ESA (Engage, Study, Activate). All models have their advantages and disadvantages and I, like many other teachers I know, use different models de pending on the lesson, class, level and learner styles.

II.2.5. EXAMPLES OF ACTIVITIES FOR TEACHING NOUNS OR NOUN RELATED GRAMMAR ISSUES

A sprinkling of people

GRAMMAR: Collective nouns

LEVEL: Upper intermediate to advanced

TIME: 50 minutes

MATERIALS: One copy of the Collective phrase questionnaire per student

In class

1 Tell the students you are going to dictate a list of phrases to them. Ask them to estimate and write down the number of individuals they would expect to find in each collective, e.g. 'a herd of elephants: 10-30'.

A clump of trees 1 a party of tourists 1 a gang of terrorists 1 a unit of freedom fighters 1 a fleet of ships I a spate of ruinours 1 a troop of monkeys 1 a gaggle of geese 1 a squadron of fighter planes 1 a clutch of eggs / a sea of faces 1 a pride of lions 1 a hail of bullets I a pack of wolves

1 a litter of kittens I a school of dolphins / a flight of steps.

2 Write up the words you reckon may have been misspelt. The students check the meanings with you.

3 Get estimates from round the class of the numbers in typical groups e.g. 'a clump of trees is a lot less than a little wood'.

4 Ask them to identify the five phrases that are least easy to translate into their mother tongue (a language like Greek has far fewer highly specific collective nouns than English). They compare phrases.

5 Explain that in English you sometimes have a choice of collective nouns.

Tell them you will read out pairs of phrases -they are to take down the one they prefer in each pair. Read each pair of phrases twice:

a flock of birds a flight of birds

a swarm of insects a colony of insects

a herd of goats a flock of goats

a troupe of actors a company of actors

a wad of banknotes a roll of banknotes

a pack of cards a deck of cards

a team of experts a panel of experts

a bunch of grapes a cluster of grapes

a sheaf of papers a bundle of papers

a crowd of reporters a gaggle of reporters

a gang of thieves a pack of thieves

GRAMMAR: Quantifiers

LEVEL: Elementary / intermediate

TIME: 20 – 30 minutes

MATERIALS: None

In class

1 Put these quantifiers up on the board:

loads and loads of students several students

a lot of students not many students

quite a few students few students

not all students one or two students

a good few students a few good students

some students too many students

Ask each student to write twelve sentences using each quantifier once

and making statements about the school, e.g. 'Some students have

brothers and sisters here.' 'Not many students have foreign parents.'

2 Put the students in groups of four or five and ask them to compare their statements.

Variation

Ask students to do the same exercise but to pick another group they belong to, not the school, e.g.:

their extended family

their mosque or church or temple

a sporting group they belong to

a political part / their class (rather than the whole school)

II.2.6. HOW TO TEACH NOUNS FROM EXAMPLES.

As we previously in this chapter there are basically two ways in which a learner can achieve understanding of a rule: the deductive (rule-driven) pathh and the inductive (ruele-discovery) path. In the former, the grammar rule is presented and the learner engages with it through the studyand manipulation of examples. In a inductive approach, on the other hand, without having met the the rule, the learner studies examples and from these examples derives an understanding of the rule. Both approaches can, of course, lead on to further practice of the rule until applying it becomes automatic.

The inductive rouse would seem, on the face of it, to be the way one’s first language is acquired simply through exposureto a massive amount of input the regularities and patterns of the language become evident, independent of concious study and explicit rule formulation. Induction, or learning through experience, is seen as the ‘natural’route to learning, and is strongly identified with methods of second language instruction that model themselves on first language acquisition, such as the Direct Method and the the Natural Approach. These experiential methods of introduction share a basic assumtion that language data (or input) is best processed inductively and without reccurse to translation. They differ in the position they take as to how best this input should be selected and organised. They also take different positions with regard to how and how often the teacher should intervene. At the non-intervention end of this spectrum is natural language acquisition-picking it up as you go along. After all, the most natural route to a second language bypasses the classroom altogether, and the best example of experimental learning is that of immersion in the foreign-language speaking community.

Induction, to work best , it seems, requires more than random exposure: it needs the intervention of either the syllabus designer, the materials writer, or the teacher, or all three. Designed to challenge the decidely unnatural and highly intellectual procedures of Grammar-Translation, the fundamental belief behind the Direct Method was that our first language is acquired through the process of forming associations between language and the real word.

Discovery learning involves cycles of trial and error, with guidance and feedback provided by the teacher. As an example, learners might be set this problem.

Study these two sets of sentences:

a) The matches are in the box.

The boxes are on the floor.

b) The pens are in the pencil case.

The pencils are in the glass.

They are then invited to form the plural of certain nouns:match, fox,girl, seal.

This is fairly straighforward. The next three items, however, challenge the learner to refine their initial hypotheses, since they are asked to make connections with other parts of speech.

Turn into the plural: This seal is hungry. / That match is made of gold. /This pen has a silver tip.

The principles of the guided discovery approach were originally intended for self-instruction as a part of the kind of programmes which were used in language laboratories. They werw soon adapted for classroom use, and coursebook promoting an inductive approach to language learning are now more or less standard. An example of an inductive presentation of the present simple for New Wave 1 (Longman 1988) is shown opposite.

Successfully inferring patterns and rules from the study of language data depends not on how the data is organised, but on the quality and quantity of the data itself. With the advent of large computerised databases of language (called corpora) the possibilities of an inductive approach have been amplified enormously. Not only do we have available a karger and more representative range of examples, but the pattern-seeking can be done more reliably and much, much more rapidly.

II. 2.7 HOW TO TEACH NOUNS THROUGH TEXTS.

We are all familiar with the experience of being asked the meaning of a word and having to reply But what’s the context? The very word can mean different things in different contexts, as these examples show:

What does this word mean?

Can I have a word with you?

I give you my word.

Word has it that they are getting married.

If you want help, just say the word.

How should I word this letter?

Language is context-sensitive. This means that, in the absence of context, it is very difficult to recover the intended meaning of a single word or phrase. This is true of word taken out of the context of sentences. It is also true of sentences taken out of the context of texts.

Although language has traditionally been analysed and taugh at the level of the sentence, real language use seldom consists of sentences in isolation, but of groups of but of groups of sentences (or, in the case of spoken language, groups of utterances) that form coherent texts. The term text will be used from now on to refer to both written and spoken English. Texts take many forms – postcards, novels, sermons, football commentarier, steet signs, jokes, and air safety instruction are just a few. In real life we generally experience texts in their entirety and in their contexts of use. That is to say, we experience the whole joke and we usually experience it in a situation where joking is appropriate. It is a feature of classrooms, however, that language becomes detached from both its c-text and its context of situation.

This is particularly the case with beginner or elementary learners, for whom a natural context might be difficult to understand. But, as we have seen, taking words, sentences and text out of context threarens their intelligibility. Taking individual grammar structures out of context is equally perilous. You might think you know what He’s playing tennis means, that is, he is doing it now, as I speak. But only one of the following examples is consistent with that interpretation:

‘Where’s Tony?’ ‘He’s playing tennis.’

He never wears his glasses when he’s playing tennis.

Tomorrow morning he’ll be in the office but in the afternoon he’s playing tennis.

He’s playing tennis a lot these days. Do you think he’s lost his job?

There’s this friend of mine,Tony. He’s playing tennis one day. Suddenly he getss this shooting pain in his chest …

What’s more, the decontextualising of grammar often results in practice exercises that are of doubtful value. For example:

1 Choose the correct form of the verb:

a Do you work / Are you working every weekend?

b ‘Cigarette?’ ‘No thanks, I’m not smoking/I don’t smoke.’

c ‘What do you eat/are you eating?’ ‘Cake’.

2 Which of these sentences are grammatically correct?

a I’m planning to go to India for my holidays.

b ‘The phone’s ringing!’ ‘I’m going to get it!’

c They will have a party next week.

d I’m tired. I think I’m going to bed.

There are at least teo implications to this text-level view of language. The first is that if learnes are going to be able to make sense of grammar, they will need to be exposed to it in its contexts of use, and, at the very least, this means in texts. Secondly, if learners are to achieve a functional command of a second language, they will need to be able to enderstand and produce not just isolated sentences, but whole tets in that language. But a text-based approach to grammar is not without its problems. These problems relate principally to the choice of texts. There are at least four possible sources of texts: the coursebook; authentic sources, such as newspapers, songs, literary texts, the Internet, etc; the teacher, and the students themselves.

Coursebook texts tend to be specially tailored for case of understanding and so as to display specific features of grammar. This often gives them a slightly unreal air, as in this example:

Advocates of authentic texts argue that not only are such specially written EFL texts uninteresting – and therefore unmotivating – but they misrepresent the way the language is used in real-live contexts. On the other hand, the problems associated with authentic tests cannot be wished away, cither, as any teacher who has attempted to use a dense newspaper article with low level students will have discovered. The linguistic load of unfamiliar vocabulary and syntactic complexity can make such texts impenetrable, and ultimately very demotivating.

A compromise position is to take authentic texts, and to simplify them in ways which retain their genuine flavor. This is the approach generally adopted by coursebook writers nowadays. Another alternative is to write classroom texts, but to make them more engaging than the example quoted above. In fact, with only the slightest change, the text about Mr West could be made somewhat more attention-grabbing:

One kind of authentic text – and ne that has been largely under-exploited in conventional classroom practice – is the teacher’s text. The teacher’s story, the teacher’s travel plans, the teacher’s New Year resolutions, are likely to be of much more interest to the students than those of a character in a coursebook. The teacher has the added advantage of being able to talk to students in language they can understand, and to monitor their understanding ‘on-line’.

And, finally, the students themselves are capable of producing text. The students’ texts may be the most effective, since there is evidence to support the view that the topics that learners raise in the classroom are more likely to be remembered than those introduced by either teachers or coursebooks.

No single method of grammar presentation is going to be appropriate for all grammar items, nor for all learners, nor for all learning contexts. A lot will also depend on the kind of practice opportunities that the teacher provides.

II.2.8 HOW TO TEST GRAMMAR NOUN.

That is, the individual component, of the learner’s knowledge (for example, irregular plural – mice, that, feet, children, geese, men, women, people) are tested using’ tasks such as gap fills.

By brushing the ……. Regularly she has good chances to become the next image of this toothpaste brand.

or multiple choice tasks:

here were too many …… waiting at the booking offices s that we gave up going to the theatre that evening. (peoples / people/ person / persons).

Test of this sort make up a significant of what passes as grammar testing – and, indeed, language testing generally – whether the purpose of the test is to place learners in the right class (placement tests), to test hoe they are getting on mid-course (progress tests), or to test how well they have done at the end (achievement tests). One of the attractions of these kids of test is that they are relatively easy to design and they are very easy to set and nark: they are practical. And, importantly, they meet learners’ expectation as to what a test should be like: they have what is called face validity. (If a test lacks face validity, i.e. if it isn’t recognisable as a test, students may under-perform or contest the results.) They also fulfill another criterion of test effectiveness in that they are reliable. That is, the results are consistent, regardless of who marks them, and the same students tend to get the same results on similar tests. They are also valid tests if all we want to test is the learner’s knowledge of a specific area. For example, a diagnostic test of specific grammar items may be helpful in planning the grammar component of a course for a particular group of learners. And taught an item of grammar it would make to test it before moving on to something new. For progress testing of grammar learning, therefore, discrete-item tests of grammar have a useful role to play. Apart from anything else, they will motivate learners to go back and review that they been studying. Finally, they have positive spin-off. That is to say, they can be used in class subsequently for reviewing specific areas of difficulty. This means that testing can be a learning experience as well.

As tests of overall language proficiency, however, such tests leave a lot to be desired. They do not really provide the kid of information necessary to make a rounded assessment of the learner’s abilities. For example, they do not give any information as to the learner’s ability to communicate, including how well the learner can cope in situations of real-life language use. While it is useful to know what the learner knows, to test only for knowledge (i.e. competence) without also testing the ability to use that knowledge is like setting a driving test that consists only of a written test of the Highway Code.

The language-testing equivalent of a valid driving test would need to show how well the learner can ‘drive’ in the language: it would need to be a performance test. What does this mean in practice? Does it mean that, if we want to test if a learner can order a meal, we send him to the nearest restaurant? Theoretically, yes, but in practice this would be far too impractical. As an alternative we might set up a situation in class – a role play – which involved ordering a meal. This is fine for testing a functional objective, like ordering a meal, but here we are concerned with grammar testing. How do you test, say possessive case in performance? One solution, perhaps, is to think of a situation which could be role-played in the classroom and which would require the use of this construction. As an example, two students could interview each other with a view to finding out about their family and house. It would be difficult to do this task without needing to use possessive case?

This sounds practical – just – but it is a far remove from the convenience of gap-fills and multiple choice. Performance testing is not as practical as competence testing. Nor is it as easy for examiners to agree on how to rate performance, hence it is less reliable. One particular advantage of performance testing, however, is that it reminds teachers that language teaching is more than simply teaching the grammar – it is also teaching the ability to use the grammar. From this point of view, performance testing has a useful backwash effect – that is to say, in preparing for this king of test, as much classroom time will be spent on communication as on grammar.

So, while there are very good reasons for incorporating performance tests into a teaching programme, there are also good – if more pragmatic – reason for sticking to discrete – item competence tests. Ideally, both kinds of test could be used, either in conjunction, or at different stages of the learning cycle. For example, a discrete-item test could be given immediately after the firs introduction of a new grammar item. Later, to test how well the learners have integrated the item and how readily and accurately they can use it, a performance test would be appropriate.

To sum up, then: there are six factors that need to be taken into account when assessing the value of a test:

Its practicality – how easy is it to set up, administer, and mark?

Its reliability – does it give consistent results, e.g. do the results tally with those of similar students, and when marked by different people?

Its validity – does it test what we want to test, and not something else?

Its face validity – do the students recognize it as fair test, and will they therefore perform to their ability?

Backwash – does it positively influence the teaching that will be done in preparation for it?

Spin-off-can the test be used subsequently for review and remedial reaching?

Where discrete-item tests lose points with regard to their overall validity, they are more reliable, practical and, from the student’s point of view, they look like tests. They can also be used afterwards for review purposes. Their backwash effect is less powerful that of performance tests, however.

Discussion and evaluation

Before discussing these individual tests, it may be helpful to re-define the E-factor (efficiency) and the A-factor (appropriacy) in the terminology associated with testing. The ease and economy factors are issues of practicality. The efficacy of a test relates to its reliability, validity, backwash effect and spin-off. The face validity of a test needs to be assessed in terms of the learners’ assessment of its appropriacy.

Cloze tests are effective at testing overall linguistic competence, but because they capture a wide variety of language items and therefore test a wide range of competences (grammar, vocabulary, and discourse) they seem to work better as placement tests, where an overall assessment of a learner’s competence is needed, than as progress tests where specific syllabus items are being targeted. For this reason, a ‘selective cloze’ is preferred for progress testing, where pre-selected items (such as all the prepositions, or all the past tense verbs) are gapped out.

Test: Testing nouns in an oral performane test

The kind of tests we have looked at so far have taken the close-up view, testing bits of grammar in isolation, without testing whether the students has integrated these isolated bits of knowlwdge into a functioning system. What do they really tell us a about what the learner can do? To return the driving analogy, this is like testing a driver solcly on the basis of their knowledge of he road rales.or, in terms of the familiar PPP model, it is like doing only controlled practice activities without doing production ones.

This suggests that, if discrette-item tests are modelled on practice activities, then performance tests could be modelled on the standard repertoire of classroom production acticities. In other words, role plays, simulation, discussions – esen informal chat – may provide useful test tasks. The main problem is in deciding the criteria of assessment and then in applying them.

The teacher has chosen an information gap task in order to simulate the conditions of autentic language use. The need to ‘cross the gap’ obliges the sudents to put their communicative resources to the test. One component of these resources is their ability to use the linguistic system (grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation) for communicative purposes. This type of test, then, has positive backwash effects, in that, in order to prepare for it, the students will need practice in interaction skills as well as in the grammar itself. It is also a valid test, in that, assuming the teacher’s overall teaching aim is to develop his students’ communicative competence, the test is consistent with the course objectives.

More problematic is the validity of the scoring system itself and particularly the weighting given to the dfferent categories. Does, for example, the equal distribution of marks dbetween fluency, complexity and accuracy truly reflect the balance of knowledge and skills required to do the task successfully? And is the distinction between accuracy and complexity a valid one?

Other problems raised by the scoring system relate to the issue of reliability. Are the categories sufficiently differentiated or to they overlap? Are more detailed dscriptions needed for each criterion? To what extent does a subjective, impressionistic element enter into the evaluation? Would two different scorers give the same or similar marks?

One way of improving the reliability of the test is to have different testers score a sample of the tests. Whew there is a marked difference in scores between testers, the criteria for assessment may need to be renegotiated.

The face validity of the test may also be questionable, especialy if students think that their performance is dependent on their partner’s. an alternative might be to do the task with the examiner, or, if available, anotger teacher, while the examiner listens. Finally, in terms of spin-off, there is not a lot the teacher can do with this kind of test afterwards in class, unless it has been recorded somehow.

Even if all these problems are ironed out, there is still the question of practicality. As was pointer out earlier, this kind pf test is much more doifficult to set up, administer and score than the discrete-item tests customarily used to test grammar knowledge.

Nevertheless, the fact that this kind of test is much more consistent with the objectives of a communicative teaching programme suggests that it is worth trying, at least from time to time, and especially when assessing a learner’s overall achievement at the end of a course. A sensible compromise might be to use oral performance tests in conjunction with discrete-item tests, rather than as an alternative.

Here is an example of a test I have used with my 8th grade students, after a series of lessons focused on the noun and its categories.

THE NOUN

TEST PAPER

Class : 8th grade

Level: Intermediate

No. of students : 23

The present test paper has been designed to revise some pieces of knowledge regarding the noun. They refer to the types of noun, the plural, gender and case. Four out of five items are of an objective type – in order to be corrected easily and taking into account the fact that these students have recently started dealing with writing tasks. That is why I have insisted on grammar, as I have explained certain grammar issues related with the nouns. The last exercise is a semi-objective item and deals with the revised grammar issues. They should pay attention at the types of nouns and the way the possessive case is formed.

Objectives:

O1: to choose the best noun form so as to fit the context

O2: to group / categorize the given nouns according to their –countable / uncountable

O3 : to provide the feminine form for certain male nouns

O4: to turn some sentences into singular or plural as appropriate and where possible

O5: to write the possessive case for certain nouns

O6: to make sentences using nouns or phrases taken from the previous exercises

Assumptions:

Students should know how to form the plural of the nouns, the gender and the case. They should also know the personal pronouns, the right form of the verb “ to be” and demonstratives.

Possible problems:

Students may make mistakes when choosing the right form of the noun with irregular plural or when deciding whether certain nouns are countable or uncountable, unlike in Romanian. There may also be mistakes when it comes to the Possessive case as they tend to use the Synthetical Possessive instead of Analytical Possessive.

TEST PAPER

I.Choose the best form that fits each context. Pay attention at the types of nouns, the plural forms, gender and case . (15 x 0.1=1.5p)

1. I can see three ………… working on the site.

a. mans b. men c. man

2. We did hope there wouldn’t be any …………….. in the forest.

a. wolfs b.wolves c. wolfes

3. She’s got the most beautiful ………………I’ve ever seen.

a. tooths b.teeths c.teeth

4. The ……………… our physician give have always been correct.

a. diagnosis b.diagnosses c.diagnoses

5. Can you lend me that ……..?

a. scissors b.scissor c. pair of scissors

6. The host and the ……………. welcomed their guests.

a. hostess b.hostrix c.hostine

7. After saving the boy, she was considered ……………… .

a. hero b.heroine c.heroes

8. There were five waiters and only one …….. in the restaurant.

a. waitress b waiteress c. waiter

9.The bride and the ………….. went to church for their wedding.

a. he-bride b. brider c.bridegroom

10. Both policemen and ……….. were called in for instruction.

a. woman-policeman b.policewomen c.policewoman

11.This child is my ……………… .

a. neighbours’ b.neighbourses c. neighbours

12. This is my pen. …………….is over there.

a. That of George b. The one of George c. George’s

13. Where did you buy these delicious appples? At the ……….

a. green-grocer b.green-grocer’s c. green-grocers

14. Let’s accept …………… invitation and go to the party tonight.

a. Mr. and Mrs. Green’s b. Mr. and Mrs.’ Green c. Mr.’and Mrs. ‘ Green

15. It is ……… to Germany.

a. two days drive b. a drive of two days c. a two days’ drive

II. Decide whether the following nouns are countable or uncountable : (10 x0.1=1p)

rice

accommodation

3. stamp

4. hurniture

5. holiday

6. information

7. tooth

8. knowledge

9. homework

10. language

III. Give the feminine for the following male nouns. (10 x0.1=1p)

nephew

lion

hero

actor

emperor

king

stallion

gander

brother-in –law

waiter

IV. Put the sentences into singular or plural where possible: (10 x0.2=2p)

He is repairing the roof.

These geese live on the farm.

He bought a loaf of bread.

My watch is ten minutes fast.

His shirts are made of silk.

That businessman is known in our city.

The information we received was very valuable.

Tom and Gina like their nanny.

The child is naughty.

There is a church in their village.

V.Write the possessive for the following nouns. (10 x0.15=1.5p)

1. the jacket / button

2. the chalet / roof

3. the church / yard

4. my sister / fiancé

5. his parents / property

6. the people / lives

7. Jacob / factory

8. the country / government

9. the colour / sky

10. the butcher / sausages

VI. Make 8 sentences with some of the words and phrases in exercise II and V. (8×0.25=2p)

Testing is a headache- so much so that some teachers and institutions avoid it altogether. However, since tests are a recognized means of providing both teacher and learner with feedback on the teaching / learning process, and since they are a useful means of encouraging learners to review, they can have a positive influence on language learning.

So far, we have attempted to answer the question: How do you teach nouns? This has involved considering how learners learn nouns, how practice influences learning, and how learning is tested. On the way, we have looked at a range of presentation approaches, a range of practice and testing activities, and a range of ways of integrating grammar into the language lesson. Such a range, in fact, that the impression may have been given that “anything goes”. Teaching methods come and teaching methods go. And, quite often, they come round again. These shifts in fashion are often powered by dubious theoretical claims that seem to touch a common chord, but which have a shelf-life of a decade or so at best. Teachers’ intuitions, on the other hand, that are developed and fine-tuned by years of thoughtful classroom experience, tend to outlive these swings and pendulums. This is not meant to be an invitation to complacency. As professionals, language teachers have a duty to keep themselves abreast of developments in second language acquisition research, in applied linguistics, in educational theory and practice- both inside and outside the domain of language teaching- in fact in any field that has a bearing on language and on learning.

Chapter Three

ASSESSMENT OF NOUNS IN THE CLASSROOM

III.1. Assessing coursebooks: approaches to nouns.

General presentation

There are two elements in the process of learning and teaching and they are the learner and the teacher. The atmosphere and the relationship between these two is a Paramount. Good teachers never stop searching for materials that can help their students to achieve the goals of teaching, to improve their learning skills and ultimately, to strengthen the motivation of the pupils. A good textbook can be of great help and so can be other materials that can be products of either the teacher’s or learner’s creativity. The first material to be used is, of course, a course book. With the vast range of different titles offered by different publishing houses for different levels nowadays it is not an easy task for the teacher to choose the right title for the right group of learners useful when dealing with presenting grammar.

In the EFL classroom, materials, and for the purposes of this paper, I am referring to course books, are an important aspect of the curriculum. They are the most observable feature of a teacher’s methodology, and can contribute greatly to a course’s syllabus. O’Neill (1982) provides four justifications for the use of course books. Firstly, a large portion of a course book’s material can be suitable for students’ needs, even if not specifically designed for them. Secondly, course books allow the students to look ahead, or refresh themselves with past lessons. They remove the element of surprise in student’s expectations. Thirdly, course books have the practical aspect of providing material which is well-presented in inexpensive form. Finally, and I believe most importantly, well designed course books allow for improvisation and adaptation by the teacher, as well as empowering the students to create spontaneous interaction in the class. According to O’Neill, “Since language is an instrument for generating what people need and want to say spontaneously, a great deal must depend on spontaneous, creative interaction in the classroom.”(O’Neill 1982: 111). Course books should be accessible to a variety of students, regardless of their learning goals, as well as being adaptable to the diversity of teachers and teaching styles.

A well-designed course book which allows for adaptation and a certain degree of learner spontaneity is generally regarded as the most visible tool in the balanced teacher/learner relationship. At best they should provide only a framework for which this interaction and improvisation occurs. (O’Neill 1982, Cunningsworth 1995).

The aims of course books

As the aims of the course book should correspond as closely as possible to the teacher’s own methodology, it is of great importance that teachers evaluate course books in terms of their ability to realize these aims. Due to the recent growth of materials in the EFL publishing industry, guidelines are necessary to raise teachers’ awareness to various course book designs. Rather than criticizing instructors who are handcuffed to a certain text, relevant evaluation criteria should instruct teachers how to best select course books that fit their certain needs. (Garinger 2001).

Effective evaluation relies on asking appropriate questions and interpreting the answers to them. (Cunningsworth 1995). The creation of extensive evaluation checklists by leading experts provides criteria for detailed course book analysis.

Sheldon (1988) provides an expansive checklist of 53 questions classified under 17 major criteria, which appraises content factors such as accessibility, content, layout and authenticity. Because of the wide variety of ELT course books available, he advocates the use of evaluative measures, yet admits dissatisfaction with the “uneven quality” of these “evaluative tools,” stating the lack of any standardized global checklist or approach to materials analysis. Extensive checklists such as these, as well as others imply that designers are striving for comprehensiveness in evaluation procedures. Swales has criticized this inclination, claiming that the more questions one asks of a set of teaching materials, striving for some kind of intricate discovery, the more likely one is to be disappointed. Rather, teachers should look at the evaluation process from a more subjective view (Sheldon 1988, Cunningsworth 1995) realizing that any checklist requires adaptation before being submitted to the personal requirements of individual teachers. As Cunningsworth (1995: 5) states, the selection procedure is intended as a “framework, not a straitjacket,” and any procedure should be modified to suit personal circumstances. Similarly, Sheldon explains that, “course book assessment is fundamentally a subjective, rule-of-thumb activity, and that no neat formula, grid or system will ever provide a definite yardstick.” . McDonough and Shaw (1993) provide a flexible two-stage model for the comprehensive evaluation of course books. A brief external evaluation includes criteria which gives an overview of the organizational foundation of the course book, ‘as stated explicitly by the author/publisher’ through the cover, introduction and table of contents statements. Following this is an in-depth internal investigation of the course book, ‘to see how far the materials in question match up to what the author claims as well as to the six aims and objectives of a given teaching program.” (McDonough and Shaw 1993: 64). Unique in their coverage of criteria, their 22-point framework is designed both for teachers looking to select a course book, a predictive evaluation, as well as for those teachers looking to identify strengths and weaknesses in course books already used in their working context, a retrospective evaluation. Their model “distinguishes the purpose behind the evaluation- be it to keep up-to-date with current developments or to adopt/select materials for a given course.” For the purposes of this evaluation, I will follow the model provided by McDonough and Shaw, applying pertinent criteria to the course book used in my working context. The model’s procedural format and flexibility will allow me to fully assess the strengths and weaknesses of my materials. Furthermore, taking a retrospective approach to the evaluation will give me “insight into the organizational principles of the materials,” and thus highlight “realistic ways of adapting the materials to a particular group of learners.”

The books taken into consideration will be analysed based on principles drawn from recent studies dealing with the criteria concentrated on evaluating the material mainly from the learner's point of view as follows:

1. To what extent do the materials provide exposure to English in authentic use?

2. To what extent is the exposure to English in use likely to be meaningful to the target learners?

3. To what extent are the texts likely to interest the learners?

4. To what extent are the activities likely to provide achievable challenges to the learners?

5. To what extent are the activities likely to engage the learners affectively?

6. To what extent are the activities likely to engage the target learners cognitively?

7. To what extent do the activities provide opportunities for learners to make discoveries about how English is used?

8. To what extent do the activities provide opportunities for meaningful use of English?

9. To what extent do the materials provide opportunities for the learners to gain feedback on the effectiveness of their use of English?

10. To what extent are the materials likely to sustain positive impact?

11. To what extent do the materials help the learners to make use of the English-speaking environment outside the classroom?

12. To what extent do the materials help the learners to operate effectively in the English speaking environment outside the classroom?

To what extent do the materials treat English as an international language?

To what extent do the materials provide opportunities for cultural awareness?

The present study does not claim to provide an objective analysis of the books evaluated but rather to give a subjective but systematic impression of them, regarding certain aspects such as: methodology, syllabus, language skills, topics, cultural appropriacy and different resources.

Methodology. Do the methods respect the age and the level of my students? Is there a balance between accuracy and fluency exercises, between study and activation? Do the authors respect the natural approach towards language acquisition or do they just teach?

Syllabus. Does the book contain the topics of my students’ interest? Is there an expected logical sequence of topics? Do the units cover the expected amount of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation? Does the course book build in a feeling of progress?

Language skills. Are all skills in the course book covered in balance? Are there challenging activities offered? How many open-ended and close-ended tasks? How many writing as a means and writing as an end exercises? Do the texts offer natural spoken English? Is there chance enough to study and activate?

Topics. Topics are interdependent with the syllabus. Is there a variety of topics that are adequate to the level and interest of my students? Do the topics suit their age? Are they challenging enough? Do the topics integrate other subjects, too?

Cultural appropriacy. Are the texts in the course book plus the exercises appropriate for the learning of culture? Are there any multicultural items? Is the course book unprejudiced in the way it deals with different customs, ethnicities, races and sexes? Does the cultural view in the book enrich my students’ worldview?

Teacher’s guide. The teacher’s book should be a counsellor and the guide for the teacher. Does it have all the answers that teachers and students need? Will the book help me to answer my students’ curious questions? Does it provide differentiated activities for a heterogeneous class with slow and fast students of roughly different levels? Does it explain things clearly? Will the book help me with my lesson and syllabus planning? When looking at the author’s view on language and methodology, it is important to consider the relationship between the language, the learning process and the learner.

Approaching nouns as a key issue of the course books

The main approach to noun instruction, exploited in the books introduced in this chapter, is the inductive approach. In this approach learners’ focus moves from observation and noticing of patterns to broader generalizations and understanding of the use of the language; learners are asked to infer the rules from example texts, and, thus, they are the centre of the class and responsible for their own learning. The role of a teacher is therefore more facilitative than leading, more reactive than pre-emptive. The learner’s independence and ability to learn the use of the structure through practice of the language in context, and to realize the rules from the practical examples is respected, and the teacher is available when the learners need help to do this. Thus, the teacher’s role is to select texts, prepare exercises and give feedback in the form of error correction. The advantages of the inductive approach are inviting: first, students can focus on the use of the language without being held back by grammatical terminology and rules that can inhibit fluency, and second, it promotes increased student participation and practice of the target language in the classroom in meaningful contexts.

To give the learner an opportunity to analyse patterns and regularities that exist in real-life communication, most of the practical applications emphasize presenting grammar in context and using authentic or slightly adjusted written or spoken texts for grammar instruction. In all of these practical applications the classroom procedure has several steps: first, usually some warm-up, awareness-raising or discovery exercises to make the learner notice and understand the grammar point; then, in teaching nouns creatively the learner is allowed to experience a period of silence before putting the newly learned forms into use; next, a variety of practice and productive exercises follows; and finally, exercises to check whether the learner has understood the grammar point, discussion and/or a summary exercise to make sure the learning objectives have been met. During communicative exercises the teacher notes down errors and gives feedback and discusses them afterwards with students, now concentrating on form. Thus, language learning does not have to be dull; quite the contrary, using a wide range of techniques and strategies in teaching creates variation and provides learners with an opportunity to find learning exciting and to discover learning methods that are suitable for themselves. In addition, inductive activities engage learners with the learning process, and with time and practice they learn to refine and develop their own linguistic resources in relation to what they already know and to take responsibility of their further development. Finally, frequent exposure to authentic or slightly adapted spoken and written language data helps learners to notice regularities and patterns in natural contexts and to choose and use appropriate structures in real-life situations, which is the ultimate purpose of language learning. The current section has described the notion of noun and practical application of noun instruction in a selection of L1 grammar books and an effort is made to investigate how language teaching materials systematically deal with nouns issue under consideration i.e the noun and its categories and what kind of teaching and learning activities can be developed starting from the course books of the series taken as subject of the present analysis.

Each teaching material series consists of several items: a textbook and an accompanying exercise book for the pupil, a teacher’s material, aural material either downloadable on the net or on CD for both pupils and teachers, additional material on the net and so on. The textbooks and exercise books of each series will be used as primary sources of the present study, the supplementary materials will only be sporadically addressed if they provide some additional value.

Presentations of Nouns

The analysis of the presentations of nouns in the textbooks would allow the researcher to investigate whether the claims the authors made regarding grammatical awareness raising from both inductive and deductive approaches were valid. The nouns presentations were based on sentences extracted from the reading or listening texts which preceded grammar sections. Thus, learners were first provided with a holistic experience in which they could learn implicitly without focusing conscious attention on any particular feature of the experience, conforming to the principled approaches for EFL learning materials proposed by Tomlinson. The learners would revisit and reflect paying conscious attention to the grammatical features after the grammar presentation. In many occasions the learners were asked to derive the rules on their own by noticing features provided in examples, thus including inductive methods for nouns learning.

Meta-language activities in grammar awareness activities

As it was observed, learners were engaged in meta-language activities such as completion of a grammatical rule, choosing the correct explanation for the use of a grammatical feature or providing a short answer to a meta-language questions demonstrating their understanding of the use of the grammatical feature based on the examples provided in the book. The input of these activities included tables or timelines which were presented to the learners prior to the activities and contained sentences derived from the reading or listening texts. They had to read the sentences carefully and then try to derive the rule and complete the meta-language activities.

Task types in grammar sections

What was also observable was that the model Presentation-Practice-Production which was a traditional approach to teaching grammar was not followed in the book; the rules were not presented to complete the rule the students but rather discovered by the learners and there were very few activities following this consciousness raising awareness.

Most of the times, learners were involved in the productive skills in order to use the new grammatical phenomenon. These tasks though, were not communicative in nature, they did not have a real purpose and the data for consciousness raising tasks should be authentic, mostly oral and should involve learners in meaningful communication using grammar as the medium and not the goal. Some of the tasks included in the textbook did not focus on meaning but on form and failed to lead to real-world processes of language use. Finally, these tasks were very short and limited in the textbook and did not provide the time learners needed to internalize the new grammar, it was rather a mere exposure to these structures.

Discussion

Based on the results of our analysis, certain observations can be made regarding our research question: Do textbooks vary in the degree of students’ engagement in the process of grammar acquisition? In the following sections, each of the analysed categories will be discussed with regard to that question.

To start with, the results for the category explicit description showed that the course books of Snapshot series meant for secondary schools students present some grammar rules whereas the other two series (Set Sail and Fairyland) do not focus so much on rules but on the right form and the appropriate context. A reason may be the fact that young learners are not yet accustomed to the meta-language necessary to explain certain grammar issues. The presence or absence of explicit instruction is also related to deductive and inductive way of teaching. When teachers use deductive method of teaching, they first present the rules explicitly and then the learners practice and apply those new rules in various tasks. In the inductive way of teaching, however, learners are expected to abstract the rule on their own from the presented material.

Both ways of teaching have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, through deductive teaching, grammar rules can be presented in a clear and quick way, but this type of teaching might not be equally suited for young and adult learners because young learners may not be able to understand the grammar terminology. Inductive teaching, on the other hand, encourages learners to be more active in the learning process, rather than simply being passive recipients. However, inductive teaching can also be time-consuming, or the presented materials may lead the students to wrong conclusions about the specific rule.

If we apply this to our study, it can be concluded that, in the last series of textbooks (Snapshot) in which the explicit description is mostly not provided, pupils are more engaged in the process of grammar learning because they are required to think more about grammar rules before actually applying them. In contrast to this, in the first two textbooks where explicit instruction is prevalent, pupils are less engaged because grammar rules are first presented to them, and later practiced and applied.

Although the absence of explicit description might be an indication of a higher pupils’ engagement in grammar acquisition, we cannot know how each teacher actually chooses to present the grammar, i.e., whether they choose to follow the textbook or not. It can be observed that teachers could opt for the explicit grammar instruction even in those tasks where explicit instruction is not provided in textbooks.

Activities and tasks are designed for students to “practice information-gathering skills (listening and reading) in context… [and]… for expressing personal opinions about their own lives.”. As well as advocating communicative language teaching, this statement adheres to a functional view of language, whose characteristics are provided by Richards and Rodgers (1986) below:

1. Language is a system for the expression of meaning.

2. The primary function of language is for interaction and communication.

3. The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses.

4. The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse.

The next pages will focus on three series of course books I use, with special emphasis on objectives of some teaching activities performed in order to teach nouns and its categories, starting from exercises in the course books under analysis. There will be an enumeration of them and after that I will refer to certain problems I have encountered when applying them with my students. There will also be some examples of activities in each course book in the annexes of this chapter.

III. 2. NOUNS IN COURSEBOOKS

III.2.1 SET SAIL – published by Express Publishing – (Elizabeth Gray – Virginia Evans – Set Sail 1 / 2 ; Jenny Dooley – Virginia Evans – Set Sail ¾) Set Sail is a two-level course for teaching English at early primary levels. Young learners will be captivated by the adventures of Lulu, Larry and their pet chimp, Chuckles. Nanny Shine provides the magical element to fire young learners’ imagination.

The Set Sail course follows the principle that the learning experience in the classroom should parallel the natural acquisition of the mother tongue. Children pick up sounds, words and patterns in simple, yet realistic, everyday conversations they have with their peer group in order to communicate their thoughts, feelings, desires. In addition, by providing themes that are pertinent to children’s lives, such as family, school, pets, playtime, children are able to relate to the target language.

Set Sail 1, the first level of the course, comprises six themes of eight pages each. Each theme is divided into five fifty-minute lessons. Nevertheless, the schedule can vary according to the needs of each group. The thematic approach covers all aspects of any given topic, therefore providing children with all the necessary means of oral communication for each individual area of interest.

It gradually introduces children to the English language through systematic practice of the patterns. The focus is on children’s listening and speaking skills, but there are also a wide variety of pre-reading and pre-writing activities, which provide a starting point for the formal introduction of reading and writing in Set Sail 2. It provides for the natural exposure of young learners to the target language, making use of their powers of fantasy and natural propensity to communicate and narrate their everyday experiences.

Each lesson can be divided into the following stages:

Beginning the lesson. In this stage the teacher is given the opportunity to welcome children to the class, create a friendly environment and review what the children have learned from the previous lessons by playing a game and singing a song. These activities should take up no more than fifteen minutes of the teaching hour. They are intended to focus the children’s attention on English and to show them that they are capable of using the new words and structures they have mastered. This stage finishes with the song that the children have sung in the previous lesson.

Presentation & Practice. In this stage the teacher presents the vocabulary of the lesson using flashcards and the cassette. Children participate fully by using their picture cards which can be found at the end of their Activity Books. This picture’s cards can be used in a wide variety of games and activities. The new vocabulary of each lesson, as well as the picture of the communication exercises and the vocabulary of the story are on picture flashcards, thus enabling teachers to use them to present and practice the language of each lesson thoroughly and efficiently. This stage also includes the presentation of the dialogue and its listening task as well as in Lesson 2 the chant which gives children the chance to practice the new pattern(s) in verse. This part of the lesson should last as long as it takes for the children to become familiar with the new words and structures.

Production. Children are guided to produce the language orally, as in the Chit Chat (Lesson 1) and through the songs and chants.

Extension. The lesson always ends with an extension activity, game or craftwork, which gives the opportunity to actually use the language and thus reinforces understanding.

An important feature of the Set Sail course is the Story Book which accompanies each level. With Set Sail 1 the story is Ugly Duckling. It is recommended that the story should be taught upon completion of all six themes. The aim of the story is to consolidate the language taught throughout Set Sail 1. However, at the end of the story, there is also a picture dictionary illustrating the vocabulary used in the story. The fact that the story is in rhyme makes story-telling an enjoyable experience and not only increases the children’s chances of being able to reproduce the story orally, but also to more accurately reproduce the sounds and intonation of the target language.

(See Annexes no1- 6)

Objectives:

To match the pictures with the right words

To repeat the chant

To express the plural of nouns denoting the plural of nouns – school objects, toys, animals, kinds of food, parts of the body

To discover the right images and the corresponding words

To turn from singular to plural

To draw the corresponding objects ( nouns)

At this level it is useful to make use of flashcards, pictures, in order to make them understand the difference between singular and plural and to help the associate the noun(s) with the corresponding picture.

Starting from the chants / songs, the teacher can ask them to think of their own song / chant – changing the objects according to the topic of the lesson.

SET SAIL 2 gradually introduces children to the written language through systematic practice of the patterns, while revising the language taught at the previous level. It exposes young learners to the English language naturally, making use of their powers of fantasy and natural propensity to communicate and narrate their everyday experiences.

Each lesson can be divided into the following steps:

Beginning the lesson. In this step the teacher is given the opportunity to welcome children to the class, create a friendly environment and review what the children have learned from the previous lessons by playing a game and a song. These activities should take up no longer than fifteen minutes of the teaching hour. They are intended to focus the children’s attention on English and to show them that they are capable of using the new words and structures they have learned. This step finishes with a song that the children have sung in the previous lesson.

Presentation & Practice. The Presentation & Practice activities introduce the new vocabulary for each lesson using flashcards and the cassette, the dialogue and its listening task as well as the chant in Lesson 2 where children have the chance to practice the new pattern(s) in verse. This part of the lesson should last as long as it takes for the children to become familiar with the new words and structures.

Production. Children are guided to produce language orally, as in the Chit Chat (Lesson 1) and through the songs or in writing in the Activity Book.

Extension. The lesson always ends with an extension activity, game or craftwork, which gives children the opportunity to do things and thus understand better.

Games for young learners

Games help children learn the target language more efficiently and pleasantly as they use the patterns and the words as a means to have fun. Here is a list of the most popular games to be used in Set Sail 2:

Simon says : Children carry out the commands of the teacher only if they are preceded by Simon says

Snap: In pairs, children take out their sets of picture word cards. Students are asked to shuffle their cards and share them out equally, face down. The children take it in turns to turn over a card and put it in the center of the table. When two identical cards have been turned over, one after the other, the first child to shout “ SNAP” or the word on the card gets all the cards from the center.

Animal walk: Students are asked to walk around in a circle. The teacher explains to the students that as soon as they are told the name of an animal, they have to walk like this animal.

What am I thinking? Children are in pairs. One child thinks of a word and the other tries to guess it by asking questions.

Follow the leader: Children are standing in single file, one behind the other. The leader mimes an action and the rest follow behind copying the action.

(See Annexes 7-8)

Objectives:

To match the pictures with the corresponding words

To arrange the picture in the right order

To turn from singular into plural

To match pictures with the words

To repeat the new words

To write the names in the correct columns

To express their own likes / dislikes using the right nouns

To perform exchanges

To repeat chorally and individually

To point to the right image

To complete certain phrases or sentences with the right noun

To guess the right word and its right form

The grammar topic insisted on is the plural of nouns and students can be asked to role-play short dialogues about the songs. They can also be asked to draw contrasting picture – one / more objects. They can also play certain games and practise some exchanges. They may be asked to arrange some picture in the right order according to the number of objects or guess what is missing.

Set Sail 3 develops all four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) through a variety of communicative tasks and everyday dialogues. It recycles key language regularly, achieving active, holistic and humanistic learning. It comprises five modules. Each module consists of two units. It is aimed at pupils within the category of A1, Basic User. The pupils in this category can understand and use some basic vocabulary and expressions related to their own personal, concrete world. They can communicate in simple exchanges, introduce themselves and ask and answer questions in a simple, repetitive way. Simple interaction is feasible provided the other person speaks clearly and slowly and is prepared to assist.

The pupils are frequently asked to listen to new words, find the stickers from the back of their Pupil’s Book, and stick them onto the corresponding squares. This is an excellent way to involve tactile / kinesthetic learners and it helps the pupils retain the vocabulary in their long –term memory as they are not simply exposed to the new words but they also have to do something with them. Young learners love using their hands and this has been catered for in the Set Sail series. There are also some reward stickers which give the pupils a sense of achievement and satisfaction and can be used upon completion of the Revision and Assessment section and throughout the course whenever the teacher feels that the pupils should be praised.

The Picture Flashcards illustrate the new vocabulary items and can be used for presentation, revision, additional practice and memory games. Flashcards enable the pupils to make the connection between the visual prompt and the spoken word and help teachers avoid the use of translation or lengthy explanations.

There are five double-sided posters accompanying Set Sail 3. On one side of the My Alphabet poster there are the letters, the words and the corresponding pictures, whereas on the other side there are the letters and pictures only. In this way, the teacher can use the poster if he / she chooses, to revise the English alphabet as well as some basic words. The rest of the posters include the vocabulary of the modules in thematic areas.

Typical layout of a module

Each module consists of two units and a revision and assessment section, over a toatal of sixteen pages. Each module begins with the Modular Page which gives teachers, pupils and parents a clear understanding of the objectives and the competences to be achieved upon completion of the module.

Key features of a unit

Presentation of the new language. The presentation of the new language varies in order to provide stimulation. The pupils are asked to sing along, do TPR activities, listen and repeat or find the corresponding stickers. In each lesson plan the teacher will find detailed guidance on how to approach each exercise as well as further reinforcement or extension activities.

Practice and activation of the new language. The new language is practiced in a pattern taken from the dialogue. In this way, the pupils are exposed to realistic English.

Dialogue. All the dialogues cover areas of interest within the pupils’ knowledge. They are always preceded by a listening activity. It is usually a lead-in question or a listening task which the pupils have to complete before reading the dialogue. In this way, the pupils practice listening for a specific purpose. Consequently, the pupils not only familiarize themselves with the dialou but also practise listening comprehension.

Grammar and Vocabulary Activities. There is a great variety catering for all types oflearners and learning styles: colouring, pair-work and group-work, matching, games. In this way, the pupils use the new language in a meaningful context.

Games, Chants & Songs. Pupils at this level need a lot of opportunities to play and explore their surroundings. Playing games and singing sons/ chants provides a necessary outlet and ensures that pupils are learning while having fun and is also a way of ensuring that the lesson always ends on a high note. In every unit, there are songs, chants and games which add a creative and enjoyable element to the language classroom.

Development of reading skills. The pupils are introduced to short texts and dialogues aimed at gradually improving their reading skills through enjoyable activities. In this way, the pupils gain an appreciation of reading and are not intimidated by the written word. Reading for pleasure is fostered through the Arthur and Rascal episodes, which are designed to make reading an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

Basic Principles of Set Sail

The modularized approach of the Set Sail series caters for the holistic development of the pupils. It enables the pupils to work on a theme from different angles and employ different learning styles. The pupils are asked to engage in a variety of activities, including listening, role play, TPR, matching, selecting, giving personal information and opinions. In this way, the language learning process involves the pupils’ body, mind, emotions and spirit.

The activities also aim at meeting the needs of all types of learners (visual, auditory, tactile / kinaesthetic) and aim at developing the pupils ‘ linguistic, learning-to-learn and social skills.

Linguistic skills

The pupils can do the following upon completion of each module:

Associate pictures with new vocabulary with the aid of illustrations in their books as well as through the use of the picture flashcards or posters

Produce the sounds, pronunciation and intonation of the target language

Communicate with their peers in English, exchanging basic information about everyday matters such as introducing themselves, describing a house, talking about animals

Comprehend dialogues, short exchanges on tape and use the set patterns in multi-sensory tasks

Achieve oral competency through the reproduction of short exchanges, songs and chants

(See Annexes 9-15)

Objectives:

To match the words with the image

To ask and answer questions practicing the singular and plural form of the nouns

To group the words according to their meaning

To unscramble the letters to form words

To express possession

To practice short exchanges about certain objects and their characteristics / belonging

To form the plural of certain nouns according to the rules deduced

To deduce / discover the rule of forming the plural or the possessive case

To fill in the missing letters of certain nouns

To describe certain pictures using the nouns in the singular or plural

To fill in the blanks with the right form of irregular plural

This course book seems to have a lot of exercises focused on the plural of nouns and the possessive case. They can be solved as student-student exchanges or as individual work. It is advisable to highlight the existence of irregular plural forms and to practise their use in different contexts. Students can be asked to write other sentences / short texts starting from the examples in the textbook.

Set Sail 4 comprises five modules. Each module consists of two units. It is aimed at pupils within the category of A1, Basic User. It is modularized. Therefore, in each module, the pupils are thoroughly exposed to the new language and achieve competency in the target language at a faster pace. Each module has its individual aims and at the end of the module the pupils, with the help of their teacher, can record their progress in English. The teacher has the opportunity to recycle and further consolidate any language items upon completion of the Revision and Assessment section. In addition, through the Pupil’s Self Assessment Forms, the pupils can assess their progress and develop their language awareness and independence.

( See Annexes 16-20)

Objectives:

To repeat words / nouns connected with certain topics

To write shopping lists

To practice exchanges using certain nouns

To speak about the family/ the family tree in order to practice possessive case

To write a shopping list

To match certain determiners / quantifiers / partitives with the nouns

At this level it is very important to make students understand the difference between countable and uncountable nouns and the way we use the corresponding quantifiers. It is advisable to encourage practicing short shopping dialogues.

III. 2.2. Fairyland

(published by Express Publishing by Jenny Dooley and Virginia Evans)

Fairyland – a course especially designed to introduce young learners to the English language. The syllabus is based on graded structures and vocabulary enabling pupils to use English effectively and ensuring that they enjoy themselves while learning. All four skills ( listening, speaking, reading and writing) are developed through a variety of communicative tasks and key language is recycled regularly. It is ideal for young learners as it encourages active, holistic and humanistic learning thus developing a keen interest in the English language.

It comprises six modules. Each module consists of two units. It is aimed at pupils who come under the category of A1, Basic User. It has been designed to appeal to, as well as involve, the pupils in language learning. New words and structures are presented in a clear and effective way by means of chants, songs and picture word association. New language is presented in context through lively dialogues. A variety of functional exercises, songs and games help pupils practise the key language in a memorable and enjoyable way.

It is modularised; therefore in each module the pupils are thoroughly exposed to the new language and achieve competency in the target language at a faster pace. Each module has its individual aims, and at the end of the module, the pupils, with the help of their teacher, can record their progress in English. The teacher has the opportunity to recycle and further consolidate any language items upon completion of the Checkpoint section. In addition, through the Pupil's Self Assessment Forms, the pupils can assess the progress and develop their language awareness and independence.

Each module consists of two units and a revision section (Checkpoint), in sixteen pages altogether.

Presentation of the new language. The new language is presented by first listening to the new vocabulary. In each lesson plan the teacher will find detailed guidance on how to vary the presentation of new vocabulary, as well as further reinforcement and extension activities.

Dialogues. All the dialogues cover areas of interest within the pupils' knowledge. They are always followed by a reading comprehension task, which the pupils have to complete after reading and listening to the dialogue. In this way, the pupils not only familiarize themselves with the dialogue, but also practise reading strategies (reading for a specific purpose) and thus enhancing their reading comprehension skills.

Grammar and Vocabulary activities. There is a great variety of activities catering for all types of learners and learning skills: colouring, pair and group work, matching, games. In this way, the pupils use the new language in a meaningful context.

Basic principles of Fairyland

The modularised approach of Fairyland series caters for the holistic development of the pupils. It enables the pupils to work on a theme from different angles and employ different learning styles. The pupils are asked to engage in a variety of activities, including listening, role-play, TPR, matching, selecting, giving personal information and opinions. In this way the language learning process involves the pupils' body, mind, emotions and spirit.

The activities are also aimed at meeting the needs of all types of learners (visual, auditory, tactile / kinaesthetic) and aim at developing the pupils' linguistic, learning-to-learn and social skills. ( See Annexes no. 21-25)

Fairyland 3A

to use the nouns in the plural with numbers

to express possession

to practise exchanges about possession

to describe certain images using the plural of nouns and the corresponding demonstratives

to form the plural of certain nouns denoting toys, animals

Fairyland 3B

to match the singular with the plural ( for irregular nouns)

to ask and answer questions about parts of the body of certain animals

to choose the right word / form of the noun according to the meaning

Students can be asked to describe certain images using the appropriate form of the nouns and they can even describe their house/ room/ classroom with emphasis on singular / plural nouns.

Fairyland 4

(See Annexes 26-27)

to form the plural of certain nouns

to practise shopping dialogues

to complete certain phrases / sentences with the right determiners according to the type of noun

to identify the nouns in the given texts

to write a shopping list ( countable and uncountable nouns ) and the right quantifier

The teacher should insist on the use of much / many with uncountable / countable nouns. As further practice it would be useful to ask them to think of other contexts similar to those in the course book.

It can be observed that in terms of the tendencies in course book design for young learners, the majority of them are spiral and modular in nature. Then, more attention should be devoted to the selection of content in the context of the integrated primary education. Young learners develop holistically and learn better the whole “picture” of the matter. The popular tendency is to teach elements of culture, both Romanian and English providing topics about Easter, Christmas and e.g. Pumpkin Day or Halloween. A tendency is to offer key words (for young learners to study) at the top of the page, which may serve as the guide of EFL for teachers, young learners or parents.

Another tendency is to provide a dictionary, e.g. a picture or a word form dictionary, at the end of the course book, which often is also a kind of handwriting practice as YL may trace the words.

Moreover, language content is very important in course book design as well as “visual” content.

Offered in English books as children develop their perception of the world and become sensitize to art and culture. They learn to recognise ”beauty” in the surrounding and do not comprehend the abstract pictures. Then, the quality, selection, size of illustrations plus the outline of the course books should be the best possible.

3. In terms of raising language awareness, it should be stated that English materials offered for older YL support it more in the second stage of EFLL.

Consequently, the instructional materials follow the national Core Curriculum Statement and present two different approaches to teaching grammar, which is reflected initially in syllabuses and then in course books. It is clear that the amount of grammatical categories in the first stage of primary education is more limited in the comparison with the number of structures or patterns introduced in the second part or secondary school.

In particular, there is a huge “jump” and gap between these two periods in terms of principles implemented in teaching grammar and raising language awareness of YL. Namely, presentation and practice of grammar in the 4th, 5th and 6th grades is more systematic and highlighted in the contents of course books than in the first years of EFLL. The approach to TEYL is accuracy-based with the explanation and analysis of rules (in L1 or L2) including parts of sentences or speech. At this stage of learning YL are able to comprehend such details. Then, English teaching materials seem to support more the process of raising language awareness in the second stage of primary education.

III. 2. 3. Snapshot

(published by Longman by Chris Barker , Brian Abbs, Ingrid Freebairn and Olivia Johnston)

Snapshot is a course for teenage students of English as a foreign language. There are four levels of the course – Snapshot Starter, Snapshot Elementary, Snapshot Pre-Intermediate and Snapshot Intermediate. It has the following components:

-a Student’s Book

-a set of two Class Cassettes or two Class CDs

-a Language Booster which contains both a Workbook with two-level exercises, and a -Grammar Builder with extra grammar reference pages and additional practice exercises

-an interleaved Teacher’s Book

-a Test Book

-a double video pack

There is sometimes a tendency for teenage students to view traditional book learning as old-fashioned and dull. In order to counteract this, the material which students use must reflect their world. It must stimulate them to use English in ways that are useful and relevant. This course book not only provides students with the language skills for communication and further study, but it is also appealing and interactive enough to compete with teenage magazines, TV, video games and of course , The Internet. The material for teenage learners presents a true and up-to-date picture of the world today and raises topical issues, both serious and more light-hearted.

After several years of learning English, teenage students may often feel a sense of frustration and boredom. Although they have covered a large amount of grammar, they are not always confident about using the language and they still make mistakes. When starting a new course book, students need to feel that they are learning something new. The teaching material must therefore offer clear progression as well as continuous revision.

Taking into account the needs of the students and the characteristics of the teaching situation, four key principles have been followed so that the learning material could be effective for teenagers.

1. Capturing students’ attention

The design of the course and the topics and issues that it presents capture the students’ attention and overcome any initial problems with low motivation which they may have.

It achieves this by:

-Using authentic location photography and magazine articles

-Introducing a group of teenage characters with whom students can identify

-Focusing on situations and emotions which students will recognize and respond to.

-Presenting real language and expressions which young people use in conversation with each other

-Including topics which interest students and expand their knowledge, without patronizing them

2. Holding students’ attention

To sustain their interest and ensure that learning is effective, the learning tasks within the course involve and challenge students both linguistically and intellectually. It is achieved by:

-Involving students in the understanding and learning of grammar through problem-solving tasks

-Providing activities like questionnaires, quizzes and information-gap exercises, which stretch the students’ minds as well as their linguistic skills

-Featuring real-life communicative exchanges which students can put into practice immediately

-Personalizing the language which students are learning through open-ended “Over to you” and Discussion tasks that allow the students to talk about themselves and give their own opinions.

3. Giving all students the opportunity to achieve success at their own level through the material provided for mixed levels and mixed abilities. This series achieves this by:

-Providing two-level exercises in the Language Booster

-Including regular writing skills activities, role-plays and projects in the Student’s Book which enable both weaker and stronger students to express themselves creatively

-Giving clear presentation of grammar in the Grammar snapshots and Grammar flashes in the Student’s Book and in the Grammar Builder section of the Language Booster.

4. Encouraging learner’s independence

The material contains markers and milestones along the way to enable students to monitor their progress, gain a sense of achievement, and develop independent learning strategies. Snapshot achieves this by:

-Providing clear learning goals so that students know what their learning objectives are

-Offering opportunities for students to monitor their own progress through Fast rewind revision pages at two-unit intervals throughout the book.

-Encouraging students to assess their own progress through Progress update activities

-Giving advice on how to study more effectively through a special Study skills section at the end of the Student’s Book.

Learning goals

The learning goals highlight the main point of Grammar, Vocabulary and Communication in a unit. They are designed to make students aware of the language they are going to learn and thus to encourage learner independence. When it comes to Grammar, the teacher may highlight the grammar points , comparing them with the L1 if necessary.

The Grammar snapshots focus on the main grammar points of a unit and are presented in clear boxes for easy access and understanding by the student. They are used for the presentation of the major grammatical items. Most Grammar snapshots include a discovery activity in the form of questions or a Make a rule task, to encourage students to draw their own conclusions about the grammar. At Intermediate level, the Grammar snapshots are always closely followed by Practice exercises which are generally controlled and they emphasize accuracy. It is suggested that Grammar snapshots are most effectively used after the presentation and contextualization of the new grammar through a dialogue or text. On occasions, it is also possible to postpone detailed study of the Grammar snapshot until the end of the unit.

One procedure of integrating grammar in the lesson may be the following:

-Present the sentences and, if necessary, remind students of the context (dialogue or text) in which they occurred.

-Ask students to think about the grammar rule or rules involved, inviting comparison with L1. Point out any particular difficulties which you know your students will encounter.

-Ask students to answer any questions in the Grammar snapshot box and / or to complete the -Make a rule task.

-Refer students back to the dialogue or presentation text to find more examples of the relevant structures, or produce more examples of your own.

-Remind students that they can find detailed usage notes in the Grammar reference at the back of the Student’s Book.

The Grammar flashes introduce other grammar points in a concise way. They are usually contextualized in short sentences. Some of them refer to the detailed notes on usage in the Grammar reference section.

There is a comprehensive Grammar reference section at the back of the Student’s Book. It is cross-referenced to the Grammar snapshots and Grammar flashes to give students a more detailed and thorough understanding of the grammar in each unit. It provides an outline of the general uses of each structure with examples taken from the course. It also includes additional notes on form and usage. This section has the added advantage of encouraging independent learning by giving students access to grammatical information whenever they need it. As a matter of routine, students should refer to the appropriate Grammar reference section before they undertake the exercises in either the Workbook or Grammar Builder sections of the Language Booster.

(See Annexes no. 28-34)

Snapshot Starter Students' Book

to identify the possessive forms

to talk about certain famous people using the possessive case

to provide their own examples in order to express possession

to deduce rules of forming the plural of nouns

to write the plural forms of certain nouns

Language Booster

to write sentences expressing possession

to write the plural forms of certain nouns

to write the plurals of certain nouns in the correct column

Students are more aware of the grammar rules and they are familiar with the meta-language involved so it is easier for them to understand all the details regarding the plural of nouns and the Possessive Case. They can easily be involved in short dialogues about people/ object around them.

Snapshot Elementary Students' Book

(See Annexes no. 35-38)

to group nouns into countable and uncountable nouns

to match the images with the corresponding nouns

to write / practise exchanges about recipes

to organize new vocabulary into certain categories (Food-vegetables-dairy products-fish-meat-fruit-carbohydrates)

to practise dialogues offering food and drinks

Language Booster

to ask and answer questions about countable / uncountable nouns

to write sentences with there is / there are / have/has got and the corresponding nouns connected with picnic food and making a fruit salad or any other dish

Students can be asked to think of other nouns and group them according to the topic and after that use them in order to ask and answer questions with singular or plural meaning. It will be pleasant / entertaining to ask them to find recipes on the Internet and make the list of necessary ingredients and equipment.

Snapshot Pre-Intermediate Students' Book

(See Annexes no. 39-41)

to form certain nouns using the right suffixes and prefixes

to use a dictionary in order to discover other nouns formed through affixation

to match the verb / adjective with the right noun

to fill in certain sentences with the corresponding derived words

Language Booster

to make nouns from the verbs and write them in the correct list

to fill in the sentences with the corresponding noun derived from a certain key word

Snapshot Intermediate Students' Book

(See Annexes no. 42-44)

to form nouns from adjectives and verbs

to fill in certain sentences using the right noun

to identify nouns derived from verbs and adjectives

Language Booster

-to fill in with the correct corresponding uncountable noun

-to form nouns from certain adjectives

-to fill in the blanks with nouns derived in a previous exercise

-to correct the sentences when it comes to the right suffix and prefix for forming nouns

At this kind of exercises (word formation) it is useful to explain to our students that words can be formed by the addition of prefixes and suffixes – a process called affixation. The way bits of word combine, and the way words themselves can be combined, is a constant source of difficulty for learners. That is why it should be addressed carefully. We can either teach rules (and certain suffixes for nouns are provided by the course book) or expose learners to lots of correct examples. A rule –based approach starts by isolating and highlighting any relevant patterns or regularities. Thus words can be grouped and presented according to the manner of formation. Within the words formed by affixation we can select the nouns and the corresponding suffixes. The alternative to a rule-based approach is an item learning one. In other words, it is a memory task, with each word learned as an individual item, or in pair with its root. There are good grounds or favoring an item learning approach. For a start, this seems to be the way words are acquired naturally. That is, once a critical mass of separate items (reader, writer, conductor, etc.) has been learned, the mind starts to sort them according to their shared regularities (verb +er/or=noun) . This seems to be the case not only for the learning of patterns of word formation but for the learning of grammar as well. The main disadvantage of an item learning approach is that it is very gradual and requires a great deal of exposure. But the good news is that the process can be speeded up by consciousness-raising which means drawing the learners’ attention to the patterns and regularities of the language, helping them to notice these regularities. In this way, the teacher can facilitate the development of a feel for what is the best interpretation of a word, or the most acceptable production of one. This does not mean teaching rules, but simply making patterns stand out. In a way, it is a compromise position between rule learning and item memorization.

These derived words can be highlighted in the texts and a great advantage of this technique is that the words are already in context, hence their meanings may be clearer than if presented as isolated words in a list. In conclusion, plentiful exposure plus consciousness-raising is a key principle underlying what has come to be known as a lexical approach.

Through the multi-syllabus approach followed in Snapshot, students receive a merging of two broad procedures; that of a view of language as use, including categories of function, context and language skill, and a more formal linguistic syllabus comprising elements of grammar and vocabulary (McDonough and Shaw 1993: 51). An approach of this kind makes Snapshot easily adaptable to more precisely fit my focus on oral production skills, given the autonomy of individual exercises which can be modified or deleted. This, when combined with my knowledge of retrospective classroom implementation, will help more precisely meet the learning needs of my students.

III 3. How to deal with noun errors

Language learners make mistakes. This seems to happen regardless of the teacher's skill and perseverance. It seems to be an inevitable part of learning a language. Most teachers believe that to ignore these mistakes might put a risk at learner's linguistic development. Current research tends to support this view. Not to ignore mistakes, however, often means having to make a number of on-the-spot decisions. These can be summed up in the form of the in-flight questions a teacher might ask when faced with a student's possible error.

Is there an error here?

What kind of error is it?

What caused it?

Does it matter?

What should I do about it?

Practice may – in the long term – make perfect, but on the way the learner is inevitably going to produce language that falls short of the target, in terms of its intelligibility or appropriacy, or both. How the teacher deals with flawed output will have an important bearing on the learner's chances of ultimate success.

Once an error has been identified, the next step is to classify it. Learners may make mistakes at the level of individual words, in the way they put sentences together, or at the level of whole texts.

It should be apparent that there are many complex decisions that teachers have to make when monitoring learner production. It is not surprising that the way they respond to error tends to be more often intuitive than consciously considered. Learners' errors offer the teacher a rich source of data with which to monitor learning. At the same time, learners need feedback on their production. This suggests that the teachers should deal with at least some of the errors that arise. To do this they have a wide range of feedback options available. The choice of feedback strategy will depend on such factors as: the type of error, the type of activity, the type of learner.

Common errors that occurred during the teaching-learning of nouns

Students make mistakes when it comes to certain uncountable nouns as some of them are countable in Romanian (e.g. information, advice, luggage, bread). They also make mistakes when adding the right ending s / es and and those exceptions such as: video-videos; radio-radios; piano-pianos; roof-roofs; proof-proofs; cliff-cliffs. They tend to forget about the consonant change f-v when es is added to the noun (knife-knives; scarf-scarves). Some of them do not apply the rule for irregular plural ( mouse-mice; man-men ; woman-women; child-children) or write / provide a plural in s for those having the same form in the plural (deer-deer; fish-fish; sheep-sheep) .

The use of partitives / quantifiers are another reason why teacher's explanations are needed as some things are different from the learner's mother tongue. A piece (which is translated ‘’o bucata’’) can be used with news, information, advice – and this seems not to make sense for certain learners.

As far as Possessive Case is concerned, students tend to use 's not only ' after plural nouns ending in -s /es. Then, when two or more persons own the same thing only the last noun gets the 's added but students mistakenly add 's after both nouns. Furthermore, sometimes the Analytic Genitive is wrongly used instead of the Synthetic Genitive.

When it comes to word- formation, it can be said that this is more context related and it involves a good knowledge of vocabulary which can be acquired through extensive reading and listening.

The most common mistake I have noticed at my students is that of using the wrong suffix or prefix to form nouns, based on some wrong assumptions.

In the course of a classroom activity I monitor students' use of grammar (nouns), help them to sort out some of their peripheral problems, such as, the wrong choice of vocabulary or wrong noun phrase and encourage them to try and work out the solutions themselves. In fact their errors are a rich source of material for language focus and consciousness-raising.

III.4. TESTS: PRESENTATION AND EVALUATION OF RESULS

Analysis and interpretation of the initial and final tests.

Performance descriptors

The results for each grade are:

Final test

At the end of the school year, as a result of the initial and final tests completed by the 7th and 8th grade pupils there will be, under normal conditions, a significant progress registered by the teachers.

The progress in question is due to the use of the textbooks, audio and video materials, didactic games, flashcards and others.

It is essential for the teacher to be skillful and make a rigorous selection choosing the proper materials accordingly to his class abilities and interest to deliver the targets through engaging, exciting and full of substance lessons/learning activities.

CONCLUSION

From the analysis of the data collected, there is a consensus that coursebooks serve as reference for students when they need to check the contents they have learned. It can be said that students use the course book as a guideline- a guide at home or the main guide for beginners. It seems that according to the teachers a book functions as practical resource for study and as a real support for students when they are studying by themselves at home. In accordance with this idea it is mentioned that the coursebook is important for students making notes that are relevant for them, as it is a resource to study. A coursebook is important because students know what they are supposed to learn and to study. Teachers consider a coursebook an important source for students to develop techniques and strategies for management of study, meant to help raise students’ awareness about knowledge as they can start learning nouns before the lesson and it helps them when preparing themselves for next classes.

This chapter has examined coursebooks as being the commonest kind of ELT material adopted, and their widespread use makes them objects of great interest among professionals and scholars within the pedagogic field. It focused on some of the variables that influence teachers and educators when evaluating a certain textbook. In the results of the research carried out with EL teachers, the expected view that books are considered important resources for teachers proved to be true. This finding is significant, considering that many times course books are the subject of negative criticism in the educational environment. However, they still appear to be the main guidance for lesson planning and the main source of teaching ideas and are expected to have texts, written and oral activities and cultural references to the target and the source language. Above all, it appears that a course book should be a resource of ready materials that helps teachers in the time-consuming task of preparing lessons. However, as course books are unlikely to fulfill all the particular demands of different teachers and learners, the wisest attitude for teachers of EL might be to use course books as one resource among many others to promote language learning. In this sense such materials would be just a means to an end. Thus, the teacher would be free to change tasks and exercises; rephrase instructions; adapt the assignments in terms of their lengths of time, purpose and how they should be performed; deconstruct and reinterpret the texts along with the students. Finally, based on the knowledge I have, concerning what teachers mostly expect from course books, I understand that textbooks should not be static, or rejected. Instead, such useful materials – because they can be really useful – should be alterable to suit the learners’ and teachers’ needs and choices when it comes to adjusting their activities to the goals they have in mind.

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WEBSIDE

http://en.fel.zcu.cz/AE%20I%20A%20Remedial%20Course%20in%20English%20Grammar/Nouns/Noun%20formation.pdf

http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/dative_case.htm

http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/accusative_case.htm

http://www.cje.ids.czest.pl/biblioteka/4549394-English-Teaching-ResourcesMore-Grammar-Games.pdf

http://forum.portal.edu.ro/index.php?act=Attach$type=post&id=1639382

https://freedocs.xyz/docx-392706055

https://studfiles.net/preview/5650191/

http:// http://docplayer.net/13854888-Teaching-grammar-diane-larsen-freeman.html

https://dokumen.tips/documents/an-analysis-on-the-difficulties-of-learning-analysis-on-the-difficulties-of.html

http:// http://mykonspekts.ru/1-14394.html

https://vdocuments.site/fairy-3a-ro-ts-book-opt.html

ANNEXES

DECLARAȚIE DE AUTENTICITATE

Subsemnata, CIUTACU (STOICA) VILLIALINA – VOCHIȚA, profesor I de LIMBA ENGLEZĂ, la LICEUL TEHNOLOGIC “ NICOLAE TITULESCU” ÎNSURĂȚEI, Județul BRĂILA,

înscrisă la examenul pentru acordarea gradului didactic I în învățământ, seria 2017-2019, specializarea LIMBA ENGLEZĂ, DECLAR PE PROPRIE RĂSPUNDERE că lucrarea metodico-științifică cu TITLUL , TEACHING NOUNS IN THE EFL CLASSROOM, coordonator științific conf.univ.dr. ILEANA JITARU, elaborată în vederea susținerii, în anul școlar 2018-2019, este rezultatul muncii mele, pe baza cercetărilor mele și pe baza informațiilor obținute din surse care au fost citate și indicate, conform normelor etice și deontologice, în note și bibliografie.

Declar că nu am folosit în mod tacit sau ilegal munca altora și că nici o parte din teză nu încalcă drepturile de proprietate intelectuală ale altcuiva, persoană fizică sau juridică.

Declar că lucrarea nu a mai fost prezentată sub această formă vreunei instituții de învățământ superior în vederea obținerii unui grad didactic sau titlu științific sau în alte contexte evaluative (concursuri, examene etc).

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