MAJOR: ENGLISH

FOCUS: STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH

LET Competencies:

∙ Demonstrate understanding of grammatical concepts by being able to describe

and analyse, meaning, and use of various English language structures

BASIC SENTENCE PATTERNS

Below are basic patterns around which most English sentences are built.

1. N be Adj
where the adjective is a SUBJECT COMPLEMENT, in particular a PREDICATE
ADJECTIVE. The adjective refers back to the subject. The copula verbbe
means “may be described as.”

Roses are sweet. (subject complement = predicate adjective)

2. N be UW (= uninflected word)
where the uninflected word is an ADVERBIAL such as here, there, up, down, in,
out, inside, upstairs, downstairs, on, off, now, then, yesterday, and
tomorrow. Be has the meaning of “be located” or “occur.”

The meeting was yesterday. (adverbial)

3. N1 be N1
where the superscript means that the two nouns have the same referent.
The second noun following the be verb is also a SUBJECT COMPLEMENT, in
particular a PREDICATE NOUN or PREDICATE NOMINATIVE.

Her neighbor is my cousin. (subject complement = predicate

nominative)

4. N InV (= intransitive verb)

where the INTRANSITIVE VERB does not require an object. The verb being
self-sufficient can stand alone with its subject.

Glasses break.

5. N1 TrV (= transitive V) N2
where N2 does not have the same referent as N1. N2is called the DIRECT
OBJECT of the verb, “the receiver of the action.”

The girl buys yellow roses.

6. N1 TrV N2 N3
where the superscripts 1, 2, and 3 indicate that each noun has a different
referent.

Mother gave a gift to the orphan.

(usually reads as Mother gave the orphan a gift.)

Two noun objects occur after the verb. Still N2is the direct object and N3is the INDIRECT
OBJECT. If we omit the last noun, the pattern is identical to that in item 5. Note that the
indirect object is preceded by the preposition to (sometimes for or of). If the two objects
are inverted, the preposition disappears.

He made a toy house forher.

He made her a toy house.
The teacher asked a question of her.
The teacher asked her a question.
7. }N2
}Adj
}Pronoun
N1 TrV N2 }Adv (of place), uninflected
}Verb, present participle
}Verb, past participle

There are choices of different forms in sentence final position. These are illustrated
as follows:

(object complement) The class voted Henry secretary.

(adjective) The principal found the gardener efficient.
(pronoun) We considered the writer you.
(adverb of place) The teacher directed them outside.
(present participle) She saw them praying.
(past participle) I imagine my father overworked.

The most common illustration of this sentence pattern is one with the occurrence of
a final N2.

NOUNS

Nouns can be recognized by means of the following characteristics:

1. They are names of entities -- a person, place, thing, of idea.

2. They have two INFLECTIONS, the PLURAL{-es} and the POSSESSIVE (sometimes
called the GENITIVE) {-‘s}. Both inflections have various ALLOMORPHS
/əz/ appears after morphs ending in sibilants or affricates / s, z, š, ž, č ǰ / /s/
appears after morphs ending in voiceless consonants / p, t, k, f, Ɵ /, except the
sibilants and affricate / s, š, č /
/z/ appears after morphs ending in vowels and voiced consonants / b, d, g, v, ð,
m, n, ŋ, l, r. y, w /, except the sibilants and the affricate / z, ž, ǰ /

3. They may be marked by noun-forming DERIVATIONAL SUFFIXES added to bases or

stems, usually belonging to other parts of speech, e.g.
∙ added to verbs
{-age} breakage
{-ee} employee

∙ added to adjectives
{-ity} facility
{-ness} happiness

∙ added to other nouns

{-cy} advocacy
{-ian} librarian
{-ship} friendship

4. They fill certain characteristic positions in relation to other parts of speech in

phrases and sentences.
∙ just before a verb

Red rosesbloom in my garden.

∙ after determiners such as articles, demonstratives, and possessive adjectives,

e.g., the examination, these reviewees, my handouts

5. Unlike other languages, gender is not an important feature of English grammar.

Gender is only marked in certain pairs of nouns, e.g., waiter/waitress,
host/hostess
6. Certain SUPERFIXES/STRESS PATTERNS occasionally identify nouns from other
parts of speech as in: récòrd and rècórd. These two words are morphemically
alike; however, we identify the stress pattern / ˊ ˋ / as a noun.
 7. Nouns can serve as HEADS in a noun phrase. As heads they may be preceded by
one or more single-word modifiers and followed by a phrasal or clausal modifier
or both

thesmallstudytablein my roomwhich my father bought

Functions of Nouns

∙ subject of verbs Several items have ambiguous stems. ∙ direct

objects of verbs They administered the test.

∙ indirect objects of verbs The lecturer provided the participants

handouts.
∙ subject noun We are LET reviewers.
predicates/
∙ predicate nouns
∙ object noun predicates/ ∙ object The reviewees chose him their
complements representative.

∙ objects of prepositions in our review class

∙ appositives The LET, a professional examination, is conducted
every year.
∙ vocatives/nouns of Anne, how did you find the exam?
address

Noun Types

1. COMMON NOUNS refer to a kind of person, thing, or idea

∙ COUNT NOUNS which take the plural inflection
∙ MASS/NONCOUNT NOUNS which don’t take the plural inflection

2. PROPER NOUNS are names for unique individuals or places

3. COLLECTIVE NOUNS are able to take either singular or plural verbs forms,
depending on the interpretation given to the noun, i.e., whether it is seen as a
unit or as a collection of individuals
The teamhaswon all its games.
The teamhave won awards in their respective events.

ARTICLES

ARTICLES area subclass of DETERMINERS, which are noun-marking words. They usually
come before the nouns they modify.
a/an (indefinite the (definite article) no/zeroarticle
articles)

Only before Before uncountable/mass Identifies certain

singular (sg) nouns (UNs) and countable indefinite meanings of
countable nouns plural (pl) nouns nouns
(CNs)

1 Before an Backward reference to a Refers to all members of

unidentified sg CN, N already mentioned a class
one example of its A dog . . . and here is the øDogs are domestic
class dog now. animals.
a chair (furniture)
2 Before an Forward reference to an Distinguishes one
unidentified sg CN identification soon to be class from another
that is made, often by modifiers øMen, not women,
representative of following a noun are protectors.
its class The history of his town
a dog (a domestic
animal)

3 Before a predicate Before superlatives and Refers to an indefinite

N after a be verb before ordinal numbers, number but not
if no except ordinal necessarily

determiner is used numbers used alone (first in to all members of a

. . . is a good neighbor her batch) class. øSeedlings are
The best cake I have ever beginning to sprout.
seen The first person to fly (many)
in space

4 With UNs to mean Content know to both writer With plural nouns after
akind of, or and reader be. His brothers are
withkind of, or Thechapel in the village øengineers.
certain (only one chapel)
a smile
an insight

5 Before few and little Identification of a class, With institutions and

to mean some but especially in a practices felt to be
not generalization, followed by unique øOffices open at
many a noun, or an 7 o’clock. øDinner is
afew friends adjective usually late.
alittle salt The youth is the hope of
the future.
the physically challenged

6 When using a Beginning of a phrase With set phrases,

proper noun to containing an appositive usually pairs
indicate the Interpret this item, the one øHeaven and hell
characteristics of with an illustration
the person named
She is a Sister
Teresa. (a saintly
person)

7 To name “a certain With prepositional

person whose name phrases At ørest, in
is.” AMr. Alba came ødanger,
to see you. on øtime

8 With nouns used in

headlines in
newspapers, captions
in books, signs, labels
and the like
øMURDERER
ESCAPES BEWARE
OF øDOG

9 For a family name in With common nouns used

the plural as terms of address and
TheBasas have arrived. therefore capitalized.
 We are ready to go, øMother.

10 Distinguishes people
who have the same
name
TheJessica Reyes who
joined the beauty pageant
is notthe Jessica Reyes
who is my cousin.

11 When the article is part of

a geographical name
ThePhilippines
TheUnited States
TheRed Sea

12 When the article is

accepted as part of any
kind of proper name
ThePhilippine Star
The Princess of Negros
The Hilton
TheUniversity of St.
Tomas The United
Nations

PRONOUNS

Most pronouns stand for, refer to, or replaces a noun or a noun phrase within a text;
hence, they occupy the same position as a noun or noun phrase does. The word or
words that a pronoun stands for are its ANTECEDENT or REFERENCE.
My brother holds dual citizenship. He is not only a Filipino but also a Canadian
citizen.

I and me stand for the speaker or writer.

I am a Filipino, but I am living in Australia now.

Pronouns can also be a direct reference to an outside situation (e.g., “What is that?” in
response to a sound or noise).

Kinds of Pronouns

There are many different kinds of pronouns: SUBJECT, OBJECT, POSSESSIVE, REFLEXIVE,
DEMONSTRATIVE and others. The forms within each category are distinguished by
number (singular/plural), person (first/second/third) gender (masculine/feminine/neuter),
and in the case of demonstratives, by number and proximity.

Personal and Related Pronouns

Person/ Personal Possessive Reflexiv
Number e/
Intensi
Singular Subject Object Noun Determin ve
Form Form replacement er/
Adjective

+I I me mine my myself

+ II you you yours your yourself

+ III
 Masculine he him his his himself

Feminine she her hers her herself

Neuter it it - its itself

Plural

+I we us ours our ourselves

+ II you you yours your yourselves

+ III they them theirs their themselves

Things to Remember:

1. Animals closely related to people can be referred to by he, him, and his or she,
her, and hers.

The dog loves his/her/its master.

2. Use it and its to refer to inanimate objects except ships, which are always
referred as she.

3. Countries and schools are sometimes referred to by she or her.

4. Traditionally, the pronouns he, him, and his have been used for mixed groups or
groups in which the sex is unknown. Many people now object to this use, so they
use both the masculine and feminine forms or the plural forms to avoid the
problem.
Everybody submitted his or her assignment. (awkward)
All the students submitted their assignments. (acceptable)

5. If I, me, my or mine or their plural counterparts are part of a pair or a series, put
them last.
The teacher confiscated his toy and mine, too.
Father helped Tony with his project, and he will help my sister and me
with ours tomorrow.

Reflexive Pronouns

1. Use the reflexive pronoun as the object of the verb form or preposition to refer to
the subject of the sentence.

The baby is able to feeditself.

Luis cut himselfwith a razor blade.
2. The phrase by + self or its emphatic form all by + self means alone or without any
help.

I crossed the river (all) by myself.

Intensive Pronouns

The intensive form occurs directly after the word it modifies or at the end of the clause.

The mayorherselfdistributed the relief goods.

The mayordistributed the relief goods herself.

Reciprocal Pronouns

1. The reciprocal pronoun forms are each other and one another. They mean that
each part of the subject did the action and also received the action.

2. They must be objects of verb forms or objects of prepositions.

 3. Some prefer to use each other for two people or things and one another for more
than two.
The two finalists congratulated each other for making it to the top.
The class members prepared surprise gifts for one another during the Christmas
party.

Demonstrative Pronouns

1. Demonstrative pronouns occur alone. They do not precede nouns.

Thisis my favorite movie.

2. Demonstrative pronouns can show distance or contrast not connected with

distance.

(distance) This is mine; thatis yours over there.

(contrast) Which ones do you prefer, these or those?

Indefinite Pronouns
Personal anyone everyone none someone another
anybody everybody no one somebody other ones
nobody others

Non anything everything nothing something another

Personal every one none other ones
others

Use singular verbs with compound pronouns and use singular pronouns to refer to them
in formal writing.

Formal: Nobody brought his book today.

Informal: Nobody brought their books today.

Interrogative Pronouns

Who, whom, whose, which, and what can begin questions.

1. Use who, whom, whose and which to refer to persons..

2. Use what and which to refer to things and events.
3. In formal writing, use who for the subject of a clause and whom for the object of
the verb or preposition.

Relative Pronouns

1. RELATIVE PRONOUNS (sometimes called CLAUSE MARKERS) introduce dependent

clauses (also called RELATIVE CLAUSES).

2. Relative pronouns used in adjective clauses are who, whom, whose, which and
that.
3. Who, whom, and whose are used for persons while which is used for non
persons.
The guestwho came to dinner is the governor.
The bookwhich I bought is a best seller.

4. That is a neutral form. It can be marked +humanor–human. In other words, it can

be a substitute for both who (+human) or which (-human).
The guestwho/that came to dinner is the governor.
The bookwhich/that I bought is a best seller.

5. In informal writing, whom is optional; in formal writing, whom must be used

(informal)Nora is the girl you saw in the party last night.
(formal)Nora is the girl whom you saw in the party last night.

6. That, which and whom are the only relative pronouns that can be left out.
 The instrumental music (that) I like to hear often is that of Zamfir.
The house pests (which) I hate to see are the rodents and the cockroach.

7. Who, whom, and whose can be used in both essential/RESTRICTIVE and

nonessential/NON-RESTRICTIVE clauses.
The man, who came to dinner, is the mayor. (nonessential/non-restrictive,
bounded by commas)
The man who came to dinner is the mayor. (essential/restrictive, without
commas)

8. That instead of which is used only in essential or restrictive clauses, so do NOT

put commas around clauses beginning with that.
The poster that won first prize pleased both the judges and the viewers.
*The poster, that won first prize, pleased both the judges and the
viewers. (*means ungrammatical)

9. Use which in nonessential or nonrestrictive clauses. Separate nonessential

clauses from the rest of the sentence by commas.
Our car, which has been running for three days, should be brought to the
machine shop for check-up.

10. Relative pronouns used in noun clauses are that, what, whatever, whoever,
whomever, and whichever.
(noun clause as subject) Whatever you offer will be appreciated.
(noun clause as direct He will befriend whoever he gets
object) acquainted with.

11. Look at the antecedent of who, that or which when used as subject to decide
whether the verb following should be singular or plural.
The paintingwhichis exhibited is the painter’s masterpiece.
Thefarmerswhoown orchards earn much from their harvest.

VERBS

A verb can be recognized by means of the following characteristics:

∙ Denotes an action (e.g., read) or a state of being (e.g. know). ACTION VERBS are
dynamic. STATE OF BEING VERBS (or STATIVE VERBS) include the copula or linking
verbs, e.g. the be-verbs, remain, appear, and become.

∙ Has four inflections

{-s} of third person singular present tense verbs
{-ed} of simple past tense verbs
{-en} of the past participle
{-ing} of the present participle

The third person singular –s has the same allomorphs as the noun plural and the
noun possessive.

The –ed past tense inflection has three allomorphs:

/əd/ after morphs which end in / t / or / d / as in planted, raided
/t/ after morphs that end in voiceless sounds except / t / as in
brushed, jumped, walked
/d/ after morphs which end in voiced sounds except / d / as in cleaned,
grabbed, agreed

∙ Follows a subject noun and may be followed in turn by adjectives

}______ eager [to enhance their knowledge].

The reviewees}______ seriously.
}______ their handouts.

∙ May fall under one more or more of these types

o INTRANSITIVE VERBS which does not take an object (direct)
Flowers bloom.
o TRANSITIVE VERBS which require an object (direct)
 Flowers needwater and sunlight.
o DITRANSITIVE VERBS which take two objects (direct and indirect)
Alexgavehis girlfriend three red roses.
o LINKING/COPULA VERBS where what follows the verb relates back to the
subject (subject complement -- a predicate noun or a predicate adjective)
Roses are lovely Valentine’s Day gifts.
Roses are sweet.
o COMPLEX TRANSITIVE VERBS where what follows the object (direct) relates
to the object
They chose Niña, muse of the team.
o PREPOSITIONAL VERBS which requires a prepositional phrase to be
complete
We looked at the pictures taken during our graduation

∙ Have tense and aspect qualities. Tense and aspect have to do with form. TENSE is
“the grammatical marking on verbs that usually indicates time reference relative
to either the time of speaking or the time at which some other situation was in
force” (Jacobs 1995). Time reference has to do with meaning. Events and
situations are located in time, perhaps to our speaking about them, perhaps while
we are speaking about them, or perhaps at some later time. English has three
tenses – present, past, and future. The present and the past tenses have
inflectional markings, while the future is marked by the inclusion of the modals
will or shall. Simply put, tense is a set of verb forms that indicate a particular point
in time or period of time in the past, present, or future.

ASPECT isa general name given to verb forms used to signify certain ways in
which an event is viewed or experienced. Aspect can view an event as
completed whole (simple), or whether or not it has occurred earlier (perfect
aspect) or is still in progress (progress).

Noel has attended the review classes. (perfect)

Now he is studying for the LET exam. (progressive)

The tenses in combination with aspects make up the following 12 tense-aspect

categories. These make up the traditional 12 tenses.

Tense-Aspect Combinations
Simple Perfect Progressive Perfect Progressive

ø have + -en be + -ing have + -enbe + -ing

Present dream/dreams has/have am/is/are dreaming has/have been

dreamed dreaming

eat/eats has/have eaten am/is/are eating has/have been eating

Past dreamed had dreamed was/were dreaming had been dreaming

ate had eaten was/were eating had been eating

Futur will/shall will/shall have will/shall be will/shall have

e dream dream dreaming been dreaming

will/shall eat will/shall have will/shall be eating will/shall have

eaten been eating

Sometimes, if we want to draw attention to the time of the action, we use an

ADJUNCT OF TIME, which can be an adverb, a noun group, or a prepositional
phrase, e.g.:

(adverb) She’s coming tomorrow.

(noun group) Results of the examination were released last week.
(prepositional phrase) He will feel relieved after the exam.
VERB TENSES: Their Meanings and Common Uses

SIMPLE ASPECT: complete wholes; unchanging

1. SIMPLE PRESENT: the present in general

∙ To talk about our thoughts and feelings at the present moment or about our
immediate reactions to something
I’m terribly busy.
He looks excited.

∙ To talk about a settled state of affairs which includes the present moment
He lives in Sagada now.
Our teacher is very competent and considerate. We like her very much.

∙ To say something is always or generally true

There are 24 hours in a day.
The earth revolves around its axis.

∙ To talk about something that a particular person or thing does regularly or

habitually.
I get up early to take a bath.
Every Sunday, I attend church services.

∙ To discuss what happens in a book, play or film

In the movie, he plays the character of Juan Tamad.
In those early chapters, he keeps himself isolated to other people in the
village.

∙ To describe an event such as a sports match or a ceremony at the time it is

happening as radio and TV commentators do
Doods takes the ball, then passes it quickly to Alfie. Alfie turns, shoots,
and scores two points.

2. SIMPLE PAST: Stating a definite time in the past

An adjunct of time or other time expression is necessary to specify the particular
time in the past we are referring to.

∙ To say that an event occurred or that something was the case at a particular time in
the past.
The university officials flew into Jakartalast week to sign a memorandum
of agreement with a sister school.

∙ To say that a situation existed over a period of time in the past.

He lived in his ancestral home in the countryside during his last years.

∙ To talk about an activity that took place regularly or repeatedly in the past, but
which no longer occurs
We swam in the river a great deal in my childhood.

3.SIMPLE FUTURE: An expression of what we think might happen or what we

intendto happen
∙ To say that something is planned to happen, or that we think it is likely to happen in
the future
What do you think Ella will do to fix it?

∙ To talk about general truths and to say what can be expected to happen if a
particular situation arises
An attack of dengue fever can keep a man off work for a few days. He
will earn nothing and he have trouble paying his hospital bills.

PERFECT ASPECT: prior

1. PRESENT PERFECT: the past in relation to the present

We cannot use adjuncts or expressions which place the action at a definite time
in the past. But we can use adjuncts of duration, e.g. forever, always. *I have
 watched it the other day.
I ate raw vegetables, which I always avoided, and there was no other
choice.
To mention something that happened in the past but we do not want to state a
specific time.
I have read the book several times.

2. PAST PERFECT: Events before a particular time in the past

To talk about a past event or situation that occurred before a particular time in
the past
By noon, students had gathered at the quadrangle with their placards.

3. FUTURE PERFECT
To refer to something that has not happened yet, but will happen before a
particular time in the future.
By the time he graduates, his parents will already have left for New
Zealand

PROGRESSIVE ASPECT: incomplete action; changing

1. PRESENT PROGRESSIVE: Accent on the present

∙ To talk about something that is happening at the moment we are speaking
I’m already feeling bored and hungry.

∙ To emphasize the present moment or to indicate that a situation is temporary

She’s spending the summer in her hometown.

∙ To indicate changes, trends, developments, and progress

He’s performance in class is improving.

∙ To talk about a habitual action that takes place regularly, especially one which is
new or temporary
She’s spending a lot on clothes these days.

2. PAST PROGRESSIVE: accent on the past

∙ To talk about continued states or repeated actions which occurred in the past
His body was trembling; his fever was rising.

∙ To contrast a situation with an event which happened just after that situation
existed. We use the past continuous to describe the first event and the simple
past to describe the event which occurred after it.
We were standing at the main gate waiting to welcome the guest
speaker. He arrived 20 minutes later.

3. FUTURE PROGRESSIVE
∙ To say something will surely happen because arrangements have been made
They will be sending their students regularly to the University for
English proficiency enhancement.

∙ To emphasize the duration of a recent event

She’s been crying bitterly.

PERFECT-PROGRESSIVE ASPECT

1. PRESENT PERFECT PROGRESSIVE

∙ To talk about an activity or situation that started at some time in the past,
continued, and is still happening now.
The economy has been declining in many parts of the world.
2. PAST PERFECT PROGRESSIVE
∙ To emphasize the recentness and duration of a continuous activity which took
place before a particular time in the past.
The old woman had been living alone in that dilapidated house.

∙ To say that something was expected, wished for, or intended before a particular
time in the past.
 I had been expecting a phenomenal rise in his political career.

3. FUTURE PERFECT PROGRESSIVE

∙ To emphasize the duration to an event at a specific time in the future By
January 2011, she will have been serving this university for 38
years.

AUXILIARY/HELPING VERBS

1. VERB PHRASE/VERB COMPLEX: consists of an auxiliary + a main verb, e.g.,

mustwork, have been reading, will be informed. The underlined word or
words are the auxiliary or helping verbs.

2. AUXILIARY/HELPING VERBS

A. MODAL AUXILIARIES and their related phrasal forms

True Modals Phrasal Modals

can, could be able to

will, shall be going to, be about to

must have* to, have got to

should, ought to be to, be supposed

would (= past habit) used to

may, might be allowed to, be permitted to

*The verb betakes several forms such as is, are, was, were, and will
be.Havetakes the forms has, have, and had

▪ NON-MODAL AUXILIARIES : be, do, and have verbs

Of all the auxiliaries, only the non-modals can change form.

Distinguishing Characteristics Between True Modals and Phrasal

Modals
True Modals Phrasal Modals

1 Do not inflect, i.e., the Inflect like other ordinary verbs

forms remain unchanged am/is/are/was/were/will be able
canpass to pass

2 Lack tense and a resultant lack Subject-agreement rule

of subject-verb agreement applies except the form
We can pass the LET. used to
He can pass the LET. We are able to pass the
LET. He is able to pass the
LET.

3 Do not require an infinitive Requires an infinitive marker

marker to precede the main toto precede the main verb
verb has/have/had to study hard
must study hard

3. OPERATORS/OPERATOR VERBS

∙ The OPERATOR is a verb that has three main functions: 1) It precedes the
negative and combines with it when the negative is contracted to n’t; 2) It
is the verb that moves around the subject to the sentence initial position in
yes-no questions; and 3) It is also the verb that appears in the tag
phrases of interrogative sentences or tag questions.
My father will not approve your marriage proposal.
My father won’t approve your marriage proposal.
 Will your father approve my marriage proposal?
Willyour father not approve my marriage proposal?
Won’t your father approve my marriage proposal?
Your father will approve my marriage proposal, won’the?
∙ When a clause contains no verb eligible to be an operator, do is
introduced.
He attends the graduation ball tonight.
🡺 He doesattend the graduation ball tonight.
🡺 He doesnot attend the graduation ball tonight.
🡺 Does he attend the graduation ball tonight?
🡺 He attends the graduation ball tonight, doesn’t he?

∙ If there are two or more auxiliary verbs present in the VERB PHRASE, the
first auxiliary serves as the operator.
He has been reading the Obama autobiography.
🡺 Hehas not been reading the Obama autobiography.
*He has been not reading the Obama autobiography. 🡺 Has he been
reading the Obama autobiography.
He has been reading the Obama autobiography, hasn’t he?

SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT/CONCORD RULES WHICH OFTEN CAUSE ERRORS

1. Collective nouns may take either a singular or plural verb inflection depending on the
meaning.
∙ Conceived of as one entity – takes a singular verb
Our school teamhas won its games.
∙ Conceived of as more than one entity or refers to individual membership – takes
plural verb
Our school teamhave won all their games.

2. Some common and proper nouns ending in –s, including –ics nouns and certain
diseases are always conceived as single entity – take a plural verb. The recent
newsisexciting.
Mathematicsis repelling to many students.
Measlesisa contagious disease.
The United Statesis still a powerful country.

3. Titles of works even when plural in form are conceived of as single entitles.
The Ten Commandmentsis a beautiful movie.
The Syntax Filesis good reading for those in linguistics.
The song Greenfieldsbringsnostalgia to people of my generation.

4. Nouns occurring in sets of two take the singular when the noun pair is present but
take the plural when pair is absent.
That pair of Lee jeans is expensive.
My glassesaremissing.

5. Fractions and percentages takes a singular verb inflection when modifying a noncount
noun and a plural verb when they modify a plural noun. Either a singular or plural verb
inflection may be used when they modify a collective noun, depending on the speaker’s
meaning.
More than half of the cakeis eaten.
Twenty percent of the studentsare not joining the field trip.
One-fourth of the audienceis/are teachers.

6. A number normally takes the plural. The number takes the singular.
A number of parents are coming for the meeting.
The number of signatories is substantial to merit approval of the motion.

7. When we use a number and a plural noun to talk about two or more things, we usually
use a plural verb. We use a singular verb with ‘one’.
Seven daysmake up a week.
One solid evidence is enough to prove his dishonesty.

8. When we are talking about an amount of money or time, or a distance, speed, or

 weight, we usually use a number, a plural noun, and a singular verb. Five hundred
dollarsisa lot of money.
Three yearsisa long time to wait for a family member from abroad to come
home.
Eighty kilometers per hour of travelis quite risky on slippery roads.
Seventy-five poundsis all she weighs now.
9. Arithmetic operations take the singular because they are perceived as reflecting a
single numerical entity on both sides of the equation or equal sign.
Two plus twois/equalsfour.

10. The quantifiers a lot (of), lots of, and plenty of take a singular verb if the subject noun
is noncount by plural verb if the subject head noun is plural.
A lot of sound viewswere advanced during the discussion.
A lot of nonsenseis evident from uninterested participants.

11. Traditional grammar states that when used as a subject, none (meaning not one) is
always singular regardless of what follows in a prepositional phrase. None of the
boysjoinsthe mountaineering group.
None of the riceis eaten at all.

12. Traditional grammar maintains that the antecedent of the relative pronoun is the
noun before.
Alice is one of the graduate students who havefinished her master’s degree in a
short period of time.

13. For correlatives either . . . or and neither . . . nor, traditional grammar argues for a
proximity rule, i.e., subject-verb agreement should occur with the subject noun nearest to
the verb.
Either my friend or my classmatesareexpected to help me with my project.
Neither my classmates nor my friendvolunteers to lend support.

14. A singular noun or pronoun should take a singular verb inflection regardless of what
else occurs between the subject and the verb.
Jimmy, along with his co-teachers, conducts a cleanliness campaign in the
barangay.

15. In questions, subjects don’t always come before verbs. Identify accurately
the subject before deciding on the proper verb to use.
Does your father usually go jogging?
What are the pages our teacher wants us to read?

VOICE

VOICE pertains to who or what serves as the subject in a clause. In the ACTIVE VOICE, the
subject of a clause is most often the agent, or doer, of some action. In the PASSIVE VOICE,
the subject of a clause is the receiver or undergoer of the action. The passive
“defocuses” the agent. (Shibitani 1985 in Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman 2001)

The lifeguard savedthe child. (active)

The child was saved [by the lifeguard]. (passive)

The passive voice is more limited than the active in that it requires only the transitive
verbs – verbs that take direct objects.

The passive morphology is be . . . –en, i.e., a form of the be verb + the past participle.
Usually in passive sentences the agent is not mentioned at all, referred to as the
AGENTLESS PASSIVE. If the agent is mentioned (= AGENTED PASSIVE), it appears in a
prepositional phrase marked by the preposition by.

Some passive sentences have no active counterparts.

Justin was born in Canada.

Advantages of the Active Voice

1. An active clause can give more information in fewer words.

 2. An active verb makes writing livelier and more vivid.

Uses of the Passive Voice

1. A passive construction emphasizes the result in an impersonal style. This use is

sometimes desirable in scientific and technical writing.
A new strain of malaria was discovered.
2. A passive verb emphasizes a victim or the result of a disaster.
Active: The child broke the antique vase.
Passive: The antique vase was broken.

3. Use the passive when the agent or the actor is so unimportant or is obvious that
you do not need to mention it.
Rica was born in Seychelles.

4. Use a passive verb if you want to hide the name of the person who is responsible
for an unpleasant decision or result.
An increase in tuition fees was proposed.

Forms of the English Passive

We usually form simple passives like these:

Paper is produced from trees. (simple present)

Paper was produced from trees. (simple past)

Here are other possible forms:

1. With modals
Paper can be produced from trees.

2. With present perfect

Paper has been produced from trees.

3. With present progressive

Paper is being produced from trees.

4. With past progressive

Paper were being produced from trees.

5. With be going to for future

Paper is going to be produced from trees.

PHRASAL VERBS

These are verbs which consist of two or three words. They consist of:

1. a verb followed by an adverb;

go up, spill over, and push through
2. a verb followed by a preposition;
come upon, reckon with, and bank on
3. a verb followed by an adverb and a preposition
break out of, look forward to, and go along with

Just like ordinary verbs, phrasal verbs may be used:

1. intransitively
Why don’t you speak up?
2. transitively
Let’s cut down pollution to conserve our environment./
Let’s cut pollution down to conserve our environment.

Note that some phrasal verb may be separable. This is further explained below.

3. both intransitively and transitively

A plane took off.
She took off her coat because it was warm./
 She took her coat off because it was warm.
Meaning of Some Phrasal Verbs

A two-word verb often has a one-word synonym, which is generally more formal. Here
are some examples:
Phrasal Verb Synonym Phrasal Verb Synonym

call up telephone give in/up surrender

keep on continue leave out omit

pick out choose put off postpone

Separable and Inseparable Verbs

∙ Parts of inseparable phrasal verbs cannot be separated. If there is a direct object, it

follows the phrasal verb.

Look after your baby brother.

*Look your baby brother after.
Look after him

∙ On the other hand, the object of separable phrasal verbs is movable. A pronoun
object comes between the first and second part. A short noun object can come
between the two parts or can follow the second part.

Donna turned it on.

Donna turned the light on.
Donna turned on the light.

∙ Some phrasal verbs can be either separable or inseparable according to their

meanings in a certain context.

She passed out. (fainted)

She passedthe brochuresout. (distributed)

The car broke down. (stopped running)

The polite broke the door down. (opened by force)

Separable Phrasal Verbs with Their Objects

Object

back it/the car up

blow it/the candle out

it/the balloon up

break them/the statistics down down

them/the negotiations off

bring it/the change about

it/the subject up

burn it/the building down

them/the papers up

clear them/the dishes away

it/the misunderstanding up

close it/the business down

 draw it/the agreement up

fill it/a form in/out

it/the cup up

find it/the answer out

give it/this old bag way

it/eating candy up

it/the news out

hand it/the work in/out

keep them/expenses down

it/the radio on

leave it/the question out

let them/our friends in/out

lock them/the prisoners up

look them/our relatives in Manila up

make it/the handwriting out

it/a story up

mix it/food being prepared up

them/people up

pass it/the responsibility on

pay it/the money back

them/my enemies back

pick it/a new shirt out

point it/the problem out

ADJECTIVES

An adjective –

1. Is a word which describes or denotes the qualities of something

2. Commonly occurs between a determiner and a noun, or after be or other linking

verbs or immediately following the intensifier very
the _____ baby seems (very) _____
the hungrybaby seems (very) hungry

3. Is associated with certain derivational morphemes

{-y} healthy, leafy
{-al} racial, normal
{-able} understandable, visible
{-ed} aged, learned
{-ful/-less} hopeful, hopeless
{-ish} childish, boyish
 {-ive} active, native
{-ous} famous, marvellous

4. Has inflectional morphemes for comparative and superlative forms

pretty prettier prettiest

5. Modifies or complements nouns

the honest man (modifier)
The man is honest. (complement)

6. Has various types in terms of characteristic positions: ATTRIBUTIVE which precede

nouns, and PREDICATIVE which follow linking verbs
The diligentstudents pass the toughexam. (attributive)
They arehappywith their high scores. (predicative)

Other Related Concepts

1. Restrictive/Nonrestrictive adjectives
RESTRICTIVEadjectives are necessary for defining which noun is being referred to
while NON-RESTRICTIVE adjectives merely add information without being essential
for identification.
A concrete house. (restrictive)
My uncle owns a house, built of concrete materials. (non-restrictive)

2. Polarity
POLARITY refers to positive and negative contrasts in a language.
Positive polarity Negative polarity
big small, little
old young
long short
good bad
fast slow

Adjectives with positive polarity are UNMARKED FORMS because they are used
more frequently in a given language, learned earlier by children, and used in
neutral contexts. Adjectives of negative polarity are MARKED. They are less
frequently used.
3. GRADABILITY

∙ Adjectives can be placed in continuum of intensity, with the intensity increasing or

decreasing depending on the intensifier chosen.

[Less intense] [More intense]

Somewhat rare, rare, quite rare, very rare, extremely rare

∙ Adjectives that can be compared are also called gradable adjectives.

Comparative forms (adjectives marked by -er, more, or less) show
differences/contrasts between two things or groups. Superlative forms (marked
by –est, most, or least) show differences in three or more things or groups.

∙ Comparison do nor apply to absolutes such as unique, possible, impossible,

horizontal, round, square, and fatal. They can co-occur with words like nearly and
almost.
The accident was fatal.
The accident was nearly fatal.
The accident was almost fatal.

∙ The as . . . as construction is used to show that two things or groups are similar.
Ella is as tall as her mother.

Order of Adjectives in Noun Groups

When two or more adjectives are used in a structure, they usually occur in a particular
order or sequence as follows:
DET opinion size shape condition age color origin NOUN
many pretty small round chipped antiqu blue Chinese vases
e

ADVERBS

ADVERBS modify or change the meaning of other words such as verbs, adjectives,
another adverb, or even a whole sentence.

(verb modifier) The athlete can run fast.

(adjective modifier) Sailboats are really beautiful to watch.
(adverb modifier). The athlete can run very fast.
(sentence modifier) Perhaps, Nena’s family will give a party Adverbs

or adverbials vary in form as follows:

Adverbial clause: The child cried because he was hungry. Adverbial

phrase: Diane sang very sweetly.
Prepositional phrase: She sang during our class reunion.
Word: We eagerly look forward to your graduation. Adverbs can be

readily recognized through certain affixes. For example:

1. Suffix –ly hopefully, popularly

2. Prefix a- aloud, adrift, anew
3. Suffix –wise lengthwise, clockwise
4. Suffix –wards backward(s), forward(s)

Kinds of Adverbs

1. Adverbs of frequency: answer the question how often?

(always, never, usually, rarely)
2. Adverbs of relative time can be used with all tenses as meaning permits
(just, still, already, lately)
3. Adverbs of manner answer the question how? orhow well?
(carefully, eagerly, clearly, quickly)
4. Adverbs of place answer the question where?
(here, in the city)
5. Adverbs of time answer the question when?
(today, on April 15)
7. adverbs that emphasize only and even

Where we put only makes a big change in the meaning of a clause. To illustrate:

(no one else) 1. Onlyhe invited Alex to join the team this year. (not ordered) 2.
He onlyinvited Alex to join the team this year this year. (no one but Alex) 3. He
invited only Alex to join the team this year. (to join, not to do 4. He invited Alex
only to join the team this year. anything else)
(recently as or 5. He invited Alex to join the team only this year. at no
other time)

Positions of Adverbials

While some adverbials are fixed in their positions in the sentence, others are movable.
They can occur sentence initially, medially, or finally.

Sentence-initial: Doubtlessly, we must conclude that the findings are correct.

Sentence-medial: We, doubtlessly, must conclude that the findings are correct.
Sentence-final: We must conclude that the findings are correct, doubtlessly.

Order of Adverbials

When two or more adverbials co-occur in final position in the same sentence, ordering
should be observed.
{direction} + position ↔ manner + time ↔ frequency + {purpose} {goal }
{reason}

He walks homeleisurely at 5:30 PMevery daybecause he wants to feel

relaxed. He walks homeleisurelyevery dayat 5:30 PM because he wants to

feel relaxed.

CONJUNCTIONS

Coordination
COORDINATION is the process of combining ideas. Two constituents of the same type can
be put together to produce another larger constituent of the same type. Traditional
grammar calls this process COMPOUNDING.

Compound sentence: The boys sangandthe girls danced last night.

Compound subject: The teacher andher students will join the parade.
Compound verb: The children playandeat during recess.
Compound object: We boiled cornandcassava.

Conjoining like constituents as shown above is referred to as SIMPLE COORDINATION.

Here are other ways of coordinating ideas:

1. ELLIPSIS: Omission or elision of the first verb phrase in the second and adding the
word too or either (for UNINVERTED FORMS), and so or neither (for INVERTED
FORMS).

Affirmative forms
My friends like to read storybooks and I, too. (uninverted)
A horse runs fast, and so does an ostrich. (inverted)

Negative forms
Donna can’t climb a tree, and his little brother can’t, either. (uninverted)
Ducks can’t fly high, andneither can chickens. (inverted)

2. Use ofPRO-FORM, i.e., the substitution of pronoun for a repeated noun.

Luis plays the guitar andhe plays the harp, too.

3. COMPLEX orCORRELATIVE CONJUNCTIONS like both . . . and..

My father is both kind andsincere.
Forms of Coordinating Conjunctions

Other than and, simple coordinating conjunctions include: for, nor, but, or, yet, and so.
Note the following examples:
milk or chocolate
small but/yet terrible
He came late, so he missed the fun. (clausal)
They accepted the verdict, for they failed to counter the charges against them.
(clausal)

Other forms of correlative conjunctions are either . . . or, not only . . . but also, and
neither . . . nor. These pairs are used together
Either Tony orNico will top the test.
Anna is neither friendly nor generous.
Our teacher is not only competent but also very understanding.

Use of Coordinating Conjunctions

Below is a straightforward account of the simple conjunctions:

Conjunction Meaning Conjunction Meaning

for because or one or the other of

 two alternatives is
true

and plus yet but at the same time

nor conjoins two negative so therefore

sentences, both of
which are true

but shows contrast

A deeper and thorough study of each conjunction, however, reveals certain properties
beyond the given straightforward account. To illustrate, here are the other meaning and
uses of and.

1. As LOGICAL OPERATOR (the truth-conditional meaning)

The entire conjoined statement is true so long as each conjunct that makes it up
is true. If one conjunct is false, then the statement is false.

2. As MARKERof many meanings

Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (2001) citing Posner (1980) provides these
illustrations:
∙ (and there . . .)
Annie is in the kitchen, and she is making doughnuts.
∙ (and during this time . . .)
Annie fell into a deep sleep, and her facial color returned.
∙ (and coming from it . . .)
The window was open, and there was a draft.
∙ (and after that . . .)
Peter married Annie, and she had a baby.
∙ (and thereby . . .)
Paul pounded on the stone, and he shattered it.
∙ (If you give me your picture, I’ll give you mine.)
Give me your picture, andI’ll give you mine.

3. As INFERENTIAL CONNECTIVE

A reader/listener can draw an inferential connection from sentences like Susan

jumped and hurt her ankle. The use of and invites the listener/reader to seek
some other implicit relevant connection between stated conjuncts.

4. As MARKER OF SPEAKER CONTINUATION

In conversational discourse, sometimes a speaker uses and to signal that the
utterance to follow is in some way connected with what has come before. This
particular use of and goes beyond the usual content conjunctive use; rather it
places and into the category of discourse markers like oh and well.

Subordination
SUBORDINATION means putting less important ideas in less important grammatical
structures like dependent clauses. One means of subordination is SENTENCE
COMBININGorREDUCING.

Sentence combining

Melissa topped the test.

Melissa was late by twenty minutes.
🡺
Although late by twenty minutes, Melissa topped the test.
dependent clause independent clause

Reducing

🡺
Although late, Melissa topped the test
 dependent clause independent clause

Subordinating Conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions do the job of connecting dependent clauses to independent

clauses. Shown below are different types.
Type Conjunction Type Conjunction

time when, before, conditional if, unless

after, since,
while, until, as

purpose in order to, so that reason because, since, as

result so that concessive although,

though, while,
despite

place where, wherever manner as, like

Time Her father died when she was young.

Conditional IfI could afford it, I would buy a car.
Purpose They had to extend the session in order to discuss all concerns raised.
Reason I couldn’t ignore him because he was my childhood playmate Result She
reviewed very hard so that she would pass the LET. Concessive While I did well in
class, I was a poor performer at club activities. Place Wherever I stayed, I found
troublesome neighbors. Manner Is she often rude and cross likeshe’s been this past
week?

Relative Clauses

Another form of subordination involves the EMBEDDING of one clause within another. For
example:

The lady came into the room.

The lady was small and slender.
🡺 The lady [the lady came into the room] was small and slender.
The lady who came into the room was small and slender.

The most common relative pronouns which mark relative clauses are: that, which, who,
whom, and whose. Their uses are presented earlier in the section on pronouns

PREPOSITIONS

Prepositions are notoriously difficult for ESL learners for several reasons.

1. Several English prepositions are realized as a single form in the learner’s first
language.

Pumunta kami sapalengke. (We went to the market).

Lumangoy kami sailog. (We swam in the river.)
Sakalyeanggulo. (The commotion occurred on the street.)
Antayinmoakosakanto. (Meet me at the street corner.)
2. The English preposition is not necessarily realized by a single word. There are
complex forms like because of and in spite of or coalesced forms like into and
onto.

3. Certain prepositions co-occur with verbs, adjectives, and nouns to form clusters.
to substitute for to be afraid of
infavorof awareness of

4. English prepositions are polysemous. They bear varied meanings.

(space) Throw the at the wall.
(time) It rains at night.
 (degree) Water freezes at 00 C.
(idiomatic) She’s good at dancing.

Meanings of Prepositions

1. Many prepositions prototypically deal with locating objects in space involving two
or more entities. One entity is for foregrounding, while the other serves as
background. The former is the figure and the latter is the landmark. In

Throw the ballat the wall.

figure landmark

2. Note the following figure

at on in

↕ ↕ ↕
from off out of

by through
with about
under over

Adapted - Dirven 1993

∙ At, on, and in are the basic and most general place prepositions. At denotes
place as a point of reference, on denotes physical contact between the figure
and landmark, and in denotes the enclosure of the trajector in the landmark.

They met at the main gate.

Put the box on the table.
The ball is in the box.

∙ From, off, and out of are source prepositions involving the notion of separation
from place.From denotes separation from a point of orientation, off denotes
separation from contact with line or surface, and out of, separation from
inside a landmark.

We walked from the gate to the waiting shed.

The box fell off the table.
Take the ball out of the box.

∙ By and with are proximity prepositions, which locate the figure in relation to a
point of orientation marked by the preposition at. By denotes the idea of
“connection” while with denotes both a point of orientation and the idea of
connection. In its spatial sense, with can occur only with animate nouns as
landmark.

He stood by me in all throughout the campaign.

He rides withme to our place of work.

∙ Through and about require the landmark to the seen as a surface or a volume
and are positioned in the diagram above next to in. Through structures space
as a tunnel or channel. About denotes spatial movement in any direction.

Move the other side of the mountain through the tunnel.

He walked briskly about the yard for his morning exercise.
∙ Under and over are vertical space preposition. Under denotes a figure at a
lower point than the landmark. Over denotes a figure that is at a higher point
than the landmark.

Don’t keep your shoes under the table.

 We watched the game over the fence.

Selected Meanings and Uses of Common Prepositions

1. at (exact) We left at2:00 pm.

2. about (approximate) We left about 2:00 pm.
3. against (contact) to lean against the wall
4. around (approximate) around 2:00
5. by (nearness) bed by the window
(no later than) by 2:00
6. from (source) paper is made from wood
7. of (before) a quarterof ten
8. on (contact) on the wall
(day, date) on Sunday, on November 8th
(communication) onradio, TV
(concerning) a round-table discussion on language policy
9. over (spanning time) over the weekend
(communication) over the radio, TV
10. through (penetrate) through the forest
(endurance) through thick and thin
11. to (until) work from 8 to 5
(before) a quarter to 11:00
(degree) He is honest tosuch extent.
12. under (less than) in under an hour
(condition) under stress
13. with (together) He grew smarter with the years. (equal standing
or ability) rank with the best
(manner) delivered his speech with ease

Variations in Use of Prepositions

1. spatial proximity a house near/by the lake

2. time/degree approximation cost about/around Php1,500.00 3.
telling time a quarter of/to ten
a quarter after/past ten
4. location along something the houses on/along the river
linear
5. in a time period It occurred in/during 1901.
6. temporal termination studied from 8 until/till/to 5
7. location lower than something below/beneath/under/underneath the bed 8.
location higher than something above/over the piano
9. location in/at the rear of behind/in back of the cabinet
something
10. location adjacent next to/beside the cave

NEGATION

In English, negation affects words, phrases, and sentences.

Forms to Express Negation

The following forms mark negation in English (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman,

2001.):
Affix-Negation No-Negation Not-Negation

a- (atypical) no (no plans) not, n’t

dis- (dishonest) nothing (I cannot/can’t) play
in/im/ir/il- nobody the piano.)
(inadequate/impossibl no one never (not + ever)
e/ irrelevant/illegal) nowhere (My aunt hasnever left
non- (non-formal) our town.)
un- (uncomfortable) neither (not + either)
 -less (useless) nor (and + not)
-free (fat-free) Neither his brothernor
his sister helps support
him in his studies.

Negation at the lexical or word level can simply use the negative affix. For example:

untidy untidily
impossible impossible
inadequate inadequately
illegally illegally
dishonest dishonestly
atypical atypically

Determining which affix to use is not always predictable. However, the choice of im-, in-,
il- or ir- is PHONOLOGICALLY CONDITIONED by the consonant which follows it, i.e., im- is
used if the following consonant is bilabial (b, p, m), il- goes with a stem beginning with l,
and ir- with a stem beginning with r. The prefix in- is the most common.

Nothing, nobody, and no one are indefinite pronouns while nowhere is an adverb.

Other negative items include never (negative adverb of frequency), nor (negative
coordinating conjunction, and neither . . . nor (negative correlative conjunction.

The basketball players neveradmitted their mistake.

The pre-schoolers can neither read nor write, nor can they comprehend
do mathematical computations yet.

At the phrase level, no can function as a negative determiner in a noun

phrase. No agreement has been reached yet.

No may also be followed by a gerund as in no reading, no parking, or no

littering. Not is used before infinitive verbs to make the phrase negative.

She reminded her friendsnotto forget their bathing suits.

At the sentence level, not or its contraction n’t is the main NEGATOR. This applies to
different sentence types.

(statement) Mgrs. Palma is not/isn’t our teacher.

(question Are you not/Aren’t we meeting today?
(command) Do not/Don’t laugh.
(exclamation) Was itnot/Wasn’t it exciting!

No and not are negative substitutes. No can be a negative substitute for a whole
sentence while not for a subordinate clause.

A: Is she coming with us?

B: No. She’ll do library work for an hour.

A: Is Pepito interested in the post?

B: I’m afraidnot. He’d rather be a plain member.

Are you joining us on Friday? If not, please let me know by tomorrow.

Placement of not

1. Not usually follows the be-verb, whether functions as a main verb (copula) or an
auxiliary/helping verb.

(main) Surprisingly today, the birds are not noisy.

(auxiliary verb) I’m wondering why they are not chirping.
2. Other thanbe, not follows the auxiliary verb if one is present or the first auxiliary
(modal, phrasal modal, or have) if there are two or more.
I cannot swim well.
The principal mustnot have been joking when he said that.
We havenotbeenanalyzingthe data since we received them.

3. With other main verbs, a do-verb is introduced before negation can take place.

The child swims in the pool.🡺 The child doesswim in the pool.
The child doesnot swim in the pool.

YES/NO QUESTIONS

Inverted and Uninverted Yes/No Questions

YES/NO QUESTIONS are

often defined as questions for which either “yes” or “no” is the
expected answer. They are produced with a rising intonation.

Yes/no questions are formed by inverting the subject and the operator.

Lucy is your cousin. 🡺IsLucy your cóusin?

She can speak fluently. 🡺Can she speak flúently?
Shehasbeen a consistent debater. 🡺Hasshe been a consistent debáter?
She loves (= does love) to read opinion columns. 🡺Does she love to read
opínion columns?

Yes/no questions may have a statement word order, i.e., the word order is uninverted.
This sentence, however, is likewise said with a rising intonation.

2
Lucy is your 3cousin3↑
2
She can speak 3fluently3↑

Answers to Yes/No Questions

Yes/no questions usually take short answers using the operator. The operator is
underlined below.

1. Is your sister fond of sweets? Yes, she is.

No, she isn’t.
*Yes, she’s.

2. Can you speak Chinese? Yes, I can.

{No, I can’t.

3. Are we supposed to attend? Yes, we are.

No, we aren’t

4. Have they eaten? Yes, they have.

No, they haven’t

5. Does the baby walk? Yes, it does.

No, it doesn’t.

If the sentence contains more than one auxiliary verb, the short answer may also contain
an auxiliary verb in addition to the operator.

Will they have joined? Yes, they will have.

No, they won’t have.

If the second or third auxiliary is a be form, it is usually omitted.

Will she be able to pass? Yes, she will.

No, she won’t.

Negative Yes/No Questions

Semantic problems may arise for many ESL learners who react to a negative yes/no
question in a literal manner in their language. This means that they agree or disagree
with the form of the yes/no question, thus causing miscommunication.
Don’t you feel sorry? Yes (I don’t feel sorry).
No (I feel sorry).

Among native speakers of English, the expected response is:

Don’t you feel sorry? Yes, (I feel sorry).

No, I don’t feel sorry}.

Focused Yes/No Questions

While neutral yes/no questions, as in the preceding cases, query on the whole state,
activity or event, this query can be more focused sometimes.

Does Álex plan a foreign trip with Melly? (or did someone else?)
Does Alex plán a foreign trip with Melly? (or did he only suggest?)
Does Alex plan a foreign tríp with Melly? (or is it something else?)
Does Alex plan a foreign trip with Mélly? (or is it with someone else?)

The focused sentence element gets the primary stress as shown

above. Some Versus Any in Questions

Some and any can both occur with different question types depending on the meaning.

∙ In open or unmarked questions, any is used in questions as well as in negatives.

(question) Is there any sugar?

(negative) There isn’t any sugar.

∙ However, some is used in questions that expect a positive response, e.g., an offer:

Would you like some cold drink? (encourages a “yes” answer)

∙ Here are questions to consider:

Is there some relief? (expects a “yes” answer)

Is there any relief? (neutral question/no special meaning involved) Isn’t
there some relief? (Surely there is.)
Isn’t there any relief? (hopeful that there would be)
Is there no relief? (hopeful that there would be)

Other Functions of Yes/No Questions

1. Direct request: Can I borrow your notes on phonology? 2. Less direct request:
Could I borrow your notes on phonology? 3. Polite request: I wonder if I could
borrow your notes on phonology. 4. Offers or invitations: Would you like to have
a cup of coffee? 5. Commands Would you please pay attention?
6. Reprimands Don’t you have enough sense to do such a thing? 7.
Complaints Have you ever tried using this gadget at all?

WH-QUESTIONS

WH-QUESTIONS areused to seek specific information so they are also referred to as

INFORMATION QUESTIONS. Except for how, these words begin with wh- : who, whose,
whom, what, which, where, when, why, and how.

A variety of constituents can be queried in awh-question. Consider this

sentence: Liza bought a beautiful house for her parents before she went

to Canada.

Subject NP: Whobought a beautiful house?

 (Liza)
Object NP: What did Liza buy?
(a beautiful house)
Object of the For whom did Liza buy a beautiful house?
preposition: (her parents)
Who(m) did Liza buy a beautiful house for?
(her parents)
Verb phrase: What did Liza do when she came home?
(She bought a beautiful house).
Determiner: Whoseparents did Liza buy a beautiful house for when she came home?
(her parents)
Adjective: What kind of house did Liza buy?
(a beautiful house)
Adverbial: Whendid Liza buy a beautiful house?
(before she went to Canada)
Adverbial: Wheredid Liza go?
(to Canada)

Wh-questions elicit specific kinds of information.

What? The answer is non-human.

Who? The answer will be human.
Which? The answer is one of a limited group.
When? The answer will be a time or an occasion.
Where? The answer will be a place or situation.
Why? The answer will be reason.
How? The answer will show manner, means, or degree. How much? The
answer will be connected with an uncountable noun. How many? The answer
will be connected with a countable noun. How often? The answer will indicate
frequency.

Forming Wh-Questions

If who, what, or which is the subject of the sentence, it is followed by the normal word
order of a statement.

Statement: Grammar study is exciting.

Question: What is exciting?

Statement: Those big dogs chased the cat.

Question: Which dogs chased the cat.

Statement: Their teacher gave a test.

Question: Who gave a test?

Whom/who, what and which as objects form questions by putting the wh-words first, and
do, does, or did next.

Statement: He planted fruit trees.

Question: Whatdid he plant?

Statement: Mothers bathes my baby sister.

Question: Who(Whom) does my mother bathe?

Statement: The children catch yellow butterflies.

Question: Which butterfliesdo the children catch?

A modal (e.g., can) cannot be replaced by do, does, or did. The do-verb replaces the
main verb.

Statement: My three-year-old sister canread.

Question: What can my sister do?

Social Uses of Wh-Questions

Certain fixed formulaic wh-questions serve social functions (Celce-Murcia and Larsen
Freeman 2001). Among them are:

Introductions: How do you do?

Greetings: How are you?/ How have you been?/ What’s up?/ What’s
new?
Eliciting personal reactions: How was the test?
Making suggestions: Why don’t you seek advice? How about a trip? Responding
positively Why not?
to a suggestion:
Expressing exasperation: What now?
Seeking another’s opinion: How about you?/ What do you think?
Challenging another’s opinion: What for?/ How come?/ Since when?
Expressing perplexity: What to do?
Asking for clarification/expansion: What about it?
Area: ENGLISH

Focus: Introduction to Linguistics

Competencies:

1. demonstrate familiarity with the theories of language and language

learning and their influence on language teaching
2. revisit the knowledge of linguistic theories and concepts and apply it
to the teaching of communication skills – listening, speaking,
reading, writing, and grammar
3. show understanding of how language rules are used in real
conversations

A. Linguistics and English Language Teaching

Teachers’ knowledge on the workings of language and language teaching

are essentially intertwined with each other. The teachers’ competence on
how a language behaves will certainly help teachers explain to the students
how the language works, as well as anticipate and respond appropriately to
possible learning difficulties.

1. Knowledge of linguistics, specifically phonology, may be useful for

explaining interference problems that may be experienced by English
language learners with the English sound system. To illustrate, in the
absence of the following sounds such as /f/ and /v/ in Philippine
languages, except in Ivatan and Ibanag, Filipino English learners are
likely to use /p/ and /v/ as substitute sounds, e.g., /pæn/ for /fæn/ ‘ fan’
and /bæn/ for /væn/ ‘van’. Language teachers are advised to remember
that each language has its own inventory of phonemes that may differ
from that of another language. Such differences may result in using
sounds that only approximate the target sounds, as shown in the
aforecited examples.

2. Language teachers need to realize that grammatical units such as

morphemes, words, phrases and clauses behave quite differently
across languages. For example, plurality, and tense in English are
expressed through inflections as is {-s/ -es} and {-ed}. However,
Tagalog plurality is expressed as separate words as in mga bata
‘children’. Linguistically speaking, Tagalog verbs have no tense, only
aspects – perfective “kumain’ and imperfective ‘kumakain’, which
 may explain the Filipinos’ problems in dealing with English tenses.

3. Helping students to discover the meaning of words by parsing them

into small parts depends heavily on the teacher’s knowledge of
morphology or word formation rules. To exemplify, students may
parse or segment the following words, taking note of the morpheme {-
ment} that recurs in embarrassment, government, disillusionment,
enhancement. As students discover the meaning of {-ment} as ‘state
or condition’, they may be able to give the meaning of the cited
examples as: ‘state of being embarrassed’, ‘state of governing’, ‘state
of being disillusioned’, and ‘state of enhancing’. Hence, the process of
word formation such as derivation may help learners interpret and
remember meaning of words that follow certain patterns in forming
short words into longer words.

4. Teachers’ knowledge about larger units of language use – discourse

structure – may be relevant when teaching exchanges or
conversations. The use of language for social functions such as asking
permission involves familiarity with modals that express formality and
a higher degree of politeness when speaking with someone who is
older, who occupies a higher position, or is an authority than the
speaker. In this context appropriacy has to be observed in selecting
modals. For example, it is appropriate to use may, not can when
asking permission from someone who is older, higher in position than
the speaker. e.g. May I use the office computer?

B. Views about Language

1. The structuralists believe that language can be described in terms of

observable and verifiable data as it is being used. They also
describe language in terms of its structure and according to the
regularities and patterns or rules in language structure. To them,
language is a system of speech sounds, arbitrarily assigned to
the objects, states, and concepts to which they refer, used for
human communication.

∙ Language is primarily vocal. Language is speech, primarily

made up of vocal sounds produced by the speech apparatus
in the human body. The primary medium of language is
speech; the written record is but a secondary representation
of the language. Writing is only the graphic representation of
the sounds of the language. While most languages have
writing systems, a number of languages continue to exist,
even today, in the spoken form only, without any written
form. Linguists claim that speech is primary, writing
secondary. Therefore, it is assumed that speech has a priority
in language teaching.

∙ Language is a system of systems. Language is not a

disorganized or a chaotic combination of sounds. Sounds are
arranged in certain fixed or established, systematic order to
form meaningful units or words. For example, no word in
 English starts with bz-, lr- or zl- combination, but there are
those that begin with spr- and str- (as in spring and string).
In like manner, words are also arranged in a particular
system to generate acceptable meaningful sentences. The
sentence “Shen bought a new novel” is acceptable but the
group of words “Shen bought new novel a” is unacceptable,
since the word order of the latter violates the established
convention in English grammar, the Subject-Verb-Object or
S-V-O word order.
Language is a system of structurally related elements or
‘building blocks’ for the encoding of meaning, the elements
being phonemes (sounds), morphemes (words), tagmemes
(phrases and sentences/clauses). Language learning, it is
assumed, entails mastering the elements or building blocks
of the language and learning the rules by which these
elements are combined, from phoneme to morpheme to
word to phrase to sentence.

∙ Language is arbitrary. There is no inherent relation between

the words of a language and their meanings or the ideas
conveyed by them. Put another way, there is no one to one
correspondence between the structure of a word and the
thing it stands for. There is no ‘sacred’ reason why an
animal that flies is called ibon in Filipino, pajaro in Spanish,
bird in English. Selection of these words in the languages
mentioned here is purely an accident of history that native
speakers of the languages have agreed on. Through the years
reference to such animal has become an established
convention that cannot be easily changed.

That language is arbitrary means that the relationship

between the words and the ‘things’ they denote is merely
conventional, i.e. native speakers of English, in some sense,
agreed to use the sounds / kæt / ‘cat’ in English because
native speakers of English ‘want’ it to be.

∙ Language is a means of communication. Language is an

important means of communicating between humans of their
ideas, beliefs, or feelings. Language gives shape to people’s
thoughts, as well as guides and controls their activity.

2. The transformationalists/ cognitivists believe that language is a

system of knowledge made manifest in linguistic forms but
innate and, in its most abstract form, universal.

∙ Language is innate. The presence of the language acquisition

device (LAD) in the human brain predisposes all normal
children to acquire their first language in an amazingly short
time, around five years since birth.

∙ Language is creative. It enables native speakers to produce and

 understand sentences they have not heard nor used before.

∙ Language is a mental phenomenon. It is not mechanical.

∙ Language is universal. It is universal in the sense that all

normal children the world over acquire a mother tongue but
it is also universal in the sense that, at a highly abstract level,
all languages must share key features of human languages,
such as all languages have sounds; all languages have rules
that form sounds into words, words into phrases and clauses;
and all languages have transformation rules that enable
speakers to ask questions, negate sentences, issue orders,
defocus the doer of the action, etc.

2. The functionalists believe that language is a dynamic system

through which members of speech community exchange
information. It is a vehicle for the expression of functional
meaning such as expressing one’s emotions, persuading people,
asking and giving information, making people do things for
others.

This view of language emphasizes the meaning and functions

rather than the grammatical characteristics of language, and
leads to a language teaching content consisting of categories of
meaning/notions and functions rather than of elements of
structure and grammar.

3. The interactionists believe that language is a vehicle for

establishing interpersonal relations and for performing social
transactions between individuals. It is a tool for creating and
maintaining social relations through conversations. Language
teaching content, according to this view, may be specified and
organized by patterns of exchange and interaction.

B. Acquisition of Language

1. Behaviorist learning theory. Derived from a general theory of

learning, the behaviorist view states that the language behavior
of the individual is conditioned by sequences of differential
rewards in his/her environment.

It regards language learning as a behavior like other forms of

human behavior, not a mental phenomenon, learned by a
process of habit formation. Since language is viewed as
mechanistic and as a human activity, it is believed that learning
a language is achieved by building up habits on the basis of
stimulus-response chains. Behaviorism emphasizes the
consequences of the response and argues that it is the behavior
that follows a response which reinforces it and thus helps to
strengthen the association.

According to Littlewood (1984), the process of habit formation

 includes the following:

a. The child imitates the sounds and patterns which s/he hears
around her/him.
b. People recognize the child’s attempts as being similar to the
adult models and reinforce (reward) the sounds by approval
or some other desirable reaction.
c. In order to obtain more of these rewards, the child repeats
the sounds and patterns so that these become habits.
d. In this way the child’s verbal behavior is conditioned
(‘shaped’) until the habits coincide with the adult models.

The behaviorists claim that the three crucial elements of

learning are: a stimulus, which serves to elicit behavior; a
response triggered by the stimulus, and reinforcement, which
serves to mark the response as being appropriate (or
inappropriate) and encourages the repetition (or suppression) of
the response.

2. Cognitive learning theory. Chomsky argues that language is not

acquired by children by sheer imitation and through a form of
conditioning on reinforcement and reward. He believes that all
normal human beings have an inborn biological internal
mechanism that makes language learning possible. Cognitivists/
innatists claim that the child is born with an ‘initial’ state’ about
language which predisposes him/her to acquire a grammar of
that language. They maintain that the language acquisition
device (LAD) is what the child brings to the task of language
acquisition, giving him/her an active role in language learning.

One important feature of the mentalist account of second

language acquisition is hypothesis testing, a process of
formulating rules and testing the same with competent speakers
of the target language.

3. Krashen’s Monitor Model (1981). Probably this is the most often

cited among theories of second language acquisition;
considered the most comprehensive, if not the most ambitious,
consisting of five central hypotheses:

The five hypotheses are:

a. The acquisition/ learning hypothesis. It claims that there are

two ways of developing competence in L2:
Acquisition - the subconscious process that results from
informal, natural communication between people
where language is a means, not a focus nor an end,
in itself.

Learning - the conscious process of knowing about

language and being able to talk about it, that occurs
in a more formal situation where the properties or
rules of a language are taught. Language learning
 has traditionally involved grammar and vocabulary
learning.

Acquisition parallels first language development in

children while learning approximates the formal
teaching of grammar in classrooms. Conscious thinking
about the rules is said to occur in second language
learning while unconscious feeling about what is correct
and appropriate occurs in language acquisition.

b. The natural order hypothesis. It suggests that grammatical

structures are acquired in a predictable order for both
children and adults, that is, certain grammatical structures
are acquired before others, irrespective of the language being
learned. When a learner engages in natural communication,
then the standard order below will occur.

Group 1: present progressive -ing (She is reading)

plural -s (bags)
copula ‘to be’ (The girl is at the library.)

Group 2: auxiliary ‘to be’ (She is reading.)

articles the and an (That’s a book.)

Group 3: irregular past forms (She drank milk.)

Group 4: regular past -ed (She prayed last night.)

third-person-singular -s (She prays every day.) possessive -s
(The girl’s bag is new.)

b. The monitor hypothesis. It claims that conscious learning of

grammatical rules has an extremely limited function in
language performance: as a monitor or editor that checks
output. The monitor is an editing device that may normally
operate before language performance. Such editing may
occur before the natural output or after the ouput.

Krashen suggests that monitoring occurs when there is

sufficient time, where there is pressure to communicate
correctly and not just convey meaning, and when the
appropriate rules are known.

d. The input hypothesis. Krashen proposes that when learners

are exposed to grammatical features a little beyond their
current level (i.e., i + 1), those features are ‘acquired’.
Acquisition results from comprehensible input, which is
made understandable with the help provided by the context.
 If learners receive understandable input, language structures
will be naturally acquired. Ability to communicate in a
second language ‘emerges’ rather than indirectly put in place
by teaching.

c. The affective filter hypothesis. Filter consists of attitude to

language, motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. Thus
learners with favorable attitude and self-confidence may
have a ‘low filter’ which promotes language learning.
Learners with a low affective filter seek and receive more
input, interact with confidence, and are more receptive to the
input they are exposed to. On the other hand, anxious
learners have a high affective filter which prevents
acquisition from taking place.

d. Implications for teaching:

1. Teachers must continuously deliver at a level

understandable by learners.

2. Teaching must prepare the learners for real life

communication situations. Classrooms must provide
conversational confidence so that when in the outside
world, the student can cope with and continue
learning.

3. Teachers must ensure that learners do not become

anxious or defensive in language learning. The
confidence of a language learner must be encouraged
in a language acquisition process. Teachers should not
insist on learners conversing before they feel
comfortable in doing so; neither should they correct
errors nor make negative remarks that inhibit learners
from learning. They should devise specific techniques
to relax learners and protect their egos.

4. Teachers must create an atmosphere where learners are

not embarrassed by their errors. Errors should not
be corrected when acquisition is occurring. Error
correction is valuable when learning simple rules but
may have negative effects in terms of anxiety and
inhibitions.

5. Formal grammar teaching is of limited value because it

contributes to learning rather than acquisition. Only
simple rules should be learned.

6. Teachers should not expect learners to learn ‘late

structures’ such as third person singular early.

C. Influences of Theories on Language Teaching

1. Applied linguists claim that theories of language learning as well as

 theories of language may provide the basis for a particular
teaching approach/method. To illustrate, the linking of
structuralism and behaviorism has produced the audiolingual
method (ALM), oral approach/situational language teaching,
operant conditioning approach, bottom-up text processing,
controlled-to-free writing, to cite a few. These methods underscore
the necessity of overlearning, a principle that leads to
endless and mindless mimicry and memorization (‘mim-mem’).
They are also characterized by mechanical habit-formation
teaching, done through unremitting practice: sentence patterns are
repeated and drilled until they become habitual and automatic to
minimize occurrences of mistakes. Grammar is taught through
analogy, hence, explanations of rules are not given until the
students have practiced a pattern in a variety of contexts.

2. The cognitive learning theory has given birth to the cognitive

approach to learning that puts language analysis before language
use and instruction by the teacher, before the students practice
forms. It is compatible with the view that learning is a thinking
process, a belief that underpins cognitive-based and schema
enhancing strategies such as Directed Reading Thinking Activity,
Story Grammar, Think-Aloud, to name a few.

3. The functional view of language has resulted in communication

based methods such as Communicative Language
Teaching/Communicative Approach, Notional-Functional
Approach, Natural Approach, Task-Based Language Teaching.
These methods are learner-centered, allowing learners to work in
pairs or groups in information gap tasks and problem-solving
activities where such communication strategies as information
sharing, negotiation of meaning, and interaction are used.

4. The view that is both cognitive and affective has given rise to a
holistic approach to language learning or whole-person learning
which has spawned humanistic techniques in language learning
and Community Language Learning. In these methods, the whole
person including emotions and feelings as well as language
knowledge and behavior skills become central to teaching. The
humanistic approach equips learners “vocabulary for expressing
one’s feelings, for sharing one’s values and viewpoints with others,
and for developing a better understanding of their feelings and
needs.”

D. Linguistic Concepts:

Scope of Linguistic Studies:

1. Phonology. It studies the combination of sounds into organized units

of speech, the combination of syllables and larger units. It describes
the sound system of a particular language and distribution of sounds
which occur in that language. Classification is made on the basis of
the concept of the phoneme.

Phonology is the study of the sound system of language: the rules that
 govern pronunciation. It comprises the elements and principles that
determine sound patterns in a language.

2. Phonetics. It studies language at the level of sounds: how sounds are

articulated by the human speech mechanism and received by the
auditory mechanism, as well as how sounds can be distinguished and
characterized by the manner in which they are produced.
3. Morphology. It studies the patterns of forming words by combining
sounds into minimal distinctive units of meaning called morphemes. It
deals with the rules of attaching suffixes or prefixes to single
morphemes to form words.

Morphology is the study of word formation; it deals with the internal

structure of words. It also studies the changes that take place in the
structure of words, e.g. the morpheme ‘go’ changes to ‘went’ and
‘gone’ to signify changes in tense and aspect.

4. Syntax. It deals with how words combine to form phrases, phrases

combine to form clauses, and clauses conjoin to make sentences.
Syntax is the study of the way phrases, clauses and sentences are
constructed. It is the system of rules and categories that underlies
sentence formation. It also involves the description of rules, of
positioning of elements in the sentence such as noun phrases, verb
phrases, adverbial phrases, etc.

Syntax also attempts to describe how these elements function in the

sentence, i.e., the function that they perform in the sentence. For
example, the noun phrase “the student” has different functions in the
following sentences:

a) The student is writing a new play.

b) The teacher gave the student a new play.

In sentence a), the student functions as the subject of the sentence

while in sentence b), it functions as indirect object.

5. Semantics. It deals with the level of meaning in language. It attempts

to analyze the structure of meaning in a language, e.g., how words are
related in meaning; it attempts to show these inter-relationships
through forming ‘categories’. Semantics accounts for both word and
sentence meaning.

6. Pragmatics. It deals with the contextual aspects of meaning in

particular situations. Pragmatics is the study of how language is used
in real communication. As distinct from the study of sentences,
pragmatics considers utterances – those sentences which are actually
uttered or said by speakers of a language.

7. Discourse. It is the study of chunks of language which are bigger than

a single sentence. At this level, inter-sentential links that form a
connected or cohesive text are analyzed. The unit of language studied
in discourse and pragmatics may be an utterance in an exchange or a
text in written form.
Phonology:

1. Phoneme is a distinctive, contrasted sound unit, e.g. / m /, / æ /, / n /.

These distinct sounds enter into combination with other sounds to
form words, e.g., /mæn/ ‘man’.
Phoneme is the smallest unit of sound of any language that causes a
difference in meaning. It is a phone segment that has a contrastive
status. The basic test for a sound’s distinctiveness is called a minimal
pair test. A minimal pair consists of two forms with distinct meaning
that differ by only one segment found in the same position in each
form. For example, [sɪp] ‘sip’ and [zɪp] ‘zip’ form a minimal pair and
show that the sounds [s] and [z] contrast in English because they cause
the difference in meaning between the words ‘sip’ and ‘zip’; hence,
they are separate phonemes - /s/ and /z/.

2. Allophones are variants or other ways of producing a phoneme. They

are phonetically similar and are frequently found in complementary
distribution. For example, the systematic variations of /t/ are:

The /t/ in top is aspirated [th]; the /t/ in stop is released [t]; the /t/ in pot
is unreleased [t7].

3. Sounds are categorized into two major classes: vowels and

consonants.

4. Consonant sounds are produced with some restriction or closure in

the vocal tract as the air from the lungs is pushed through the glottis
out the mouth. The airflow is either blocked momentarily or restricted
so much that noise is produced as air flows past the constriction.
Consonants are described in terms of physical dimensions: place of
articulation, manner of articulation, voicing, as shown in Figure 1.
l l l r l r

a a a a a a

i t t l t l

b n n o a e

l
a e e e
V
l a
v
i d d
l
r P
o
B
i A
e

t
b

n
a
I

Stops voiceless p t k

Fricatives Affricates voiced b d g

voiceless f θ s š
Nasals
voiced v ð z ž
Liquids
voiceless č
Glides
voiced ǰ

voiceless
 voiced m voiceless

voiceless voiced w y

voiced
Source: Parker, F. & K. Riley. (1994). Linguistics for Non-Linguists.Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

FIGURE 1. Consonant Phonemes of English

Place of Articulation. For any articulation corresponding to one of

these consonant phonemes, the vocal tract is constricted at one of the
following points.

(a) Bilabial (from bi ‘two’ + labial ‘lips’). The primary constriction is

at the
lips (/p,b,m,w/).
(b) Labiodental (from labio ‘lip’ + dental ‘teeth’). The primary
constriction
is between the lower lip and the upper teeth (/f,v/).
(c) Interdental (from inter ‘between’ + dental ‘teeth’). The primary
constriction is between the tongue and the upper teeth (/θ,ð/). (d)
Alveolar (from alveolar ridge). The primary constriction is between
the
tongue and the alveolar ridge (/t,d,s,z,n,l/).
(e) Palatal (from palate). The primary constricton is between the
tongue and the palate (/š,ž,č,ǰ,r,y/).
(f) Velar (from velum). The primary constriction is between the
tongue and
the velum (/k,g,ŋ/).
(g) Glottal (from glottis, which refers to the space between the vocal
cords). The primary constriction is at the glottis (/h/).

Manner of Articulation. For any articulation corresponding to one of

these consonant phonemes, the vocal tract is constricted in one of the
following ways.

(a) Stops. Two articulators (lips, tongue, teeth, etc.) are brought
together such that the flow of air through the vocal tract is
completely blocked (/p,b,t,d,k,g/).
(b) Fricatives. Two articulators are brought near each other such that
the flow of air is impeded but not completely blocked. The air
flow through the narrow opening creates friction, hence the
term fricative (/f,v,θ,ð,s,z,š,ž,h/).
(c) Affricates. Articulations corresponding to affricates are those that
begin like stops (with a complete closure in the vocal tract) and
end like fricatives (with a narrow opening in the vocal tract)
(/č,ǰ/). Because affricates can be described as a stop plus a
fricative, some phonemic alphabets transcribe / č/ as /tš/ and /ǰ/
as /dž/.
(d) Nasals. A nasal articulation is one in which the airflow through the
mouth is completely blocked but the velum is lowered, forcing
 the air through the nose (/m,n,ŋ/).
(e) Liquids and Glides. Both of these terms describe articulations that
are mid-way between true consonants (i.e., stops, fricatives,
affricates, and nasals) and vowels, although they are both
generally classified as consonants. Liquid is a cover term for all
l-like and r-like articulations (/l,r/).

Voicing. For any articulation corresponding to one of these consonant

phonemes, the vocal cords are either vibrating (/b,d,g,v,ð,z,ž,ǰ,m,n,ŋ,l,r,w,y/)
or not (p,t,k,f,θ,s,š,č,h/). Stops, fricatives, and affricates come in voiced and
voiceless pairs (except for /h/); nasals, liquids, and glides are all voiced, as
are vowels.

Each consonant phoneme is not really an indivisible unit, but rather a

composite of values along these three dimensions. Each such dimension
constitutes a distinctive feature. For example, from one perspective /p/ and
/b/ are not really units in themselves, but rather each is bundle of feature
values, as follows.

+bilabial +bilabial
/p/ = +stop /b/ = +stop
−voice +voice

5. Vowels are produced with little obstruction in the vocal tract and are
generally voiced. They are described in terms of the following
physical dimensions: tongue height, frontness, lip rounding, tenseness.
Different parts of the tongue may be raised or lowered. The lips may
be spread or pursed. The passage through which the air travels,
however, is never narrow as to obstruct the free flow of the airstream.

Vowel sounds carry pitch and loudness; one can sing vowels. They
may be long or short.
Front Back
u
i
℧
ɪ

Λ (ə) o
e

æ a Ɔ
 Spread Round

High Tense Lax

Mid
Low

Source: Parker, F. & K. Riley. (1994). Linguistics for Non-Linguists.Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Figure 2. Vowel Phonemes of English

6. Suprasegmentals are prosodic properties that form part of the makeup

of sounds no matter what their place or manner of articulation is.
These properties are pitch, intonation, stress, and juncture. They
are variations in intensity, pitch, and timing.

7. Stress is a property of a syllable rather than a segment. It is a cover

term for a combined effect of pitch, loudness and length --- the result
of which is vowel prominence; hence, it refers to the relative
prominence of syllables. The syllable that receives the most prominent
stress is referred to as primary stress. To produce a stressed syllable,
one may change the pitch (usually by raising it), make the syllable
louder, or make it longer.

e.g.
212112
fundamental introductory secondary

8. Pitch is the auditory property of a sound that enables us to place it on a

scale that ranges from low to high.
9. Intonation is the rise and fall of pitch which may contrast meanings of
sentences. The pitch movement in spoken utterances is not only
related to differences in the word meaning, but serves to convey
information of a broadly meaningful nature such as completeness or
incompleteness of an utterance. Intonation refers to the pitch contours
as they occur in phrases and sentences.

In English, the statement ‘Marian is a linguist’ ends with a fall in

pitch while as a question, ‘Marian is a linguist?’ the pitch goes up.

10.Juncture refers to the pauses or breaks between syllables. It refers to

the transition between sounds. The lack of any real break between
syllables of words is referred to as close juncture; plus juncture or
open juncture is used to describe a break or pause between syllables
in the same word or adjacent word; e.g. nitrate vs. night rate; why try
vs. white rye; black bird vs. blackbird
Morphology:

1. Morpheme is a short segment of language that meets three criteria:

a. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning.
b. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without
violation of its meaning or without meaningless remainders. c. It
recurs in different words with a relatively stable meaning.

The word unhappiness has 3 morphemes: {un-}, {happy}, {-ness}

while the word salamander is a single morpheme.

2. Allomorphs are morphs which belong to the same morpheme. For

example, /s/, /z/ and /əz/ in /kæts/ ‘cats’, /bægz/ ‘bags’ and / bΛsəz/
‘buses’ are allomorphs of the plural morphemes {(e)s}. Allomorphs
are variants of a morpheme that may be phonologically or
morphologically conditioned; e.g. {-en} as in oxen and children are
allomorphs of {plural} morpheme.

3. Free morphemes are those that can stand on their own as independent
words, e.g. {happy} in unhappily, {like} in dislike, {boy} in
boyhood. They can also occur in isolation; e.g. {happy}, {like}

4. Bound morphemes are those that cannot stand on their own as

independent words. They are always attached to a free morpheme or a
free form, e.g. {un-}, {-ly}, {dis-} {-hood}. Such morphemes are also
called affixes.

Bound morphemes are those that cannot stand alone as words; they
need to be attached to another morpheme; e.g. {con-}; {de-}, {per-}
to be attached to {-ceive} as in conceive, deceive, perceive.

5. Inflectional morphemes are those that never change the form class of
the words or morphemes to which they are attached. They are always
attached to complete words. They cap the word; they are a closed ended
set of morphemes - English has only 8 inflectional morphemes.

-s third person sing. pres. She stay-s at home. -ed past tense She
stay-ed at home. -ing progressive She is stay-ing at home. -en past
participle She has eat-en at home. -s plural She wrote novel-s. -‘s
possessive Marie’s car is new. -er comparative This road is long-er
than that.
-est superlative This is the long-est road.

6. Derivational morphemes are those that are added to root morphemes

or stems to derive new words. They usually change the form class of
the words to which they are attached; they are open-ended, that is,
there are potentially infinite number of them; e.g. actual + {-ize} 🡪
actualize; help + {-ful} 🡪 helpful; {un-} + lucky 🡪 unlucky.

7. Word – Formation processes

Derivation. This involves the addition of a derivational affix, changing

 the syntactic category of the item to which it is attached (e.g., discern
(V) 🡪discernment (N); woman (N) 🡪 womanly (Adj)).

Category Extension. This involves the extension of a morpheme from

one syntactic category to another (e.g., house (N) 🡪 house (V); fast
(Adj) 🡪fast (Adv))

Compounding. This involves creating a new word by combining two

free morphemes (e.g., sunset; drugstore).

Root Creation. It is a brand new word based on no pre-existing

morphemes (e.g., Colgate; Xerox).

Clipped Form. It is a shortened form of a pre-existing forms (e.g.,

gym < gymnasium; mike < microphone).

Blend. It is a combination of parts of two pre-existing forms (e.g.,

smog < smoke + fog; motel < motor + hotel).

Acronym. It is a word formed from the first letter(s) of each word in a

phrase (e.g., NASA < National Aeronautics and Space
Administration; SARS < Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).

Abbreviation. It is a word formed from the names of the first letters of

the prominent syllables of a word (e.g., TV < television) or of words in
a phrase (e.g., FBI < Federal Bureau of Investigation).

Proper Name. This process forms a word from a proper name (e.g.,
hamburger < Hamburg (Germany); sandwich < Earl of Sandwich).

Folk Etymology. This process forms a word by substituting a

common native form for an exotic (often foreign) form (e.g.,
cockroach < Spanish cucuracha ‘wood louse’).

Back Formation. This process forms a word by removing what is

mistaken for an affix (e.g. edit < editor; beg < beggar).

8. Morphophonemic Processes

There are processes that produce a great deal of linguistic variability:

assimilation, dissimilation, deletion, epenthesis, metathesis.

Assimilation is a process that results from a sound becoming more

like another nearby sound in terms of one or more of its phonetic
characteristics; a process in which segments take on the
characteristics of neighboring sounds; e.g. probable – improbable;
potent -impotent; separable – inseparable; sensitive – insensitive

Dissimilation is a process that results in two sounds becoming less

alike in articulatory or acoustic terms; a process in which units which
occur in some contexts are ‘lost’ in others; e.g. ‘libary’ instead of
‘library,’ ‘ govenor’ for ‘governor’
Deletion is a process that removes a segment from certain phonetic
 contexts. It occurs in everyday rapid speech; e.g. [blaɪn mæn] ‘blind
man ’

Epenthesis is a process that inserts a syllable or a nonsyllabic

segment within an existing string of segment; e.g. [plæntɪd] ‘planted’

Metathesis is a process that reorders or reverses a sequence of

segments; it occurs when two segments in a series switch places, e.g.
ask 🡪 aks; ruler 🡪 lurer; violet 🡪 viloyet

Syntactic Structures

1. Structure of Predication has two components: a subject and a

predicate; e.g. the seagull flies, the water level rose abruptly, the trial
has begun

2. Structure of Complementation has two basic components: a verbal

element and a complement; e.g. disturbed the class, rendered service,
be conscientious

3. Structure of Modification has two components: a head word and a

modifier, whose meaning serves to broaden, qualify, select, change, or
describe, or in some way affect the meaning of the head word; e.g.
responsible officers, trusted friend, impartially conducted

4. Structure of Coordination has two basic components: equivalent

grammatical units and joined often but not always by a coordinating
conjunction; e.g. bread and butter, peace not war, neither extrovert
nor introvert

Semantics

1. Lexical ambiguity refers to a characteristic of a word that has more

than one sense, e. g. the English word fly is ambiguous because it has
more than one meaning: ‘an insect,’ ‘a zipper on a pair of pants,’ or
‘a baseball hit into the air with a bat.’

2. Syntactic ambiguity refers to the characteristic of a phrase that has more

than one meaning, e.g. English literature teacher can mean ‘a
teacher of English literature’ or ‘a literature teacher who is from
England.’

3. Synonymy refers to words having the same sense; that is, they have
the same values for all of their semantic features. happy and glad;
reply and respond; hastily and hurriedly are synonymous words in
English.

4. Hyponymy is a characteristic of a word that contains the meaning of

another word; the contained word is known as the superordinate. For
example, sampaguita contains the meaning of flower; therefore,
sampaguita is a hyponym of the superordinate flower. Put another
way, a hyponym is a word whose meaning contains all the same
feature values of another word, plus some additional feature values.
 5. Antonymy refers to the characteristic of two words which are different
both in form as well as meaning. An antonym conveys the opposite
sense (binary antonyms), e.g. rich - poor; good – bad. They are also
words whose meanings differ only in the value for a single semantic
feature; e.g. rich – poor; rich is marked [+wealth] and poor is
marked [- wealth]; dead – alive; dead is marked [-life] and alive is
marked [+life]. Gradable antonyms are words that describe opposite
ends of a continuous dimension, e.g. hot and cold. Not everything
that can be hot or cold is, in fact, either hot or cold. Liquid, for
example, may be warm or cool.

6. Homonymy refers to sense relation in words with the same phonetic

form but different in meaning, e.g. bat meaning ‘a nocturnal animal’
and bat meaning ‘an equipment used in baseball or softball.’

7. Coreference refers to the sense relation of two expressions that have

the same extralinguistic referent. In the sentence “Mercury is the
nearest planet from the sun,” Mercury and the nearest planet from
the sun are coreferential because they both refer to the same
extralinguistic object – the planet Mercury in the solar system.

8. Anaphora is a linguistic expression that refers to another linguistic

expression; e.g. “The tsunami killed thousands of people. It was
devastating.” It in the second sentence is used anaphorically (to point
backwards) to refer to ‘the tsunami’.

9. Deixis refers to the characteristic of an expression that has one

meaning but can refer to different entities within the same context of
utterance. Deictic expressions have a ‘pointing function.’ Examples
of deixis are you, I, she (personal pronouns); here, there, right, left,
(expressions of place); this, that, those, these (demonstratives); now,
yesterday, today, last year (time expressions).

10. Entailment is a proposition (expressed in a sentence) that follows

necessarily from another sentence. A sentence entails another if the
meaning of the first includes the meaning of the second; it is also
called paraphrase. For example, the sentence, ‘Raul had a fatal
accident’ entails that ‘Raul died’ since it is impossible to figure in a
fatal accident without loss of life. Semantically speaking, fatal
means [-life] while died also means [-life].

11. Presupposition refers to a proposition (expressed in a sentence) that is

assumed to be true in order to judge the truth or falsity of another
sentence. It also refers to the truth relation between two sentences;
one sentence presupposes another if the falsity of the second renders
the first without a truth value; e.g. The sentence ‘The King of
Canada is dead.’ presupposes that ‘There exists (is) a King of
Canada.’ The first sentence presupposes the second sentence
because if the second sentence is false, then the first sentence has no
truth value.
Pragmatics
1. Speech act theory. Every utterance of speech constitutes some sort of
act (promising, apologizing, threatening, warning, etc.). Every
speech act consists of three separate acts:

Locutionary force an act of saying something; it is a description of

what a speaker says, e.g., I promise to return your book tomorrow.

Illocutionary act/force is the act of doing something; it is what the

speaker intends to do by uttering a sentence, e.g., by saying “I
promise to return your book tomorrow,” the speaker has made an act
of promising.

Perlocutionary act is an act of affecting someone (i.e., the listener);

it is the effect on the hearer of what a speaker says, e.g., by saying “I
will return your book tomorrow,” the hearer may feel happy or
relieved that s/he will get the book back

2. Categories of Illocutionary Acts. These are categories proposed by

John Searle to group together closely related intentions for saying
something.

Declaration. A declaration is an utterance used to change the status

of some entity – for example, Foul! uttered by a referee at a
basketball game. This class includes acts of appointing, naming,
resigning, baptizing, surrendering, excommunicating, arresting, and
so on.

Representative. A representative is an utterance used to describe

some state of affairs – for example, Recession will worsen in Europe
in the next five years. This class includes acts of stating, asserting,
denying, confessing, admitting, notifying, concluding, predicting,
and so on.

Commissive. A commissive is an utterance used to commit the

speaker to do something – for example, I’ll meet you at the library
at 10:00 a.m. This class includes acts of promising, vowing,
volunteering, offering, guaranteeing, pledging, betting, and so on.

Directive. A directive is an utterance used to try to get the hearer to

do something – for example, Review thoroughly for the exams. This
class includes acts of requesting, ordering, forbidding, warning,
advising, suggesting, insisting, recommending, and so on.

Expressive. An expressive is an utterance used to express the

emotional state of the speaker – for example, Congratulations for
topping the bar exam!. This class includes acts of apologizing,
thanking, congratulating, condoling, welcoming, deploring,
objecting, and so on.
Question. A question is an utterance used to get the hearer to
provide information – for example, Who won the presidential
election? This class includes acts of asking, inquiring, and so on.
(Note: Searle treated questions as a subcategory of directives;
 however, it is more useful to treat them as a separate category.)

3. Conversational Maxims are rules that are observed when

communication takes place in a situation where people are co operative.
When people communicate, they assume that the other person will be
cooperative and they themselves wish to cooperate.

In the “Cooperative Principle,” the following maxims or rules govern

oral interactions:

Maxim of quantity – a participant’s contribution should be as

informative as possible – “Give the right amount
of information, neither less nor more than what
is required.”
e.g. A: Are you attending the seminar?
B: Yes, I am.

Maxim of quality – a participant should not say that which is false or

that which the participant lacks evidence -
“Make your contribution such that it is true; do
not say what you know is false or for which you
do not have adequate evidence.”
e.g. A: Who did you see enter the room
last?
B: The janitor

Maxim of relation – a participant’s contribution should be related to

the subject of the conversation – “Be relevant.”
e.g. A: Why did you come late?
B: I had to take my son to school.

Maxim of manner – a participant’s contribution should be direct, not

obscure, ambiguous, or wordy – “Avoid
obscurity and ambiguity; be brief and orderly.”

e.g. A: Are you accepting the position? B: Yes, I am. Thank you
for your trust in me.

4. Implicatures refer to statements that imply a proposition that is not

part of the utterance and does not follow as a necessary consequence
of the utterance.

For example: Dan says to his wife Nitz,“Uncle Ernie is driving us to

Tagaytay” to which Nitz responds, “I guess I’d better take
tranquilizers.” Nitz’s utterance raises the implicature that Uncle Ernie
must be a fast, reckless driver.
Majorship : English

Focus : Teaching Listening & Speaking

LET Competency : Demonstrate understanding of the nature

of the four language macro
components (listening, speaking,
 reading, writing, including grammar)
and the theoretical bases, principles,
methods, and strategies in teaching
these components.

Introduction
Listening is the neglected communication skill. While all of us have had
instruction in reading, writing, and speaking, few have had any formal instruction
in listening. Most of us spend seven of every 10 minutes of our waking time in
some form of communication activity. Of these seven minutes (or 70% of the time
we are awake), 10% is spent writing, 15% reading, 30% talking, and 45%
listening.

Think of it! We spend nearly half of our communication time listening, but
few of us make any real effort to be better listeners. For those who do, however,
the effort pays great dividends—higher productivity, faster learning, and better
relationships.

Listening is more than merely hearing words. Listening is an active

process by which students receive, construct meaning from, and respond to
spoken and or nonverbal messages (Emmert, 1994). As such, it forms an integral
part of the communication process and should not be separated from the other
language arts. Listening comprehension complements reading comprehension.
Verbally clarifying the spoken message before, during, and after a presentation
enhances listening comprehension. Writing, in turn, clarifies and documents the
spoken message.

The Goal of Teaching Listening

As teachers, we want to produce students, who even if they do not have
complete control of the grammar or an extensive lexicon, can fend for themselves
in communication situations. In the case of listening, this means producing
students who can use listening strategies to maximize their comprehension of
aural input, identify relevant and non-relevant information, and tolerate less than
word-by-word comprehension.

The Nature of Listening

Listening takes up as much as 50% of our everyday communication time.
It is the main channel of classroom instruction and the most used language skill
at work and at home. Many learners want to develop effective listening
comprehension because it is crucial to their academic, professional, and personal
success.
 When we teach listening we consider what the object of our instruction is.
We look at ideas that have influenced thinking on learner listening in English
language teaching.

Kinds of Listening
Teachers can help students become effective listeners by making them
aware of the different kinds of listening, the different purposes for listening, and
the qualities of good listeners. Wolvin and Coakley (1992) identify four different
kinds of listening:

∙ Comprehensive (Informational) Listening--Students listen for the content

of the message.

∙ Critical (Evaluative) Listening--Students judge the message. ∙

Appreciative (Aesthetic) Listening--Students listen for enjoyment.

∙ Therapeutic (Empathetic) Listening--Students listen to support others but

not judge them.

Traditionally, secondary schools have concentrated on the comprehensive

and critical kinds of listening. Teachers need to provide experiences in all four
kinds. For example, listening to literature read, listening to radio plays, and
watching films develop appreciative in addition to comprehensive and critical
listening. When students provide supportive communication in collaborative
groups, they are promoting therapeutic listening. For example, the listening
behavior can show understanding, acceptance, and trust, all of which facilitate
communication. Students benefit from exposure to all four types of listening.

Listening is a general purpose in most learning situations. To be effective

listeners, however, students need a more specific focus than just attending to
what is
said. See the following chart which contrasts effective and ineffective listening
habits.

The Purposes for Listening

Listening requires conscious mental effort and specific purpose. The
purposes for listening relate to "types" of listening:
∙ Are you listening to receive information?
∙ Are you listening to follow instructions?
∙ Are you listening to evaluate information?
∙ Are you listening for pleasure?
∙ Are you listening to empathize?
Students should be able to determine what their purpose should be in any given
listening situation (see figure below).

Listening Comprehension skills or Enabling skills

▪ Listening for detail—involves listening for specific information

▪ Listening for gist—listen for main ideas
▪ Drawing inferences—ability to fill in gaps in the input
▪ Listening selectively—listen only to specific parts of the input. ▪ Making
predictions—ability to anticipate before and during listening what one is
going to hear.

Listening as a PRODUCT
It shows what listeners do in order to demonstrate their understanding. It is
described in terms of outcomes which are stated either verbally or non-verbally.

Examples of listening outcomes:

▪ Follow instructions
▪ Organize and classify information
▪ Take effective notes
▪ Take dictation
▪ Transfer information into graphic forms
▪ Reconstruct original text
▪ Make appropriate oral respon
Listening as a PROCESS
Students do not have an innate understanding of what effective listeners
do; therefore, it is the responsibility of teachers to share that knowledge with
them. Perhaps the most valuable way to teach listening skills is for teachers to
model them themselves, creating an environment which encourages listening.
Teachers can create such an environment by positive interaction, actively
listening to all students and responding in an open and appropriate manner.
Teachers should avoid responding either condescendingly or sarcastically. As
much as possible, they should minimize distractions and interruptions. It is
important for the teacher to provide numerous opportunities for students to
practice listening skills and to become actively engaged in the listening process.

Listening is a mental process. Our brain processes linguistic information in

three
ways:
1. Attend to signals (sounds or print) and identify them as
words. 2. Process information in the most efficient way.
3. Draw on knowledge stored in the long- term memory.

Anderson proposed a three-phase language comprehension model:

❖ Perception is the encoding of sound signals
❖ Parsing is the process by which an utterance is segmented according to
syntactic structures or meaning cues to create a mental representation of
the combined meaning of the words.
❖ Utilization occurs when listeners relate mental representations of the input
to existing knowledge in long- term memory

Bottom–up Listening

This refers to a process by which sounds are used to build up units of

information, such as words, phrases, clauses and sentences before the aural
input is understood.

Top-down processing
This refers to the application of background knowledge to facilitate
comprehension.
It is generally believed now that both top-down and bottom-up processing
occur at the same time in what is known as parallel processing (Eysenck,1993).
In some instances, one type of processing might take precedence over the other,
depending on the amount of practice an individual has had on a specific task.

Factors that Influence Learners’ Listening

Three sources of information are crucial to how language learners
listen: 1. Background knowledge (schematic)
2. Knowledge of the situation and co-text (contextual)
3. Knowledge of the language system (systemic)

Listening can be best understood as a combination of low and high inferences

(Rost, 1990) Listeners make low-level inferences when they use their knowledge
of linguistic features to infer (decode) the sounds in an utterance. To understand
what a message means, they engage in higher level inferences by using on their
knowledge of both linguistic and pragmatic nature.

Another cognitive perspective on learner listening is the use of listening

comprehension strategies. These are mental mechanisms used to process and
manage information. The three categories of listening strategies are:

❖ Cognitive : process, interpret, store and recall information. This involves

strategies such as inferencing and prediction.
❖ Metacognitive : manage and facilitate mental process; cope with difficulties
during listening. Examples of such strategies include comprehension
monitoring and visualizing.

❖ Social-affective : ask the help of others to facilitate comprehension;

manage one’s emotions when listening such as confidence building and
cooperation.

Stages in a Listening Lesson

The Phases of Listening
The three phases of the listening process are: pre-listening, during
listening, and after listening.

Pre-listening
During the pre-listening phase, teachers need to recognize that all
students bring different backgrounds to the listening experience. Beliefs,
attitudes, and biases of the listeners will affect the understanding of the message.
In addition to being aware of these factors, teachers should show students how
their backgrounds affect the messages they receive.

Before listening, students need assistance to activate what they already know
about the ideas they are going to hear. Simply being told the topic is not
enough. Pre-listening activities are required to establish what is already known
about the topic, to build necessary background, and to set purpose(s) for
listening. Students need to understand that the “…act of listening requires not
just hearing but thinking, as well as a good deal of interest and information which
both speaker and listener must have in common. Speaking and listening entail ...
three components: the speaker, the listener, and the meaning to be shared;
speaker, listener, and meaning form a unique triangle (King, 1984).”

The teacher allows the learner to ‘tune in’ to the context or to the topic of a
given text. The students may perhaps express their views about the text to be
listened to; they may predict content from the title of a selection, answer a set of
questions, study and examine pictures, and sing a song or a chant. Each of these
helps students to focus on a topic, activate their schemata or prior knowledge
and allows them to use the words which they will shortly hear in the text.

There are several strategies that students and their teachers can use to
prepare for a listening experience. They can:

1. Activate Existing Knowledge. Students should be encouraged to ask the

question: What do I already know about this topic? From this teachers and
students can determine what information they need in order to get the
most from the message. Students can brainstorm, discuss, read, view
films or photos, and write and share journal entries.

2. Build Prior Knowledge. Teachers can provide the appropriate background

information including information about the speaker, topic of the
presentation, purpose of the presentation, and the concepts and
vocabulary that are likely to be embedded in the presentation. Teachers
may rely upon the oral interpretation to convey the meanings of unfamiliar
words, leaving the discussion of these words until after the presentation.
At this stage, teachers need to point out the role that oral punctuation,
body language, and tone play in an oral presentation.

3. Review Standards for Listening. Teachers should stress the importance

of the audience's role in a listening situation. There is an interactive
relationship between audience and speaker, each affecting the other.
Teachers can outline the following considerations to students:

o Students have to be physically prepared for listening. They

need to see and hear the speaker. If notes are to be taken, they
should have paper and pencil at hand.

o Students need to be attentive. In many cultures, though not all, it

is expected that the listener look directly at the speaker and indicate
attention and interest by body language. The listener should never
talk when a speaker is talking. Listeners should put distractions and
problems aside.
o "Listen to others as you would have them listen to you."

4. Establish Purpose. Teachers should encourage students to ask: "Why

am I listening?" "What is my purpose?" Students should be encouraged to
articulate their purpose.

o Am I listening to understand? Students should approach the

 speech with an open mind. If they have strong personal opinions,
they should be encouraged to recognize their own biases.

o Am I listening to remember? Students should look for the main

ideas and how the speech is organized. They can fill in the
secondary details later.

o Am I listening to evaluate? Students should ask themselves if the

speaker is qualified and if the message is legitimate. They should
be alert to errors in the speaker's thinking processes, particularly
bias, sweeping generalizations, propaganda devices, and charged
words that may attempt to sway by prejudice or deceit rather than
fact.

o Am I listening to be entertained? Students should listen for those

elements that make for an enjoyable experience (e.g., emotive
language, imagery, mood, humor, presentation skills).

o Am I listening to support? Students should listen closely to

determine how other individuals are feeling and respond
appropriately (e.g., clarify, paraphrase, sympathize, encourage).

Before a speaker's presentation, teachers also can have students

formulate questions that they predict will be answered during the presentation. If
the questions are not answered, students may pose the questions to the speaker.
Students should as well be encouraged to jot down questions during listening.

An additional strategy is called TQLR. It consists of the following steps:

T – Tune-in
(The listener must tune-in to the speaker and the subject, mentally calling
up everything known about the subject and shutting out all distractions.)

Q -- Question
(The listener should mentally formulate questions. What will this speaker
say about this topic? What is the speaker's background? I wonder if the
speaker will talk about...?)

L -- Listen
(The listener should organize the information as it is received, anticipating
what the speaker will say next and reacting mentally to everything heard.)

R -- Review
 (The listener should go over what has been said, summarize, and evaluate
constantly. Main ideas should be separated from subordinate ones.)

5. Use a Listening Guide. A guide may provide an overview of the

presentation, its main ideas, questions to be answered while listening, a
summary of the presentation, or an outline. For example, a guide such as
the following could be used by students during a presentation in class.

1. Situation:
Speaker's name:
Date:
Occasion:

2. What is the general subject of this talk?

3. What is the main point or message of this talk?

4. What is the speaker's organizational plan?

5. What transitional expressions (e.g., firstly,

secondly, in contrast, in conclusion) does the
speaker use?

6. Does the speaker digress from the main point?

7. Write the speaker's main point in no more than

three sentences.

What is your personal reaction to the talk?

While- Listening Stage

While-listening tasks are what students are asked to do during listening

time. The listening tasks should be enjoyable and meaningful to the students. It
should be simple and easy to handle. It should provide opportunities for students
to succeed.

Students need to understand the implications of rate in the listening process.

Nichols (1948) found that people listen and think at four times the normal
conversation rate. Students have to be encouraged to use the "rate gap" to
actively process the message. In order to use that extra time wisely.
Effective listeners:

∙ connect—make connections with people, places, situations, and ideas

they know
∙ findmeaning—determine what the speaker is saying about people,
places, and ideas
∙ question—pay attention to those words and ideas that are unclear ∙ make
and confirm predictions—try to determine what will be said next
 ∙ make inferences—determine speaker's intent by "listening between the
lines"; infer what the speaker does not actually say
∙ reflect
and evaluate—respond to what has been heard and pass
judgment.

"Comprehension is enormously improved when the speaker's schema or

organizational pattern is perceived by the listener" (Devine, 1982). Teach
students the various structures (e.g., short story, essay, poetry, play),
organizational patterns (e.g., logical, chronological, spatial), and transitional
devices. Effective listeners can follow spoken discourse when they recognize
key signal expressions such as the following:

∙ Example words: for example, for instance, thus, in other words, as an

illustration
Usually found in: generalization plus example (but may be found in
enumeration and argumentation)
∙ Time words: first, second, third, meanwhile, next, finally, at last, today,
tomorrow, soon
Usually found in: narration, chronological patterns, directions (and
whenever events or examples are presented in a time sequence)
• Addition words: in addition, also, furthermore, moreover, another
example
Usually found in: Enumeration, description, and sometimes in
generalization plus example
∙ Result words: as a result, so, accordingly, therefore, thus
Usually found in: Cause and effect
∙ Contrast words: however, but, in contrast, on the other hand,
nevertheless
Usually found in: comparison and contrast (and whenever speaker makes
a comparison or contrast in another pattern) (Devine, 1982).

Most students need practice in making inferences while listening. A

simple way to help students become aware that there is meaning between the
lines is to read a passage from literature which describes a character's actions,
appearance, or surroundings. From this information, students make inferences
about the character's personality. Teachers should keep in mind that the purpose
of an exercise such as this is not to elicit the exact answer, but to provide
opportunities for students to make various inferences. Students also need to be
aware of the inferences they can make from non-verbal cues. A speaker's tone
and body language can convey a message as well.

Teachers can also encourage guided imagery when students are

listening to presentations that have many visual images, details, or descriptive
words. Students can form mental pictures to help them remember while listening.
 Although listeners need not capture on paper everything they hear, there
are times that students need to focus on the message and need to record certain
words and phrases. Such note-making ("listening with pen in hand") forces
students to attend to the message. Devine (1982) suggests strategies such as
the following:

∙ Givequestions in advance and remind listeners to listen for possible

answers.
∙ Provide a rough outline, map, chart, or graph for students to complete as
they follow the lecture.
∙ Have students jot down "new-to-me" items (simple lists of facts or insights
that the listener has not heard before).
∙ Use a formal note-taking system.

Transcribing or writing down live or recorded speech can sharpen

students' listening, spelling, and punctuation skills.

∙ Teacher selects an interesting piece of writing.

∙ The selection is read aloud to the class (and perhaps discussed).
∙ The teacher then dictates the passage slowly to the class. The students
transcribe the form and conventions (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and
capitalization) as accurately as possible.
∙ Students compare their transcription with distributed copies of the original.

Critical thinking plays a major role in effective listening. Listening in order

to analyze and evaluate requires students to evaluate a speaker's arguments and
the value of the ideas, appropriateness of the evidence, and the persuasive
techniques employed. Effective listeners apply the principles of sound thinking
and reasoning to the messages they hear at home, in school, in the workplace, or
in the media.

Planning and structuring classroom activities to model and encourage

students to listen critically is important. Students should learn to: ∙ Analyze
the message

Critical listeners are concerned first with understanding accurately and

completely what they hear (Brownell, 1996). Students should identify the
speaker's topic, purpose, intended audience, and context. The most
frequent critical listening context is persuasion. They should keep an
open-minded and objective attitude as they strive to identify the main
idea(s)/thesis/claim and the supporting arguments/points/anecdotes. They
should ask relevant questions and restate perceptions to make sure they
have understood correctly. Taking notes will enhance their listening.
 ∙ Analyze the speaker

Critical listeners must understand the reliability of the speaker. Is the

speaker credible? Trustworthy? An expert? Dynamic?

∙ Analyze the speaker's evidence

Critical listeners must understand the nature and appropriateness of the

evidence and reasoning. What evidence is used? Expert testimony?
Facts? Statistics? Examples? Reasons? Opinions? Inappropriate
evidence might include untrustworthy testimony; inadequate, incorrect,
inappropriate, or irrelevant facts, statistics, or examples; or quotations out
of context or incomplete.

∙ Analyze the speaker's reasoning

Critical listeners must understand the logic and reasoning of the speaker.
Is this evidence developed in logical arguments such as deductive,
inductive, causal, or analogous? Faulty reasoning might include hasty or
over-inclusive generalization, either-or argument, causal fallacy (therefore,
because of this), non sequitur (confusion of cause and effect), reasoning
in a circle, begging or ignoring the question, false analogy, attacking the
person instead of the idea, or guilt by association.

∙ Analyze the speaker's emotional appeals

Critical listeners must understand that persuaders often rely on emotional

appeal as well as evidence and reasoning. Critical listeners, therefore,
must recognize effective persuasive appeals and propaganda devices. A
skilled critical listener identifies and discounts deceptive persuasive
appeals such as powerful connotative (loaded) words, doublespeak,
appeals to fears, prejudice, discontent, flattery, stereotype, or tradition.
The listener must also identify and discount propaganda techniques such
as bandwagon appeals, glittering generalities, inappropriate testimonials,
pseudo-scientific evidence, card-stacking, and name-calling.

Problems that Language Learners Face During Listening

Text
Three types of text feature can affect listening:
1. phonology and speech rate
2. discourse features
3. text types
Task
They are influenced by the types of question, the amount of time and whether or
not the listener can get the information repeated.
Interlocutor (speaker)
This includes accent, fluency, gender, and standard or non standard usage.
Listener
Listener characteristics include: language proficiency, gender, memory, interest,
purpose, prior knowledge, attention, accuracy of pronunciation, topic familiarity,
and established learning habits.
Process
This refers to type of processing that listeners use, whether top-down or bottom
up or both. The type of listening strategy used by the listener is an important
factor.

Post-Listening Stage
This is usually at the end of a lesson. These are off-shoots or extension of the
work done at the pre- and while listening stage. At this stage the students have
time to think, reflect, discuss and to write.

Students need to act upon what they have heard to clarify meaning and
extend their thinking. Well-planned post-listening activities are just as important
as those before and during. Some examples follow.

∙ To begin with, students can ask questions of themselves and the speaker to
clarify their understanding and confirm their assumptions.

∙ Hook and Evans (1982) suggest that the post-mortem is a very useful
device. Students should talk about what the speaker said, question
statements of opinion, amplify certain remarks, and identify parallel
incidents from life and literature.

∙ Students can summarize a speaker's presentation orally, in writing, or as

an outline. In addition to the traditional outline format, students could use
time lines, flow charts, ladders, circles, diagrams, webs, or maps.

∙ Students can review their notes and add information that they did not
have an opportunity to record during the speech.
∙ Students can analyze and evaluate critically what they have heard.

∙ Students can be given opportunities to engage in activities that build on and

develop concepts acquired during an oral presentation. These may
include writing (e.g., response journal, learning log, or composition),
reading (e.g., further research on a topic or a contradictory viewpoint), art
or drama (e.g., designing a cover jacket after a book talk or developing a
 mock trial concerning the topic through drama in role).

Listening Tasks for Communicative Outcomes

Communicative Outcomes Examples

Lists Similarities/difference/errors

Sequenced information Picture sequences, lyrics

Matched items Pictures with texts, themes with texts

Restored texts Complete the gaps in a text

Diagrams or pictures Floor plans, sketches of people

Notes Short notes during presentations

One–Way Listening Tasks (transactional)

It involves listening and responding through different ways to achieve outcomes.

They do not have to interact with the speaker while listening. It is mainly
concerned with obtaining information and knowledge.
Task Response

Restoration Include omitted words or phrases

Reconstruction Create original message with words

heard or noted down

Sorting sequence, rank, categorize items

Evaluation identify inconsistencies and

contradictions

Task Response

Matching Match information from listening

to pictures or written texts

Jigsaw Create a whole from different parts

Two-way Listening tasks (interactional)

The listener has to interact with the speaker by asking questions, offering
information and expressing opinions.
Task Response

Creative dictation Dictate to each other to complete a text

Description Sequence/reproduce/complete
pictures or diagrams

Simulation Listen and express opinion in

simulated situations

Presentation Listen and respond to formal

and informal presentations
Some Practical Listening Strategies and Activities

Comprehensive Listening Strategies (elementary)

▪ Forming a picture (draw an image, then write about it)
▪ Putting information into groups (categorizing, “chunking”)
▪ Asking questions (Why am I listening to this message?; Do I know what ___
means?; Does this information make sense to me?)
▪ Discovering the plan (description, sequence, comparison, cause and effect,
problem/solution)
▪ Note taking (demonstrate by taking notes with the children)
▪ Getting clues from the speaker (both visual and verbal cues)

Critical Listening (intermediate to high school)

▪ Help children to recognize: persuasion and propaganda, deceptive

language, loaded words, propaganda devices.
▪ Steps:
1. introduce the commercial(s)
2. explain deceptive language
3. analyze it
4. review concepts
5. provide practice
6. create commercials
The same procedure applies to advertisements.

Appreciative Listening (primary)

▪ Enjoyment is reason enough to read-aloud to children.
▪ Appreciative listening is important for: reading aloud to students, repeated
readings, and oral presentations.

▪ Teaching Appreciative Listening:

1. Before reading-aloud: activate prior knowledge, background, set
purpose for reading
2. During reading-aloud: Use Directed Reading Thinking Activity
(DRTA)—make predictions, reasoning and further predictions,
prove if predictions are true
3. After reading-aloud: share their log and relate to their lives.
Authentic Listening Activities (for different levels)
▪ Acting out a story from one that is read (or being read)
▪ Making or doing something by following oral directions
▪ Participating in class or group discussions
▪ Getting information by listening to an announcement
▪ Working on group projects
▪ Critiquing a peer’s draft of a story after listening to it
▪ Enjoying good literature that is well presented orally
▪ Evaluating an issue that is being debated
▪ Evaluating products advertised in commercials
▪ Evaluating candidates from their campaign speeches

TEACHING SPEAKING
Introduction

Speech is the most basic means of communication.”Speaking in a second

language or foreign language has often been viewed as the most demanding and
challenging of the four skills.” (Bailey and Savage, 1994) What specifically makes
speaking in a second language or foreign language difficult. According to Brown
(1994) a number of features of spoken language includes reduced forms such as
contractions, vowel reduction, and elision; slang and idioms; stress, rhythm, and
intonation. Students who are not exposed to reduced speech will always retain
their full forms and it will become a disadvantage as a speaker of a second
language. Speaking is an activity requiring the integration of many subsystems.

The Goal of Teaching Speaking

The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency. Learners

should be able to make themselves understood, using their current proficiency to
the fullest. They should try to avoid confusion in the message due to faulty
pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, and to observe the social and cultural
rules that apply in each communication situation.

To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, instructors

can use a balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured
output, and communicative output.

The Nature of Speaking

Oral communication is a two-way process between speaker and listener

(or listeners) and involves the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill
of understanding (or listening with understanding). Both speaker and listener
have a positive function to perform. In simple terms, the speaker has to encode
the message he wishes to convey in appropriate language, while the listener (no
less actively) has to decode (or interpret) the message.

Different views of speaking in language teaching

A review of some of the views of the current issues in teaching oral

communication can help provide some perspective to the more practical
considerations of designing speaking lessons.

1. Conversational discourse
The benchmark of successful language acquisition is almost always the
demonstration of an ability to accomplish pragmatic goals through interactive
 discourse with other speakers of the language. Although historically,
“conversation” classes have ranged from quasi-communicative drilling to free,
open, and sometimes agenda-less discussions among students; current
pedagogical research on teaching conversation has provided some
parameters for developing objectives and techniques.

Though the goals and the techniques for teaching conversation are
extremely diverse—depending on the student, teacher, and overall context of
the class—language teachers have nonetheless learned to differentiate
between transactional and interactional conversation. Instructors have
discovered techniques for teaching students conversation rules such as topic
nomination, maintaining a conversation, turn-taking, interruption, and
termination. Teachers have also learned to teach sociolinguistic
appropriateness, styles of speech, nonverbal communication, and
conversational routines. Within all these foci, the phonological, lexical, and
syntactic properties of language can be attended to, either directly or
indirectly.

2. Teaching pronunciation
There has been some controversy over the role of pronunciation work in a
communicative, interactive course of study. Because the overwhelming
majority of adult learners will never acquire an accent-free command of a
foreign language, should a language program that emphasizes whole
language, meaningful contexts, and automaticity of production focus on these
tiny phonological details of language? The answer is “yes,” but in a different
way from what was perceived to be essential; a couple of decades ago.
3. Accuracy and fluency
An issue that pervades all of language performance centers on the
distinction between accuracy and fluency. In spoken language the question
we face as teachers is: How shall we prioritize the two clearly important
speaker goals of accurate (clear, articulate, grammatically and phonologically
correct) language and fluent (flowing, natural) language?

It is clear that fluency and accuracy are both important goals to pursue in
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). While fluency may in many
communicative language courses be an initial goal in language teaching,
accuracy is achieved to some extent by allowing students to focus on the
elements of phonology, grammar, and discourse in their spoken output.

The fluency/accuracy issue often boils down to the extent to which our
techniques should be message oriented (or teaching language use) as
opposed to language oriented (also known as teaching language usage).
 Current approaches to language teaching lean strongly toward message
orientation with language usage offering a supporting role.

4. Affective factors
One of the major obstacles learners have to overcome in learning to speak
is the anxiety generated over the risks of blurting things out that are wrong,
stupid, or incomprehensible. Because of the language ego that informs
people that “you are what you speak,” learners are reluctant to be judged by
hearers. Our job as teachers is to provide the kind of warm, embracing
climate that encourages students to speak, however halting or broken their
attempts may be.

5. The interaction effect

The greatest difficulty that learners encounter in attempts to speak is not
the multiplicity of sounds, words, phrases, and discourse forms that
characterize any language, but rather the interactive nature of most
communication. Conversations are collaborative as participants engage in a
process of negotiation of meaning. So, for the learner, the matter of what you
say is often eclipsed by conventions of how to say things, when to speak, and
other discourse constraints.

David Nunan (1991) notes a further complication in interactive discourse:

what he calls the interlocutor effect, or the difficulty of a speaking task as
gauged by the skills of one’s interlocutor. In other words, one learner’s
performance is always colored by that of the person (interlocutor) he or she is
talking with.
Factors that Influence Learners’ Speaking
The six factors below suggest that any learner who really wants to can
learn to pronounce English clearly and comprehensibly. As the teacher, you can
assist in the process by gearing your planned and unplanned instruction toward
these six factors.

1. Native Language
The native language is clearly the most influential factor affecting a
learner’s pronunciation. If the teacher is familiar with the sound system of a
learner’s native language, (s)he will be better able to diagnose student
difficulties. Many L1 to L2 carryovers can be overcome through a focused
awareness and effort on the learner’s part.

2. Age
Children under the age of puberty generally stand an excellent chance
 of “sounding like a native” if they have continued exposure in authentic
contexts. Beyond the age of puberty, while adults will almost surely maintain a
“foreign accent,” there is no particular advantage attributed to age. A fifty
year-old can be as successful as an eighteen-year-old if all other factors are
equal. The belief that “the younger, the better” in learning a language is a
myth.

3. Exposure
It is difficult to define exposure. One can actually live in a foreign country for
some time but not take advantage of being “with the people.” Research
seems to support the notion that the quality and intensity of exposure are
more important than mere length of time. If class time spent focusing on
pronunciation demands the full attention and interest of students, then they
stand a good chance of reaching their goals.

4. Innate phonetic ability

Often referred to as having an “ear” for language, some people manifests
a phonetic coding ability that others do not. In many cases, if a person has
had exposure to a foreign language as a child, this “knack” is present whether
the early language is remembered or not. Others are simply more attuned to
phonetic discriminations. Some people would have you believe that you either
have such a knack, or you don’t. Strategies-based instruction, however, has
proven that some elements of learning are a matter of an awareness of your
own limitations combined with a conscious focus on doing something to
compensate for those limitations. Therefore, if pronunciation seems to be
naturally difficult for some students, they should not despair; with some effort
and concentration, they can improve their competence.

5. Identity and language ego

Another influence is one’s attitude toward speakers of the target language
and the extent to which the language ego identifies with those speakers.
Learners need to be reminded of the importance

6. Motivation and concern for good pronunciation

Some learners are not particularly concerned about their pronunciation,
while others are. The extent to which learners’ intrinsic motivation propels
them toward improvement will be perhaps the strongest influence of all six of
the factors in this list. If that motivation and concern are high, then the
necessary effort will be expended in pursuit of goals. As the teacher, you can
 help learners to perceive or develop that motivation by showing, among other
things, how clarity of speech is significant in shaping their self-image and,
ultimately, in reaching some of their higher goals.

Problems that language learners face during speaking

Students often think that the ability to speak a language is the product of
language learning, but speaking is also a crucial part of the language learning
process. Effective instructors teach students speaking strategies—using minimal
responses, recognizing scripts, and using language to talk about language—that
they can use to help themselves expand their knowledge of the language and
their confidence in using it. These instructors help students learn to speak so that
the students can use speaking to learn.

Douglas Brown (2000) identified eight factors that can make speaking difficult.

1. Clustering
Fluent speech is phrasal, not word by word. Learners can organize their
output both cognitively and physically (in breath groups) through such
clustering.

2. Redundancy
The speaker has an opportunity to make meaning clearer through the
redundancy of language. Learners can capitalize on this feature of spoken
language.

3. Reduced forms
Contractions, elisions, reduced vowels, etc., all form special problems in
teaching spoken English. Students who don’t learn colloquial contractions can
sometimes develop a stilted, bookish quality of speaking that in turn
stigmatizes them.

4. Performance variables
One of the advantages of spoken language is that the process of thinking as
you speak allows you to manifest a certain number of performance
hesitations, pauses, backtracking, and corrections. Learners can actually be
taught how to pause and hesitate. For example, in English our “thinking time”
is not silent; we insert certain “fillers” such as uh, um, well, you know, I mean,
like, etc. One of the most salient differences between native and nonnative
speakers of a language is in their hesitation phenomena.
5. Colloquial language
Make sure your students are reasonably well acquainted with the words,
idioms, and phrases of colloquial language and those they get practice in
producing these forms.

6. Rate of delivery
Another salient characteristic of fluency is rate of delivery. One of the
language teacher’s tasks in teaching spoken English is to help learners
achieve an acceptable speed along with other attributes of fluency.

7. Stress, rhythm, and intonation

This is the most important characteristic of English pronunciation. The stress
timed rhythm of spoken English and its intonation patterns convey important
messages.

8. Interaction
Learning to produce waves of language in a vacuum—without interlocutors—
would rob speaking skill of its richest component: the creativity of
conversational negotiation.

Speaking Tasks for Communicative Outcomes

Type of Performance Task/Response

Imitative Speaking • student simply parrots back (imitate) a word

or phrase or possibly a sentence.
• Tasks:
– word repetition
– pronunciation drills (stress, intonation)

Intensive Speaking • one step beyond imitative speaking to include

any speaking performance that is designed to
practice some phonological or grammatical
aspect of language
• Tasks:
– directed response
– read-aloud
– sentence/dialogue completion tasks
– oral questionnaires
– picture-cued tasks
 Responsive Speaking • short replies to teacher- or student-initiated
questions or comments (a good deal of student
speech in the classroom is responsive); replies
do not extend into dialogues; such speech can
be meaningful and authentic.
• Tasks:
– question and answer
– eliciting instructions and directions
– paraphrasing a story or a dialogue

Interactive Speaking : • • Transactional dialogue—carried out for the

Transactional purpose of conveying or exchanging specific
information; involves relatively long stretches of
(dialogue) • interactive discourse
Interpersonal • Interpersonal dialogue—carried out for the
(dialogue) purpose of maintaining social relationships
• Tasks:
– interviews
– role play
– discussions (arriving at a consensus,
problem solving)
– games
– conversations
– information gap activity
– telling longer stories
– extended explanations

Extensive Speaking • usually for intermediate to advanced levels; tasks

(monologue) involve complex, relatively lengthy stretches of
discourse; extended monologues can be planned
or impromptu
• Tasks:
– oral reports
– summaries
– short speeches
– picture-cued storytelling
– retelling a story or a news event

Stages in a Speaking Lesson

What is the role of the language teacher in the classroom? In the first
place, like any other teacher, the task of the language teacher is to create the
best conditions for learning. In a sense, the teacher is a means to an end: an
instrument to see that learning takes place. But in addition to this general
function, a teacher plays specific roles in different stages of the learning process.

The Presentation Stage

This is also known as the pre-activity phase of the lesson where the
teacher introduces something new to be learned. At this stage of a speaking
lesson, the teacher’s main task is to serve as a kind of informant. As the teacher,
you know the language; you select the new material to be learned and you
present this in such a way that the meaning of the new language is as clear and
as memorable as possible. The students listen and try to understand. Although
they are probably saying very little at this stage, except when invited to join in,
they are by no means passive. Always be on guard against the danger of
spending too much time presenting so much so that the students do not get
enough time to practice the language themselves.

The Practice Stage

At the practice stage it is the students’ turn to do most of the talking, while
your main task is to devise and provide the maximum amount of practice, which
must at the same time be meaningful, authentic, and memorable. This stage is
also called the While (or Main) Activity or the Speaking Activity stage. Your role
then as teacher is radically different from that at the presentation. You do the
minimum amount of talking yourself. You are like the skillful conductor of an
orchestra, giving each of the performers a chance to participate and monitoring
their performance to see that it is satisfactory.

The Production Stage

It is a pity that language learning often stops short at the practice stage or
does not go regularly beyond it. Many teachers feel that they have done their job
if they have presented the new material well and have given their students
adequate—though usually controlled—practice in it. No real learning should be
assumed to have taken place until the students are able to use the language for
themselves; provision to use language must be made part of the lesson. At any
level of attainment, the students need to be given regular and frequent
opportunities to use language freely, even if they sometimes make mistakes as a
result. This is not to say that mistakes are unimportant, but rather that free
expression is more important, and it is a great mistake to deprive students of this
opportunity.

It is through these opportunities to use language as they wish that the

students become aware that they have learned something useful to them
personally, and are encouraged to go on learning. Thus in providing the students
with activities for free expression and in discreetly watching over them as they
carry them out, you, as teacher, take on the role of manager, guide, or adviser.

Although the sequence described above—presentation → practice →

production — is a well-tried approach to language learning and is known to be
effective in average (i.e., non-privileged) classroom conditions; it should not,
however, be interpreted too literally. These stages are not recipes for organizing
all our lessons. In the first place, the actual “shape” of a lesson will depend on a
number of factors, such as the amount of time needed for each stage. Activities
at the production stage in particular can vary a great deal in length. Also, stages
tend to overlap and run into one another; for example, some practice may be part
of the presentation stage.
MAJORSHIP

Area: ENGLISH

Focus: Teaching Reading and Writing

LET Competencies:

1. Demonstrate understanding of the nature of reading and writing and the theoretical
bases, principles, methods, and strategies in teaching these components
2. Apply skills and strategies gained from reading and writing instruction principles and
techniques

The Teaching of Reading

What is reading?
Reading is a process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among the
reader’s existing knowledge, the information suggested by the written language, and the context
of reading situation.

What are the factors that influence reading in a second/foreign language? 1. Cognitive
development and learning style orientation at the time of beginning second/foreign language
study
2. First language proficiency
3. First language metalinguistic knowledge
4. Second/foreign language proficiency
5. First language and a second/foreign language degree of differences
6. Cultural orientations
(-from Farrell, T.S.C., 2002)

What are the concerns of teaching reading?

1. Schema Activation to make sense of new information in light of what they already know,
and to make the necessary connection between the two. Some basic pre-reading
techniques are
∙ Brainstorming ideas that a topic bring to mind;
∙ Previewing a passage, noting headings and bold print;
∙ Constructing a graphic organizer, web, or outline from passage headings for use in
note taking

2. Vocabulary Development is an important factor contributing to reading comprehension.

Studies conducted on the importance of vocabulary instruction demonstrate that it plays a
major role in improving comprehension. This instruction can be done through ∙ Wide
reading approach
∙ Direct instruction
∙ Superficial instruction
(- from Devine, T., 1986)
What are the principles of vocabulary instruction?
1. Be enthusiastic about content area language.
2. Relate new vocabulary words to experiences and concepts that students know. 3. Limit
the number of words taught in each unit; concentrate on key concepts. 4. Help students to
see clearly the associations among related concepts. 5. Use mental imagery and symbolic
representation techniques to help students think about new words.
6. Model how to use graphic organizers.
7. Allow students enough practice in working with strategies and graphic organizers so
that their use becomes a habit.
8. Use dictionaries and glossaries appropriately.
9. Repeatedly model how to determine a word’s meaning in text materials. (- from

Gunning, T. G., 2003)

What is the basis for choosing words for vocabulary development?

1. high frequency words
2. academic words/ content area words
3. technical words
4. literary words
5. low frequency words
 (-from Nation, P., 2002)

3. Comprehension Development is the main purpose of reading instruction. For

comprehension to improve, the interaction among all three factors (reader, text, and
context) must be taken into consideration.
4. Understanding text Organization helps students to have a blueprint for constructing a
situational model of a story or informational piece. Students need to learn the following in
relation to text organization:
∙ Text type (narrative or expository)
∙ genre
∙ Hierarchy of ideas in exposition
∙ Significant details in narrative and expository texts
∙ Use of graphic organizers

5. Application is the part of the lesson that helps readers see the relevance of learning in
their own life, or appreciate the nature of their environment and understand the
significance of knowing about the lessons discussed in the classroom. This provides a
ground for making students remember and value insights learned in the class. Reading
instruction can end by:
∙ Valuing
∙ Appreciating
∙ Relating lessons to own life
∙ Linking lesson to explain real-life contexts
∙ Responding creatively using multiple intelligence

What is the format of a language lesson?

A language lesson has five parts or phases:

1. The perspective or opening phase where the teacher gives a preview of the new reading
lesson that he/she will teach.
2. The simulation phase where the teacher poses a question (or questions) to get the
student thinking about the coming activity. This is used as a lead into the main activity. 3. The
instruction/participation phase introduces the main activity of the reading lesson. 4. The
closure phase is where the teacher attempts to get the students’ input regarding what they
have learned in the lesson that was just presented.
5. The follow-up and the final phase has the teacher using other activities to reinforce the
same concepts and introduce new ones.

What are the general instructional objectives for a second/foreign language reading
program?
1. To develop an awareness of reading strategies necessary for successful reading
comprehension.
2. To expand vocabulary and develop techniques for continued increase of vocabulary. 3.
To develop an awareness of linguistics and rhetorical structures found in reading texts. 4.
To increase reading speed and fluency.
5. To promote an interest in different types of reading materials.
6. To provide individual feedback on progress in improving reading skills.
7. To provide practice in extensive reading skills.

What are the principles for designing effective and interesting reading
lessons? 1. The reading materials are interesting for the students.
2. The major activity of the reading lesson is students reading texts.
3. Activities and exercises reflect the purposeful, task-based interactive nature of real reading
(predicting, hypothesizing, and revising ideas about what was read). 4. Activities and tasks
allow the learners to bring their knowledge and experiences to the reading passage.
5. Instructional activities have a TEACHING rather than a testing focus.
6. A variety of different reading activities are used during each lesson ( to maintain interest,
motivation, and pace)
7. Lessons should be divided into pre-reading, during reading and post-reading phases. (-

from Farrell, T.S.C., 2002)

What is Content-Based Instruction?

∙ Content-based instruction (CBI) is “…the integration of particular content with language

teaching aims.” It is based on the common underlying principle that successful language
learning occurs when students are presented with target language material in a
meaningful, contextualized form, with the primary focus on acquiring information and
knowledge.

∙ Content can refer to academic content or content in terms of cultural themes.

∙ One of the reasons for the increasing interest among educators in developing content based
 language instruction is the theory that language acquisition is based on input that is
meaningful and comprehensible to the learner (Krashen 1981, 1982).

∙ Content becomes the organizing principle; and language structures, vocabulary, and
functions are selected by the teacher that are both necessary for the content and that are
compatible with it. This contextualizes language learning for students and focuses the
learner’s attention primarily on meaning.

∙ CBI approaches “… view the target language as the vehicle through which subject matter
content is learned rather than as the immediate object of study.” (Brinton et al., 1989, p.
5).

∙ “When the learner’s second language is both the object and medium of instruction, the
content of each lesson must be taught simultaneously with the linguistic skills necessary
for understanding it “ (Cantoni-Harvey, 1987, p. 22).

∙ Input must be comprehensible to the learner and be offered in such a way as to allow
multiple opportunities to understand and use the language. If comprehensible input is
provided and the student feels little anxiety, then acquisition will take place.

∙ In other words, Krashen suggests that a second language is most successfully acquired
when the conditions are similar to those present in the first language acquisition; that is,
when the focus of instruction is on meaning rather than on form; when the language input
is at or just above the proficiency of the learner; and when there is sufficient opportunity
to engage in meaningful use of that language in a relatively anxiety-free environment.

∙ The importance of meaningful context in language teaching is also the underlying principle
behind the Whole Language Approach, commonly referred to as Natural Approach. It is a
developmental language model based on the premise that youngsters acquire language
(speaking, reading, and writing) as naturally as they learn to walk and talk, when they are
invited to engage in self-motivating activities that are stimulating, interesting, social,
meaning-based, purposeful, interactive, and most of all enjoyable. This approach is
based on current research in language acquisition.

What are some strategies in teaching reading?

For Vocabulary Development:
A. Structural Analysis. It is the process of breaking up word parts into its meaningful components:
the root words, affixes and suffixes. In short, it is a process of decoding unfamiliar words by
visually examining the words to discover component parts, which may lead to pronunciation
and meaning. A person who uses structural analysis must be able to recognize the root word
or base word; inflectional endings (-s, -ed, -ing), affixes (prefixes and suffixes), and
compound words.

For example, the word biology can be analyzed by looking at the part bio (which means life)
and logos (which means the study of). Taken together, one could know that biology, in its
simplest meaning, is a study of life.
Find out how well you know the meaning of the following word
components: 1. anthrop – _________ 11. inter -____________
2. bi, di –____________ 12. intra - ____________
3. biblio –___________ 13.mal -_____________
4. chron –___________ 14. mid -_____________
5. cosmos -__________ 15. mis -_____________
6. ex - _____________ 16. mono- ___________
7. ful - _____________ 17. phile - ___________
8. hydro -___________ 18. phobia- ___________
9. ism _____________ 19. phon - ____________
10. ist - _____________ 20. sym, syn - ________

Use structural analysis to get the meaning of the following words.

WORD CLUE MEANING
 e.g. polygamous poly- many Having many marriages
gam- marriage
_____ 1. ous – adj. A. government or state governed by priest representing a supreme
Megalopolis Forming/ spirit or god
_____ 2. having B. an X-ray photograph of the breast, especially to detect signs of
Heliocentric _____ cancerous growth
3. Ichthyolatry C. a cemetery, especially a large and elaborate one belonging to an
_____ 4. ancient city
Zoomorphic _____ D. with the sun at the center of the universe
5. Androphobe E. the worship of fish
_____ 6. F. a person with a morbid fear or hatred of men
Endogamy G. marriage restricted to one’s own group or tribe
_____ 7. Heptarchy H. not requiring air or oxygen to survive
_____ 8. I. the unique speech pattern of an individual person
Haemostatic J. acting to stop the flow of blood or bleeding
_____ 9. Idiolect K. an immense city, an urban complex made up of several closely
_____10. Anaerobic linked cities and their surrounding areas
_____11.Anthropop L. government by seven, a state divided into seven self-governing
hagi _____12. parts
Theocracy M. using shapes based on animals
_____13. N. eaters of human flesh, cannibals
Mammogram
_____14.
Necropolis

B. Context Clue. It is an instructional approach that consists of analyzing words surrounding an

unknown word to determine its meaning. Words are not very useful when they are presented
as isolated elements. They are more functional when they appear in a meaningful context.
Some of the common context clues are the following:
1. Definition Statements
2. Synonym
3. Antonym
4. Summary
5. Examples
6. Simile
7. Apposition
8. Groupings

C. Intensive/Extensive Reading. It supplements explicit vocabulary instruction because all the

words encountered in print are impossible to include in teaching. Through this type of
reading, students come to experience words as used in wide array of reading materials.
D. Pleasure Reading. It is another way of making students read, but the materials or selection
that they have brought are for themselves or for sharing with friends and classmates. Or it
may be a selection chosen by the teacher, but for the purpose of making students develop
love for reading.
(-from Farrell, T.S.C., 2002)
For Comprehension Development
1. Pre-Reading Plan
2. Previewing
3. Anticipation Guide
4. QARs – Question –Answer Relationships
5. ReQuest – Reciprocal Questioning

For Activating Prior Knowledge

This strategy is designed to determine what students already know about the topic that is going to
be studied. This will help to create interest prior to reading.
Activating prior knowledge allows students to feel that they are somehow connected to the topic
being studied, helping to create a more positive learning environment and helping students feel
that they are a part of the learning process.

Procedure
Before beginning a text, discuss the topic that will be covered. Have the students share what they
already know about the topic. Find ways to relate the knowledge they have with the material that
needs to be covered.
thunderstorms? Are they similar? What would
Language Arts
you do if you were caught in a tornado?
Topic: Story about snakes
Ask students, What do you know about snakes?
How can you tell if they are poisonous? What
snakes are common in our area? Assessment
Social Studies
Topic: Climate
Science Ask students, How does climate affect
Topic: Tornadoes vegetation? What kinds of plants grow only in
Ask students, What do you know about certain areas?
tornadoes? What do you know about
 everyday life (e.g. money)? If you were
purchasing several items at the same price, how
Math could you quickly figure out the total cost?
Topic: Multiplication With Decimals
Ask students, When are the decimals used in
Discuss each question and determine from students’ answers which students need additional
information before beginning a lesson. As the lesson progresses, continue discussion and
questions to determine students’ comprehension of the topic.

Anticipation Guide
This strategy allows students to consider thoughts and opinions they have about various topics in
order to create an interest in the material that is being covered and to establish a purpose for
reading the material.

This strategy works best with topics such as literature, science, and social studies that require
information in order to develop opinions. Although subjects such as grammar and mathematics
are more skill related, there are instances in which an Anticipation Guide with modification would
be useful

Procedure
Begin by listing three or more debatable statements about a topic that students are going to
study. Ask the students to identify whether they agree or disagree with the statements. Explain
that the students need to read the text carefully and see if they can find statements that support
their own views. After they read the text, discuss the original statements to see if the students
maintain their original view or if they have changed their opinion.
When constructing an Anticipation Guide, keep the following in mind:
∙ Analyze the material and determine main ideas.
∙ Write the ideas in short, declarative statements. Avoid abstractions.
∙ Put statements in a format that will encourage anticipation and predictions. ∙
Discuss reader’s predictions and anticipations before reading.
∙ Assign the text. Have students evaluate the statements according to the author’s intent
and purpose.
∙ Contrast the predictions with the author’s intended meaning.
Language Arts
Topic: Writing a persuasive paper
Statements: Students should wear uniforms in school.
Students should be allowed to choose whatever classes they want to
take. There should be no dress code in schools.
ReQuest
This strategy encourages students to build on previous knowledge and think about what might be
important information in the assigned reading. It also gives them the opportunity to write
questions about things they do not understand. One of the advantages to this strategy is that it
breaks the text into short sections so it will not appear overwhelming to students.

Procedure
The first step is to choose the text to be covered. Make sure students are familiar with the entire
selection. Next, have the students read the paragraph or short section and have them think of
questions to ask about the topic as they read. After the read, have students ask their questions
and use the text to answer. Next, ask higher level questions you have prepared. Continue reading
the entire selection and have a question-answer at the end of each section.
students how they think Helen Keller learned to speak
Language Arts or how Beethoven was able to compose music even
Read the introduction to a story. Have students ask after he became deaf
questions about the characters, setting, and plot.
Continue reading short sections. Prepare questions
Assessment
such as, Do you think the characters are acting in the Social Studies
Read the beginning of a chapter on the Fertile
way they should? Why or why not? What would you
have done in this situation? What is one thing that Crescent. Ask why it was called this. What is known
about this area from long ago? End with questions
could have changed the entire outcome of this story?
such as, What do you think caused this culture to last
throughout time?

Language Arts
When discussing a topic such as sound waves, ask

Discuss and evaluate teacher’s and student’s questions and answers. Discussions can be used
to determine students’ level of comprehension by assessing their responses after reading.
Encourage responses from students who appear off task. Students should correctly respond to
80% if the questions during a discussion.

K-W-L (Know-Want to Know-Learned)

K-W-L gives students a purpose for reading and gives them an active role before, during and
after reading. This strategy helps them to think about the information they already know and to
celebrate the learning of new information. It also strengthens their ability to develop questions in a
variety of topics and to assess their own learning.
Procedure
Before reading, ask students to brainstorm what is known about a topic. They should categorize
what is prior knowledge, predict or anticipate what the text might be about, and create questions
to be answered. During reading, have the class discuss the information, write responses to their
questions, and organize the information.

This strategy may be done on a sheet with three columns: Know, Want to Know, Learned. Guide
the instruction the first few times it is used. Modeling is effective for the initial use.
Language Arts
Know Want to know Learned

nouns adverbs modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb pronouns prepositions combines with
noun, pronoun, or noun equivalent verbs proper pronunciation correct use of commas, colons,
semicolons, quotation marks

Social Studies
Topic: Ancient Egypt

Know Want to know Learned

pharaohs Why did they mummify people? Believed in an afterlife buried dead

pyramid How long did it take to build a pyramid? sometimes a lifetime Mummified people

Mapping
Mapping provides a visual guide for students to clarify textual information such as characters,
setting, problems, reactions, and outcome. This strategy allows you to visually determine
students’ comprehension, and it provides students with a strategy that they can use on their own
when they are dealing with other topics.

Procedure
Model an example of a map for students, talking through each step and having students assist in
filling in the different areas. After comprehension of this strategy is assured, have students
complete various maps on their own.
Language Arts
Characters:_______________________________________________________________
Setting: Place_____________________________________________ Time: ___________
Problem: ________________________________________________________________
Events: __________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Resolution:_______________________________________________________________
_ Outcome:
________________________________________________________________

Social Studies
Topic: Ancient Egypt
Pharaohs medicines pyramids afterlife gods mummification
__________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ________ __________
___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ________

Social Studies
Topic: States of Matter
Solids:______________________________________________________________________
Liquids:_____________________________________________________________________
Gases:_____________________________________________________________________
_

Assessment
Evaluate students’ maps to determine level of comprehension by the percentage of correct
responses.

PLAN
This is a graphic organizer in which students create a map to visually organize and better
understand the information that has been covered.

Procedure
There are four steps in this process:
[P]redict the content/structure by using chapter titles and subheadings.
[L]ocate known and unknown information. Students can indicate this by placing a __ by
things they know and a ? by things they do not know.
[A}dd words or phrases to the ? as students locate information about the topic.
[N]ote new understanding of information and use it in instruction.
Social Studies
Language Arts
PARTS OF SPEECH

article?
noun adverb social groups?
CULTURES OF THE WORLD religion?
preposition?
Systems? political
verb adjective pronoun
Economic
connotation?Scienc language
denotation? systems?

Mat
conjunction? h
GEOMETR
WAVES e
Y
trough
?
area
vibrations
?
amplitude
volum

?cres
e
t formulas
wavelength
?
Characteristics ?

shape
?
measurement
s

Evaluate the answers that individual students provide to the questions in their
organizer. Teaching Writing

Writing is among the most complex human activities. It involves the development of an idea, the
capture of mental representations of knowledge, and of experiences with subjects. It can be
viewed as involving a number of thinking processes which are drawn upon in varied and complex
ways as an individual composes, transcribes, evaluates, and revises (Arndt, 1987; Raimes, 1985
as cited in White, 1995).
In first language settings, the ability to write well has a very close relationship to academic and
professional success. Grabowski (1996 as cited in Weigle, 2002, p.4) notes that:

“Writing, as compared to speaking, can be seen as a more standardized system which must be
acquired through special instruction. Mastery of this standard system is a pre-requisite of cultural
and educational participation and the maintenance of one’s rights and duties.”

Brown (1994), as cited in Weigle, 2002, pp.15-16) provides the following list of characteristics that
ordinarily differentiate written language from spoken language:

∙ Permanence: oral language is transitory and must be processed in real time, while
written language is permanent and can be read and reread as often as one likes;
∙ Production time: writers generally have more time to plan, review, and revise their
words before they are finalized, while speakers must plan, formulate, and deliver
 their utterances within a few moments if they are to maintain a conversation;
∙ Distance: between the writer and the reader in both time and space, which
eliminates much of the shared context that is present between speaker and
listener in ordinary face-to-face contact and thus necessitates greater
explicitness on the part of the writer;
∙ Orthography, which carries a limited amount of information compared to the
richness of devices available to speakers to enhance a message (e.g. stress,
intonation, pitch, volume, pausing, etc.);
∙ Complexity: written language tends to be characterized by longer clauses and
more subordinators, while spoken language tends to have shorter clauses
connected by coordinators as well as more redundancy (e.g. repetition of nouns
and verbs);
∙ Formality: because of the social and cultural uses to which writing is ordinarily put,
writing tends to be more formal than speaking;
∙ Vocabulary: written texts tend to contain a wider variety of words, and more
lower-frequency words, than oral texts.
Thus, in L1 education, learning to write involves learning a specialized version of a language
already known to students. This specialized language differs from spoken language, both in form
and in use, but builds upon linguistics resources that students already posses. In this sense, one
can say that L1 writing instruction is relatively standardized within a particular culture.

In contrast, Weigle (2002) posits that the same cannot be said of L2 writing because of the wide
variety of situations in which people learn and use second languages, both as children and as
adults, in schools and in other settings. She further emphasizes that one cannot write in L2 without
knowing at least something about the grammar and vocabulary of that language.

Thus, the differences between L1 and L2 writing are considerable, and in particular the variety is
much greater for L2 writers than for L1 writers.

What Writers Need to Know

Tribble (1996, p.430) enumerates the range of knowledge that writers need to know in order to
write effectively when undertaking a specific task:
1. Content Knowledge – knowledge of the concepts involved in the subject area 2. Context
Knowledge – knowledge of the context in which the text will be read 3. Language System
Knowledge – knowledge of those aspects of the language system necessary for the
completion of the task
4. Writing Process Knowledge – knowledge of the most appropriate way of preparing for a
specific writing task

Writing Theories
∙ Writing as a social and cultural phenomenon
It is important to note that writing is not solely the product of an individual, but as a social and
cultural act. Hamp-Lyons and Kroll (1997 as cited in Weigle, 2002) claim that writing is an act
that takes place within a context, that accomplishes a particular purpose, and that is
appropriately shaped for its intended audience. Expanding in the social nature of writing,
Hayes (1996 as cited in Weigle, 2002, p.19) states that:

“Contrastive rhetoric, on the other hand, gained respectability when it became clear to
researchers that many aspects of writing are influenced by culture”.

Leki (1992) and Grabe (1989, as cited in Weigle 2002) point out that variation in writing in
different cultures does not reflect inherent different in thought patterns but rather “cultural
preferences which make greater use of certain options among linguistic possibilities

Cultural expectations can have a consequence for the coherence of texts – that is, the
organization of a text into meaningful whole. Coherence, as Leki (1992) notes is not an
inherent quality of the text itself, but rather comes from the accuracy of the writer’s
assessment of what the reader will be able to infer from the text.

∙ Writing as a Cognitive Activity

In an attempt to discuss the cognitive aspects of writing in detail, a number of researchers
have looked at the process of writing, specifically the use of retrospective interviews or think
aloud protocols.
Models of the Writing Process
∙ Hayes and Flower (1980)
- Described the writing process in terms of the task environment, which included
the writing assignment and the text produced so far, the writer’s long-term
memory, including knowledge of topic, knowledge of audience, and stored
writing flaws, and a number of cognitive processes, including planning,
 translating thought into text, and revising.
- Emphasized that writing is a recursive and not a linear process: thus, instruction
in the writing process may be more effective than providing models of
particular rhetorical forms and asking students to follow these models in their
own writing.
∙ Hayes (1996)
- Viewed the writing process as consisting of two main parts: the task
environment and the individual. The latter is the focus of the model. Individual
aspects of writing involves interactions among four components: 1. Working
memory
2. Motivation and affect
3. Cognitive processes
4. Long-term memory
- Emphasized the importance of reading as a central process in writing, and
discussed three types of reading that are essential in writing:
1. Reading to evaluate
2. Reading some source texts
3. Reading instructions
∙ Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987)
- Proposed a two-model description of writing that addresses an apparent
paradox in writing:
1. The fact that virtually everyone in a literate society can learn to write as
well as they can speak
2. Expertise on writing involves a difficult, labor-intensive process that only
some people master
- Made a distinction between knowledge telling and knowledge transforming

Knowledge telling - similar to impromptu speaking which involves very little

planning or revision. This is the kind of writing which is natural and
problematic. The writing of most children and adolescents falls into this
category

Knowledge transformation – involves much more effort and skill, and is not
achieved without a great deal of practice

Ferris (1998, pp.7-8) categorized the different approaches to L2 composition according to

the following four foci, each of which can be linked to a particular school of thought:

1. Focus on Form and “current-traditional rhetoric”, 1966 -

- In L2 writing instruction, early emphasis was on the production of well-formed
sentences; a writing task that typifies this paradigm is the controlled
composition, a narrowly focused paragraph- or essay-length assignment
designed principally to give students practice with particular syntactic
patterns (e.g. the past tense in English) and/or lexical forms (Kroll, 1991;
Silva, 1990, as cited in Ferris, 1998).
- In an extension of this model, “current-traditional rhetoric” (Berlin & Inkster,
1980; Kaplan, 1967; Silva, 1990; Young, 1978, as cited in Ferris, 1998),
students were also led to generate connected discourse by combining and
arranging sentences into paragraphs based on prescribed formulae.
Representative composing tasks might involve the imitation of specific
rhetorical patterns (e.g. exposition, illustration, comparison, classification,
argumentation, etc.) based on authentic and/or student-generated models.
2. Focus on the writer: expressionism and cognitivism, 1976 –
- Researchers in this paradigm have attempted to characterize the heuristics and
procedures used by writers as they plan, draft, revise, and edit their texts.
- Classroom procedure resulting from this writer-based orientation include
practice with invention strategies, the creation and sharing of multiple drafts,
peer collaboration, abundant revision, and attention to content before
grammatical form.
3. Focus on content and the disciplines, 1986 –
- Rather than replacing writing process with the pedagogical material
characteristic of traditional English courses (vis., language, culture, and
literature), content proponents assert that ESL writing courses should feature
the specific subject matter that ESL students must learn in their major and
required courses (Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989, Horowitz, 1990, Shih,
1986; Snow & Brinton, 1988, as cited in Ferris, 1998).
 - In this model, students in adjunct, multiskill, and/or English for Academic
Purposes (EAP) courses are given assistance with “the language of the
thinking processes and the structure or shape of content.
- The main emphasis “is on the instructor’s determination of what academic
content is most appropriate, in order to build whole courses or modules of
reading and writing tasks around that content” (Raimes, 1991, p.411 as cited
in Ferris, 1998).
4. Focus on the reader: social constructionism, 1986 –
- A reader-focused composition pedagogy is instead founded on the social
constructionist premise that ESL writers need to be apprenticed into one or
more academic discourse communities and that writing instruction should
therefore prepare students to anticipate and satisfy the demands of
academic readers.
- Clearly, the reader-focused approach is highly compatible with the content
0based approach both philosophically and methodologically.
The table below presents the distinct features of the various approaches to teaching writing:
MAJORSHIP

Area: ENGLISH

Focus: Remedial Instruction in English

LET Competencies:

∙ Develop the students’ ability to organize, design, implement, and evaluate remedial English
program in any of the four macro skills.

The review material consists of the following:

I. The Remedial Classroom: Organization and Management
A. Organization
1. Curriculum
2. Instruction
3. Assessment
B. Management
Components of Remediation
II. Remedial Instruction in READING
A. Correcting Perceptual and Decoding Deficits in Word Recognition
B. Definition of Terms
C. Correcting Sight-Word Knowledge Deficit
D. Correcting Basic Sight Vocabulary Deficit
E. Correcting Knowledge on Sound-Symbol Correspondence
F. Remediation through Phonemic Awareness
G. Remedial Vocabulary Instruction
III. Remedial Instruction in LISTENING
A. Factors Affecting Students’ Listening Comprehension
B. Internal Factors
C. External Factors
D. How to Improve Students’ Listening Comprehension
IV. Remedial Instruction in SPEAKING
A. What makes speaking difficult
B. Teaching Pronunciation
C. The Use of Accuracy-based Activities
D. Talking to Second Language Learners in the beginning level
V. Remedial Instruction in WRITING
A. Areas of Difficulty for Students with Writing Problems
B. Qualities of Strong Writing Instruction
C. Adaptations for Struggling Writers
D. Teaching Handwriting
E. Teaching Spelling

I. The Remedial Classroom: Organization and Management

A remedial program primarily helps students address language skills deficits by helping them
acquire self-confidence to face their own weakness and overcome these through the acquisition
of self-help strategies. A thorough assessment must be conducted before organizing a remedial
program, while consistent monitoring is imperative in managing the program.

Remedial Instruction in English |1