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English Language Proficiency Standards - these are important to include in the language objectives when lesson planning and for determining which language domains are begin addressed with the lesson.

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Proficiency Level Descriptors - these are important to refer to when monitoring the progress of the English learners. They also serve as reminders of what students can do at each level of proficiency within each domain of language.

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In a bilingual program, the non-native English speakers all have the same language background, and the teacher speaks both languages as a means of content instruction. In the ESL classroom, the students come from various language backgrounds, and the teacher only speaks English.

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Image Credits

ESL vs. Bilingual Education

The ESL vs. bilingual education debate has existed since the 1800s when the U.S. began to experience a great influx of immigrants from around the world. Questions arose as to which was more beneficial, more economical, better for the immigrants' assimilation and better for the native English-speaking students.

Which one works faster?

For which do we have already capable teachers?

For which do we have more trainable teachers?

The debate has continued in fits and starts to this day, but what it boils down to is that neither is necessarily better. They're just different.
ESL Goals and Process

The goal of ESL education is to teach English to students whose native language is not English. An ESL classroom could comprise students of any number of language backgrounds, but they are all there to learn English. As such, the teacher is only required to speak English and does not need to know the native languages of all the students. In a public school setting, ESL instruction is provided in a few different ways.

Pull-Out ESL

In an ESL pull-out program, ESL students leave their regular classroom for a short period each day or week to receive ESL teaching or tutoring. Sometimes, they are pulled out individually and sometimes in small groups.

The ESL teacher may have his own curriculum, or he may tutor the students in their regular classroom subject matter, helping them to understand the English involved and/or to devise strategies to better learn and keep up with their work.

Pull-out programs are mostly used in school districts where ESL teachers are spread thin across several schools each, where the ESL population is not very large, or where classroom space is limited.

ESL Class Period

In middle and high school settings where students move from classroom to classroom for each course, ESL students may have their ESL class in place of an elective, or it may serve as their language arts course. Either way, they don't miss out on anything that happens in another course, as in pull-out programs, and they receive course credit upon successful completion each year (or semester).

Sheltered English

Sheltered English, also known as content-based English instruction, is a special type of program not entirely unlike bilingual education, where the teacher(s) of each subject or grade level teach the required curriculum of that grade level but with modifications made to accommodate ESL students.

All the students are classified as ESL

The teacher gives the lessons in English, teaching Math, Science, Social Studies, Civics, English, History, etc.

Main goal is to teach the content with a secondary goal of teaching English.

Teachers in such programs will modify the regular curriculum only by simplifying the language with which they present it. They may also make use of visual aids, gestures, hands-on activities, group work, games, and other teaching tools not used in regular classrooms to get their students to a place of understanding.

If a qualified teacher is available and the number of ESL students per grade level or course is sufficient to fill one class, then sheltered English is the best of both worlds. The students are keeping up with grade-level curriculum while learning English as opposed to being removed from one in order to work on the other.

Unfortunately, teachers qualified, patient and willing to teach both ESL and a subject are hard to come by, so this is not really a viable option for most schools.
Bilingual Education

The biggest differences between ESL vs. bilingual education are:

In a bilingual program, the non-native English speakers all have the same language background, and the teacher speaks both languages as a means of content instruction.

In the ESL classroom, the students come from various language backgrounds, and the teacher only speaks English.

There are two types of bilingual education, and both have a main goal of teaching English to non-native speakers while also teaching the necessary grade-level or course curriculum.

One-Way Developmental Bilingual Education

In a one-way bilingual program:

The students are placed into classes based on their native languages.

The teacher teaches both in that language and in English, slowly phasing out the students' native language and eventually teaching only in English.

The idea is that the students will be comfortable in the learning environment throughout the process, but they will soon enough be ready to join the language majority in regular classes.

One-way bilingual classes:

Strongly resemble content-based classes

The teacher speaks two languages, whereas content-based ESL teachers only speak English.

Two-Way Bilingual Education

In a two-way bilingual class:

The student population is 50% native English-speaking and 50% minority language-speaking. A Spanish/English bilingual program, then, would be half English-speaking and half Spanish-speaking.

The teacher would be bilingual and would teach the entire course half in English and half in Spanish.

In addition to content instruction, the purpose of such a class is threefold:

Transition - The Spanish speakers are learning English so that they may thrive in an English-speaking educational environment.

Development - The English speakers are developing understanding and fluency in a second language.

Maintenance - The Spanish speakers are maintaining their native language and culture, precious things that are sometimes lost when young children speak English more on a daily basis than their native language, causing a disconnect between them, their families and their heritage.

ESL vs. Bilingual Education

Discerning which type of program is best suited to a given student population is not difficult. A simple inventory of students' languages, available teaching staff and space will easily determine if an ESL or a bilingual program is necessary, and when done well, both are excellent ways to learn.

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This article compares and contrasts ESL and Bilingual Education programs and class types.

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I chose this picture because it explains the big difference between the two programs. The biggest one being how one group speaks various languages and one speaks one different language.

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We know that humans acquire their first language based on the instinct of needing to communicate with others. Conversely, humans acquire a second language through a conscious effort to learn. This basic difference leads to other differences between the two processes.

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Language acquisition is the process of learning to communicate effectively and meaningfully in a target language. There are four main theories: linguistic learning, behaviorist, cognitive learning, and interactionist.

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The structures include words (which are the smallest well-formed units), phrases (which are legal sequences of words), clauses and sentences (which are both legal sequences of phrases). As an analytic language, English uses word order to determine the relationship between different words.

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The order in which words and phrases occur matters. Syntax is the set of conventions of language that specify whether a given sequence of words is well-formed and what functional relations, if any, pertain to them. For example, in English, the sequence "cat the mat on" is not well-formed. To keep the set conventions manageable, and to reflect how native speakers use their language, syntax is defined hierarchically and recursively. The structures include words (which are the smallest well-formed units), phrases (which are legal sequences of words), clauses and sentences (which are both legal sequences of phrases). Sentences can be combined into compound sentences using conjunctions, such as "and".

The categories of words used for NLP are mostly similar to those used in other contexts, but in some cases they may be different from how you were taught when you were learning the grammar of English. One of the challenges faced in NLP work is that terminology for describing syntax has evolved over time and differs somewhat across disciplines. If one were to ask how many categories of words are there, the writing center at a university might say there are eight different types of parts of speech in the English language: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. The folks who watched Schoolhouse Rock also were taught there were eight, but a slightly different set. By contrast, the first published guideline for annotating part of speech created by linguists used eighty different categories. Most current NLP work uses around 35 labels for different parts of speech, with additional labels for punctuation.

The conventions for describing syntax arise from two disciplines: studies by linguists, going back as far as 8th century BCE by the first Sanskrit grammarians, and work by computational scientists, who have standardized and revised the labeling of syntactic units to better meet the needs of automated processing. What forms a legal constituent in a given language was once determined qualitatively and empirically: early linguists would review written documents, or interview native speakers of language, to find out what phrases native speakers find acceptable and what phrases or words can be substituted for one another and still be considered grammatical. This technique is still useful today as a means of verifying the syntactic labels of rarely seen expressions. For example, in the sentence "I would rather deal with the side effects of my medication", one might wonder if "with" is part of a complex verb "deal with" or it acts as a preposition, which is a function word more associated with the noun phrase "the side effects". The fact that we can substitute the verb "tolerate" for "deal with" is evidence that "deal with" is a single entity.

There is always some risk of experimental bias when we depend on the judgements of untrained native speakers to define the legal structures of a language. As an alternative, there have been attempts to use evidence of language structure obtained directly from physical monitoring of people's eyes (via eye tracking) or brains (via event-related potentials measured by electroencephalograms) while they process language. Although such physiological evidence is less subject to bias, the cost of the equipment and the difficulty of using it has limited the scale of such studies. Moreover, both of these physiological approaches rely on experts to hypothesize about the structure of language, conduct experiments to elicit human behavior, and then generalize from a relatively small set of observations.

3.1 The Role of Corpora in Understanding Syntax

Today, best practice for many subtasks of natural language processing involves working with large collections of text, each of which comprises "a corpus". Early on in the advent of computers, some researchers surmised the importance of collecting unsolicited examples of naturally occurring text and performing quantitative analyses to inform our understanding. In the 1960's, linguists from Brown University created the first "large" collection of text. This collection is known as the Brown Corpus. It includes 500 samples of English-language text, totaling roughly one million words, compiled from works published in the United States in 1961. The words of the corpus were then annotated with part-of-speech labels, using a combination of automated labeling and laborious hand correction. Although this corpus is no longer considered large, it still provides a useful benchmark for many studies and is available for use within popular NLP tools such as NLTK (with updated part-of-speech tags). Also, the technique of combining automated processing and manual correction is still often necessary.

The second large-scale collection and annotation of natural language data began in the early 1990's with a project conducted by a team at the University of Pennsylvania, led by a Computer Scientist, Mitchell Marcus, an expert in automated sentence processing. This data set is called "the Penn Treebank" (PTB), and is the most widely used resource for NLP. This work benefited from a donation of three years of Wall Street Journal (WSJ) text (containing 98,732 news stories representing over 1.2 million word-level tokens), along with past efforts to annotate the words of the Brown Corpus with part-of-speech tags. Today, the PTB also includes annotations for the "Switchboard" corpus of transcribed spoken conversation. Switchboard includes about 2,400 two-sided telephone conversations, previously collected by Texas Instruments in the early 1990's. However, the WSJ subset of the Penn treebank corpus is still among the largest and most widely used data sets for NLP work. The word-level categories used in the PTB are very similar to those previously used by linguists, but with changes to suit the task at hand: labels were chosen to be short, but also easy for annotators to remember. Special categories were added for proper nouns, numbers, auxiliaries, pronouns, and three subtypes of wh-words, along with common variants for tense and number.

Another important English language resource is the English Web Treebank, completed in 2012. It has 254,830 word-level tokens (16,624 sentences) of web text that has been manually annotated with part-of-speech tags and constituency structure in the same style as the PTB. The corpus spans five types of web text: blog posts, newsgroup threads, emails, product reviews, and answers from question-answer websites. It has also been annotated with dependency structures, in the style used in the Stanford dependency parser.

The most recent widely used English language corpus is OntoNotes Release 5.0, completed in 2013. It is a collection of about 2.9 million words of text spread across three languages (Arabic, Chinese, and English). The text spans the domains of news, conversational telephone speech, weblogs, Usenet newsgroups, broadcast, and talk shows. It follow the same labelling conventions used in the Penn Treebank, and also adds annotations based on PropBank, which describe the semantic arguments associated with verbs. OntoNotes has been used to pretrain language models included in the spaCy NLP software libraries. It includes words that did not exist when the Penn Treebank was created such as "Google". Another large, but less well known corpus, is the Open American National Corpus (OANC) which is a collection of 15 million words of American English, including texts spanning a variety of genres and transcripts of spoken data produced from 1990 through 2015. The OANC data and annotations are fully open and unrestricted for any use.. Another well-known, large annotated collection of newswire next is Gigaword.

Terminology for describing language has become more standardized with the availability of larger corpora and more accurate tools for automated processing. Today, nearly every form of human communication is available in digital form, which allows us to to analyze large sets of sentences, spanning a wide variety of genres, including professional writing in newspapers and journal articles, informal writing posted to social media, and transcripts of spoken conversations and government proceedings. Large subsets of these texts have been annotated with grammatical information. With this data, the existence of linguistic structures and their distribution has been measured with statistical methods. This annotated data also makes it possible to create algorithms to analyze many sentences automatically and (mostly accurately) without hand-crafting a grammar.

For NLP analysis, there are four aspects of syntax that are most important: the syntactic categories and features of individual words, which we also call their parts of speech; the well-formed sequences of words into phrases and sentences, which we call constituency; the requirements that some words have for other co-occurring constituents, which we call subcategorization; and binary relations between words that are the lexical heads (main word) of a constituent, which we call lexical dependency, or just "dependency". In this chapter, we will discuss each of these four aspects. Along with our discussion of the parts of speech, we will consider part-of-speech tags, which are the labels that NLP systems use to designate combinations of the syntactic category of a word and its syntactic features. (Some systems also use a record structure with separate fields for each feature, as an internal structure, but specialized tags are more compact for use in annotated datasets.)

3.2 Word Types and Features

Now we will consider broad syntactic categories of words and the syntactic attributes that occur as variants of spelling. We will consider these ten types: nouns, pronouns, proper nouns, determiners, verbs, prepositions, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, and wh-words. Most syntactic attributes are indicated by a specific characters associated with the features involved (e.g., plurals are usually formed by adding "s" and past tense is usually formed by adding "ed"), but sometimes these forms exist as an entirely different word, that we refer to as "irregular", such as "was" being the "first person past tense" form of the verb "to be".

3.2.1 Nouns, Pronouns, and Proper Nouns

Nouns are used to name or describe entities, which might be physical (such as "cat" or "rock") or abstract (such as "freedom" or "laughter") or both (such as "city" or "company"). Nouns can be singular or plural. The plural form is usually marked with the suffix "s" or "es", as in "cats"; if a word ends in "y", it is changed to "i" before adding the suffix. Figure 3.1 includes several examples. Some plurals are irregular, as in "children" or "knives". Figure 3.2 includes examples of irregular nouns. Some nouns (called "count" nouns), unless they are plural, require a determiner or cardinal number to specify the denoted set, e.g. "the boy" or "three boys". Nouns occur in the subjects of sentences and as objects following a verb or preposition. Figure 3.3 shows the typical placement of nouns within a simple sentence.

Singular form

Regular plural form

frog

frogs

idea

ideas

fly

flies

fox

foxes

class

classes

Singular form

Irregular plural form

child

children

sheep

sheep

goose

geese

knife

knives

Noun in the subject

Main verb

Noun in an object

Noun in a prepositional phrase

The boy

put

his towel

in his locker

There are some subtypes of nouns, namely proper nouns and pronouns, that are so different from common nouns that annotation for NLP treats them as separate categories, although they occur in similar contexts.

Proper nouns are the names of people, places, and things and are capitalized wherever they occur, as in "My name is Susan". Proper nouns rarely appear as plurals, but since they sometimes do, as in "We visited the Smiths", NLP systems include a category for plural proper nouns.

Pronouns are used to refer to people and things that have been mentioned before or presupposed to exist. They have different forms to specify whether they are singular or plural and their syntactic role (subject or object). In a grammatical sentence, the form should agree with the properties of the verb, although current NLP systems often ignore these features and only use only one category. One subclass of pronouns that is distinguished are those that express possession, and can be used in place of a determiner, e.g., "my book" or "your house," and this subclass may also be assigned a separate part of speech. Also, some pronouns are used to form a question and thus also merit their own labels. They include both regular wh-pronouns, including "what", "who", and "whom," and possessive wh-pronouns, such as "whose".

Common nouns and proper nouns are considered an open class of words, which means people may invent new ones to describe new objects or names. By contrast, pronouns are considered a closed class of words. With open-class words, algorithms must address that new items might occur that will be outside of the known vocabulary.

3.2.2 Determiners

Determiners include "the", "a", "an", "that", "these", "this", and "those". There are also determiners that are used in questions, such as "what" and "which". Determiners only occur in noun phrases, before any adjectives or nouns. Some common nouns, when they express a mass quantity, like "water" or "rice", or when they are plural like "cats", do not require a determiner. Proper nouns generally do not allow a determiner, except when they are plural, e.g., "The Smiths" or when it is part of the name itself, e.g., "The Ohio State University". Possessive phrases, which are marked with an apostrophe and the suffix "-s", can take the place of a determiner, as in the phrase "my mother's house". Pronouns, regular or possessive, are never preceded by determiners. Determiners are considered a closed class of words.

3.2.3 Verbs and Auxiliary Verbs

Verbs are usually tensed (past, present, future). They include both verbs where the tensed forms are regular (see Figure 3.4) or irregular (see Figure 3.5). Also, in some contexts, verbs can appear untensed, such as after an auxiliary or after the word "to". Verbs are also marked for number (singular or plural), and for person. First person is "I"; second person is "you"; and third person is "he", "she", or "it". The third-person singular form is marked with "-s"; the non-3rd person singular present looks the same as the root form. Verbs also have participle forms for past (eg., "broken" or "thought") and present (e.g., "thinking").

Some verbs require a particle which is similar to a preposition except that it forms an essential part of the meaning of the verb that can be moved either before or after another argument, as in "she took off her hat" or "she took her hat off".

Verbs that can be main verbs are an open class. Verbs that are modals or auxiliary verbs (also called helping verbs) are a closed class. They are used along with a main verb to express ability ("can", "could"), possibility ("may", "might"), necessity ("shall", "should", "ought"), certainty ("do", "did"), future ("will", "would"), past ("has", "had", "have", "was", "were"). NLP systems treat modals and auxiliaries as a separate part of speech. They are also all irregular in the forms that they take for different combinations of features, such as past, plural, etc. For example, the modal "can" uses the form "can" for any value for number and "could" for any value for "past".

Example Regular Forms Suffix Features

walk

walks; walked; walking

-s; -ed; -ing

3rd person singular, present; past; participle

3.2.4 Prepositions

Prepositions, such as "with", "of", "for", and "from" are words that relate two nouns or a noun and a verb. Prepositions require a noun phrase argument (to form a prepositional phrase). It is estimated that there about 150 different prepositions (including 94 one-word prepositions and 56 complex prepositions, such as "out of"). Prepositions are generally considered a closed class, but the possibility of complex combinations suggests that algorithms might be better off allowing for out of vocabulary examples.

3.2.5 Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives normally modify nouns, as in "the big red book", but may also be an argument of a verb (including forms of "be", "feel", "appear", and "become"). Adjectives can also be marked as comparative (meaning "more than typical", using the suffix "-er") or superlative (meaning "more than any others", using the suffix "-est"). Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They express manner or intensity. They may be comparative (e.g., "better") or superlative (e.g., "best"). Adverbs that end in the suffix "-ly" have been derived from a related adjective (e.g., "quickly " is derived from "quick ").

3.2.6 Conjunctions

Conjunctions, such as "and", "although", "because", "but", "however", "or", "nor", "so", "unless", "when", "where", "while", etc. are words that join words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. They can be discontinuous, e.g,. "either ... or", "neither ... nor", "both ... and", "not only ... but also", "on the one hand ... on the other (hand)", "not just ... but", and "not only ... but". They can take modifiers, such as "particularly", as in Figure 3.6.

These have been among the country's leading imports, particularly last year when there were shortages that led many traders to buy heavily and pay dearly. [wsj 1469]

There are three major types of conjunctions: coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, and correlative conjunctions. A coordinating conjunction (e.g., "and", "but", "or", and "so") joins two structures that have the same type. Their purpose is to express that two entities did something together, or two events happened at the same time. A subordinating conjunction (e.g., "after", "although", "because", "before", "if", "how", "however", "since", "once", "until", "when", "where", "while", "whenever", "as soon as", "even if", "no matter how", etc) join a subordinate (dependent) and a main (independent) clause. The main clause can be understood on its own. The dependent clause can only be fully understood in the context of the main clause, as its purpose is to provide background, explanation, justification, or possible exceptions to what is said in the main clause. Thus, they express what is known as rhetorical structure or discourse relations among clauses, which can occur either within the same sentence or between adjacent sentences. When they link adjacent sentences at the sentence level, these words function as adverbs, so subordinating conjunctions are often labelled as adverbs, wherever they occur, and some experts refer to them as conjunctive adverbs. Sometimes subordinating conjunctions are labelled as prepositions, as in the Penn Treebank II. Discourse relations can exist without any explicit conjunction, but by using hand-annotated data, such as the Penn Discourse Treebank or the Biomedical Discourse Relation Bank, they can be identified using automated discourse parsing. A correlative conjunction is a discontinuous conjunction that joins words, phrases, or clauses that have a complementary relationship. Because they are discontinuous, they are harder to learn, and so automated systems do not always label them consistently. Figure 3.7 includes some sentences illustrating different types of conjunctions and how they are labelled using the default Stanford CoreNLP part-of-speech tagger.

Example sentences Type of expression with labels given by CoreNLP

You can walk but you cannot run.

Coordinating conjunction, labelled as conjunction

You can read at home or in the library.

Coordinating conjunction, labelled as conjunction

My daughter and her friends like to climb.

Coordinating conjunction, labelled as conjunction

My cat purrs when you pet her.

Subordinating conjunction, labelled as adverb

If you study hard, you will do well.

Subordinating conjunction, labelled as preposition

You can either walk or take the bus.

Correlative conjunction, labelled as adverb, conjunction

The car not only is quiet but also handles well.

Correlative conjunction, labelled adverb, adverb, conjunction, adverb

Embryonic Stem cells have a high mitotic index and form colonies. So, experiments can be completed rapidly and easily.

Discourse adverbial, labelled as adverb

Obese cats have higher levels of inflammatory chemicals in their bloodstream. However, rapid shifts in fat tissue further increase this inflammation.

Discourse adverbial, labelled as adverb

3.2.8 Wh-Words

Wh-words that begin with the letters "wh-" like "who", "what", "when", "where", "which", "whose", and "why" and their close cousins "how", "how much", "how many", etc. They are used for posing questions and are thus sometimes called interrogatives. Unlike the word types mentioned so far, they can be determiners, adverbs, or pronouns (both regular and possessive), and so it is typical to see them marked as a special subtype of each. Identifying phrases that include wh-words is important, because they usually occur near the front in written text and fill an argument role that has been left empty in its normal position, as in "Which book did you like best?" In informal speech one might say "You left your book where?" or "You said what?", but the unusual syntax also suggests a problem (like mishearing, shock, or criticism). The semantics of the wh-expression specify what sort of answer the speaker is expecting (e.g., a person, a description, a time, a place, etc) and thus are essential to question-answering systems.

3.3 Part-of-Speech Tags

The general syntactic category of a word is also known as its part of speech (POS) whereas "tag" refers to labels for specifying the category and syntactic features (such as singular or plural). Today, the use of "tag" is often synonymous with the labels given in the Penn Treebank II (PT2) tagset,. There was no process of agreement for adopting this tagset as a standard. Instead, a group of linguistic experts, with resources to support the work, developed them and disseminated them widely. Along the way, refinements have been made so that human annotation is more reliable and the sets of words in each category are not too sparse; early versions had about 80 tags, while the current only has only about 35. The tag set and associated guidelines for English have been stable since 2015. (The word tags have been stable since 1999). Figure 3.8 includes the complete English tagset for words, excluding punctuation.

3.4 Multi-WOrd ConstituenTS

For each of the primary types of words, there is a corresponding phrase type that includes the main word (called the "head"), along with any modifiers (optional words or phrases that enhance the meaning), or arguments (words or phrases that are required to be present). These phrases can also be combined recursively to form more complex phrases, clauses, or sentences. Below we will overview the major types of phrases and some of the conventions that define them. A complete discussion of English grammar fills a book of over 1800 pages. This complexity is one reason that modern grammars are learned from large collections of text, rather than written by hand.

3.4.1 Noun Phrases and Prepositional Phrases

Noun phrases are the most used type of phrase but also have the most variation. Noun phrases can be simply a pronoun or proper noun, or include a determiner, some premodifiers (such as adjectives), the head noun, and some postmodifiers at the end. The determiner might be a single word or a complex expression such as a complete noun phrase that includes a possessive marker ( "-'s" or "-s' ") at the end. Gerunds are noun phrases where a verb that ends in "-ing" (tagged as VBG) acts as a head noun, as in the sentence "Walking is good exercise".

It is common to describe noun phrases as a combination of a determiner and a nominal, where the nominal is an ordered sequence of optional premodifiers, the head, and the postmodifiers. The premodifiers can include a cardinal (such as "third"), an ordinal (such as "three"), a quantifier (such as "all" or "most"), other common nouns, an adjective, or an adjective phrase (such as "very green and slimy"). English only permits three types of postmodifiers: relative clauses (such as "the dog that found a bone" or "the dog that I got at the humane society"), non-finite clauses (such as "I had something to eat"), and prepositional phrases. Relative clauses following the head of a noun often begin with a relative pronoun, such as "that", "which", "who", "whose", "whom", or "whomever" and sometimes also "when" or "where". Sometimes these words can be omitted. So, instead of saying "The meal that I ate was yummy" we might say "The meal I ate was yummy". When the relative pronoun is omitted, this is sometimes described as being a reduced relative clause. Also, the head noun will always fill some syntactic role within the relative clause (either a subject or object), so a grammatical relative clause cannot also include a filler for this same role. So, one cannot say "The meal that I ate the meal was yummy.", as it overfills the object role of "ate".

Prepositional phrases comprise a preposition followed by a noun phrase. Semantically, we use them to add locations, times, or generic modifiers to a noun or to a sentence. They can follow a head noun or verb in a noun phrase or verb phrase, respectively. They can also modify an entire clause, where they typically occur either at the very beginning or the very end.

3.4.2 Verb Phrases

Verb phrases (VP) comprise a sequence of auxiliaries or modals, a main verb, the arguments of the main verb, and optional prepositional phrases as modifiers. Adverbs can appear almost anywhere within the VP. The arguments of a verb will depend on the verb, some take no arguments, some take one or two. An argument may also be restricted to be a particular syntactic structure such as a noun phrase or a clause, or it may be a semantic requirement, such as being a description of a location. Linguists have used case grammars or slot grammars to describe the argument structures of verbs. For NLP several resources have been created that are available as part of the Unified Verb Index. These resources include VerbNet, FrameNet and OntoNotes. For example, VerbNet is the largest verb lexicon for English. It groups together verbs with identical sets of syntactic frames and semantic predicate structures and provides information about those structures. Syntactic frames are sometimes also called "thematic roles". Figure 3.9 shows some of the syntactic structures associated with "cut21.1". OntoNotes is a corpus of text that includes annotation of a wide variety of text (telephone conversations, newswire, newsgroups, broadcast news, broadcast conversation, and weblogs) with syntax, argument structure, and shallow semantics.

Verb Pattern Example with syntactic frame

3.4.3 Clauses and Sentences

Clauses and sentences are structures that include a verb with a complete set of arguments. Sentences can either be statements (declaratives), questions (interrogatives), or commands (imperatives). Questions can either be yes-no questions (constructed by putting the auxiliary in front of the subject noun phrase) or wh-questions which include a question word at the front ("who", "what", "when", "where", "why", "how"), and sometimes also an auxiliary before the subject noun phrase. In wh-questions the question word takes the place of some other constituent in the sentence (either a subject or an object of a verb or preposition) that is an unknown, such as the type of something. A passive sentence is one where the semantic object appears as the syntactic subject (the one before the VP) as in "The apple was eaten". Some examples of different types of sentences are shown in Figure 3.10.

Example sentence Sentence type

The cat sat.

Statement

The cat chased a mouse.

Statement

The mouse was chased

Passive statement

The girl gave her cat a toy

Statement

The cat slept in the bed.

Statement

What did the cat do?

Wh - question

What did the cat chase?

Wh - question

Who gave the cat a toy?

Wh - question

Who did she give the toy to?

Wh - question

What did she give the cat?

Wh - question

Where did the cat sleep?

Wh - question

Did the cat catch the mouse?

Yes - no question

Is it time to put the cat outside?

Yes - no question

Wake up the cat.

Command

Wash the bed when she is done sleeping.

Command

Clauses in English include complete declarative sentences (comprising a subject main verb and its required objects), dependent relative clauses introduced by a subordinating conjunction (e.g., "that", "before"), interrogative sentences (i.e., questions) marked by a wh-word or by inverting the subject and the main verb or a modal, or a combination. When the wh-word at the front refers to one of the objects of the main verb or a prepositional phrase, then the normal position for that object will be empty in a grammatical sentence. Linguists refer to this phenomenon as movement and the location of the missing object is a gap or trace. In the treebank data this information is not tracked, except to note that the sentence is a question introduced by a wh-word (i.e., SBARQ). Lastly, adverbs, adjectives, and interjections can also occur as sequences of several adjacent words. Figure 3.11 shows some examples of these constructions and the category labels that are used in the Penn Treebank, and thus have become the standard for automatic processing as well.

SBAR

Relative clause

A cat that sleeps is happy. The cat slept before she ate.

3.5 Subcategorization

She was happy to get a puppy.

"happy" requires a VP in the infinitive form

The front of the bus was empty.

"front" requires a PP that starts with "of"

She said she wanted to be president.

"said" requires a complete S (any form)

3.6 Lexical dependency

An alternative to constituency for describing the legal sequences of words, is to describe sequences in terms of binary syntactic relations between a head word and an argument. These relations are called lexical dependencies or just "dependencies". These dependencies include the categories of subject, direct object, and indirect object, and categories for different types of modifiers. Which of these arguments is required depends on the subcategorization constraints of the head word. When both a direct and an indirect object are required, the indirect object occurs first, unless it is contained inside a prepositional phrase that begins with "to". Figure 3.13 shows examples where the main part of the dependency is marked in bold and the dependent part is marked in italics.

nsubj

nominal subject

The cat chased the mouse.

amod

adjective modifier

The happy bird sang.

Both constituency and dependency induce a tree structure over legal sequences of words. The main difference between dependency trees and constituency trees is that dependency trees store words at every node, whereas in constituency trees only store words in the leaves, and the nodes are marked with part-of-speech tags. Figure 3.14 includes an example of the representation for the sentence, "The cat slept in her warm bed". The dependencies include that "cat" is the noun subject of the verb "slept", "bed" is a noun modifier of "slept", "her" is a possessive noun modifier of "bed", and "warm" as an adjective modifier of "bed". (The relations "det" and "case" are the labels used for the corresponding function words.)

There are currently 37 universal syntactic relations defined by the Universal Dependencies organization (See Figure 3.15).

Universal dependency and description Universal dependency and description

acl: clausal modifier of noun (adjectival clause)

fixed: fixed multiword expression

advcl: adverbial clause modifier

flat: flat multiword expression

amod: adjectival modifier

goeswith: goes with

appos: appositional modifier

iobj: indirect object

aux: auxiliary

list: list

case: case marking

mark: marker

cc: coordinating conjunction

nmod: nominal modifier

ccomp: clausal complement

nsubj: nominal subject

clf: classifier

nummod: numeric modifier

compound: compound

obj: object

conj: conjunct

obl: oblique nominal

cop: copula

orphan: orphan

csubj: clausal subject

parataxis: parataxis

dep: unspecified dependency

punct: punctuation

det: determiner

reparandum: overridden disfluency

discourse: discourse element

root: root

dislocated: dislocated elements

vocative: vocative

expl: expletive

xcomp: open clausal complement

3.7 Summary

The syntax of a natural language can be described in terms of:

The types and features of words,

The constituency of legal sequences of words, or

Dependency relations that hold between pairs of words, and

The subcategorization constraints that some words impose on sequences of words.

At one time, all these aspects required coding from scratch using manually created dictionaries and grammar rules. Today, large annotated data sets exist that allow one to either extract most vocabulary items and grammar rules or to train statistical language models for automated processing. However, there are types of text that are not well covered by such corpora, including social media and text within proprietary data warehouses (e.g., user and repair manuals for devices). Some of this data is important as it includes the notes of medical providers and records created by marketing and service departments of enterprises. In this chapter, we have discussed the basis for computational methods of language analysis. In the next chapters, we will consider computational descriptions of language syntax and processing models for identifying syntactic structure and meaning.

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Principles of Natural Language Processing

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The order in which words and phrases occur matters. Syntax is the set of conventions of language that specify whether a given sequence of words is well-formed and what functional relations, if any, pertain to them. For example, in English, the sequence "cat the mat on" is not well-formed.

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Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and written forms, and may also be conveyed through sign languages.

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Formative assessment evaluates student learning as it happens: Once students have access to vocabulary, texts, and concepts through visuals, media, and interaction with the instructors and their peers, I assign them a task that will allow them to further their comprehension collaboratively with their peers.

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The four main types of formative assessments are quizzes, exit slips, KWL charts, and S.O.S. Each of these types checks a students' understanding of the content to allow the educator to inform their instruction.

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This is an example of students that would be labeled as SPED. These students need help in class and would be in the Special Education program.

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We use the term “English language learners” (or ELLs) to talk about students who are learning English. You may use this term or others in your school. Many educators are beginning to use “emergent bilinguals” (EBs) to acknowledge students' bilingual skills.
A SPED kid is a slang term referring to a student in special education. Best practice uses people-first language. SPED kid is best rephrased as a student with a disability.

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The definition of summative assessment is any method of evaluation performed at the end of a unit that allows a teacher to measure a student's understanding, typically against standardized criteria.

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Examples of summative assessments include: a midterm exam. a final project. a paper. Overall standard test.

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We use the term “English language learners” (or ELLs) to talk about students who are learning English. You may use this term or others in your school. Many educators are beginning to use “emergent bilinguals” (EBs) to acknowledge students' bilingual skills. The state's goal for G/T students is to ensure that students who participate in G/T services demonstrate self-directed learning, thinking, research, and communication skills.

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Welcome to the gifted/talented (G/T) education webpage. The state's goal for G/T students is to ensure that students who participate in G/T services demonstrate self-directed learning, thinking, research, and communication skills. G/T students develop innovative products and sophisticated performances that reflect individuality and creativity and are targeted to an audience outside the classroom.

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Because gifted children are often natural leaders, it is important to invite them to use their talents and abilities in beneficial, rather than disruptive, manners. For example, encourage the gifted student to run for office in student council, or another extracurricular activity in which he/she is involved. In grade school GT students had to do things like the science fair whereas normal students had an option.

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Aural refers to hearing while oral refers to speaking. By providing an integration of each of these skills, we promote balanced language development and support multiple cognitive connections to new learning.

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Aural/Oral Communication

The four modalities of language are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. These are also referred to as the four language skills. Listening and reading are considered receptive skills or input, while speaking and writing are productive or output. Aural refers to hearing while oral refers to speaking. By providing an integration of each of these skills, we promote balanced language development and support multiple cognitive connections to new learning. The importance of activating prior knowledge or schema for students is based on the natural function of the brain to connect new understanding to existing understanding. New concepts are not dumped into an empty vessel called the mind. On the contrary, the brain, when presented new information, will search its existing schemata (plural for schema) to find something it can relate/connect the new information to. Physiologically, learning looks something like a tree with branches (existing neurons with dendrites that hold information) that stretch out connect to new concepts when they are presented. Visit this website to see an interactive view of how the neurological system is affected by learning. http://www.brainexplorer.org/

One of the most important concepts to keep in mind is that these 4 skills are correlated in pairs. Listening and speaking are paired in the oral area of communication, and reading and writing are in the graphic area. On the other hand, listening and reading are paired for the receptive area of communication, while speaking and writing are grouped in the productive area. Strategic development of listening, speaking, reading, and writing are essential in language acquisition.

How does this apply to language development?

Well, if we understand that new schema must chemically and physiologically "connect" to preexisting understanding (background knowledge) in order for a learner to make sense of it, then we understand why connecting to students' prior knowledge is a necessary part of cognition. What happens when background knowledge about a topic is nonexistent? For example, if a teacher is discussing the setting of a story that takes place in the Swiss Alps, a student who has lived and experienced only tropical climates may not be able to make a connection to the setting. This child has not yet developed schema about snowy, mountainous geography and climate. The teacher in this case, would have to expose the student to images and other resources that demonstrate climates like that of the Alps in order to build enough background knowledge for the student to put the story in the context of its setting.

You may be thinking, how does this relate to listening and speaking? Well, similar to the student who had not yet developed the schema about snow, English learners are in the process of developing the schema necessary to communicate effectively through a new code made of new sounds and structures, and for many, a new alphabet as well as social and cultural norms. When we discussed phonology, we established that one's ability to produce a sound is contingent upon his or her ability to hear that sound. If a student does not yet have the schema of a certain sound that is produced in English, he cannot yet connect to the sound in order to use it. His background knowledge must be developed. The problem is, as this student developed his first language as a child, his linguistic schemata was developed in a way that embodied a set of sounds that are specific to his first language. The process of adding new sounds to the established set, requires the physiological growth of new dendrites in the area of the brain that controls language and sends verbal commands from the brain to the mouth.

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The four modalities of language are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. These are also referred to as the four language skills. Listening and reading are considered receptive skills or input, while speaking and writing are productive or output. Aural refers to hearing while oral refers to speaking.

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Strategy One: Adapt Activities to Include Authentic Talk

Strategy Two: Use Activities that Develop Strong Language

Strategy Three: Use Strong Discussion Prompts

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Being able to talk and express your thoughts clearly is vital in life. Yet, too many students are graduating without sufficient experience with group discussions, or arguing their ideas effectively, and they are finding themselves unprepared for the communication demands of college and their careers.

How can we prepare our students for these rigors?

To lay a better foundation for this learning, we can do a few things: we can value oral language development, we can value communication of ideas over grammatical correctness, and we can value oral language as a powerful way to learn and remember content.

Here are three strategies to help develop oral language skills.

Strategy One: Adapt Activities to Include Authentic Talk

Adapting current activities to include more authentic, original, and extended discussions gives students opportunities to contribute more than one sentence to a conversation. Sometimes, we miss the opportunity to encourage language development. For example, many teachers use some form of a jigsaw activity, in which students get into expert groups, read a text, and answer questions or fill in charts. They then go to mixed home groups to share their information. Yet, often what happens is this: students just read aloud what another student has copied from a resource - and opportunities for oral language development are lost.

To improve this strategy, you can have the experts engage in a discussion of what to put, in their own words, onto paper. Then, they can rehearse what they'll say - covering their papers to avoid reading aloud. Then in home groups, you can have each person glance at their notes, cover them again, and share with the group members, who listen and take notes. You can even ask students to try to speak in paragraphs, starting with a general claim or topic sentence, and then support it with evidence sentences. For example, in this video, notice how the talk evolves as students prepare their ideas for sharing.

Strategy Two: Use Activities that Develop Strong Language

Use activities that allow students to develop a "stronger and clearer" answer, as they talk to different partners successively in an activity. Instead of the all-too-common whole class discussion, with the teacher asking questions and a few students answering, ask a question and have students talk to three different partners. Or have students talk in different groups (see this 1-3-6 activity video).

A crucial aspect of this strategy is that students shouldn't say the same thing each time; rather, they need to build on the language and ideas of previous partner(s) to improve, expand, clarify, and support their evolving answer each time they share it.

Example Activities (from Zwiers, O'Hara, Pritchard, 2014):

Interview Grid: Students talk with one different partner each time, making their answers stronger and clearer each time, taking minimal, if any, notes on the chart. Note that this activity can also work using inner-outer conversation circles, such as the one in this Debrief Circles video.

Opinion Formation Cards: Students receive a quotation from the text (before it's read) that includes evidence for one side or the other of an issue. Students share their quotations and their evolving opinions, with reasons and evidence for them.

Opinion Continuum: Students share where they fall on the continuum of a two-sided issue and why. At the end, they share if they shifted at all along the continuum based on their conversations with partners.

Strategy Three: Use Strong Discussion Prompts

Try to use discussion prompts that foster evaluation in some way. Evaluation is usually needed for ranking, prioritizing, and choosing. For example, if you ask for evidence of a theme or a claim, many students just find the first three remotely evidence-y things they can, and stop there. But if you prompt students to rank the evidence from strongest to weakest, or to find the most influential cause of some war, you can often get deeper thinking and better conversation.

For instance, I was talking with a teacher who was asking this question, "How did the Civil War affect the families in the South?" I encouraged her to simply add "most affect" to force students to evaluate and discuss their opinions. When students evaluate, their ideas often differ. And if you allow them time to argue and negotiate the ideas, lots of learning can happen.

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Key Strategies for Developing Oral Language

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Too many students are graduating without sufficient experience with group discussions or arguing their ideas effectively.

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4 strategies for effective reading instruction.

#1: Teaching pre-writing

#2: Sentence combining

#3: Studying mentor texts

#4: Shared writing

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Literacy is a foundational part of our personal and professional lives. As educators, we have internalized much of the reading and writing process. But these tasks can often feel challenging or nebulous to our students. Why is this the case?

Unlike solving a math problem, we can't always break down reading and writing into clear steps. As a result, teachers may struggle to find strategies to help students improve their literacy skills. So, they often end up assigning reading and writing as homework instead of teaching reading and writing skills and strategies in the classroom.

Learning to understand a poem or structure an argumentative essay is a challenge. That said, there are principles that teachers can apply to their instruction to maximize effectiveness.

The ideas that follow are not a quick fix. They are a menu of options that teachers can include, when appropriate, to make reading and writing lessons more impactful for students.

4 strategies for effective reading instruction

Because literacy is the basis for all learning, effective reading instruction is essential for student success in all subject areas. In order to support students' development of strong reading skills, there are several strategies that teachers can use to engage students and promote deeper comprehension.

#1: Think aloud

One of the most effective reading strategies is to think aloud. Teachers often forget everything that goes into understanding a text. Developing readers often don't know the mental work required to turn the words on the page into meaning. This creates an opportunity for teachers to model their thinking process for the class in a formal "Think Aloud." This is when the teacher reads a text aloud, pausing to explain her thoughts. It might sound something like this:

"Here, at the beginning of the novel, I notice that the main character is reflecting on her experience from high school, even though we're told that she is now thirty years old. This makes me wonder why the author has chosen to have the older version of the narrator tell the story-and why these memories from her teenage years are so important to her at this point in her life."

Thinking aloud requires practice, and it's alright if it doesn't succeed the first time. In fact, it can be good for students to see teachers struggle occasionally. This shows students that everyone can struggle with comprehension and may need to go back and reread portions of a text in order to understand specific details.

#2: Set a purpose for reading

This point refers to teaching whole class texts, whether that is an article, a novel, a poem, a play, or even a digital text. Students are more engaged in their reading if the teacher sets a purpose for reading. This can include a specific question to answer or a prompt to respond to. An alternative is to ask students to make a mark where something in the text is surprising or interesting, and to be ready to explain their choice in more detail when called upon.

The purpose for reading does not need to be complex, only focused.​​

#3: Write to learn

Reading and writing are recursive processes, which is why writing to learn is not only an effective writing strategy but is beneficial for reading comprehension, too.

In fact, reading and writing lead into and complement each other. Often, students will process a text better if they write about the text after reading it. One way to do this is with "quick write" prompts. This is when students are given a short period of time (two minutes, for example) to respond to a specific quote or question.

Another option is to ask students to explain how some part of the text relates to or differs from their lives, what surprised them in a text, what questions or topics they'd like to learn more about after reading the text, etc.

#4: Use visuals

Sometimes, visuals make all the difference. This is why things like sketchnoting can support readers by providing an outlet to create meaning through different forms of note-taking, including labels, structure, icons, and various pictures to help them process information.

Sketchnoting can help students capture key information from a text, remember it, and share it with others in a way that makes sense to them. It is a form of mnemonics, meaning it connects information with images, making it easier to remember what we've read or learned.

4 strategies for effective writing instruction

Similar to reading instruction, effective writing instruction provides students with a well-rounded education, and the right strategies can set students up with the communication skills and problem-solving abilities they need for success.

#1: Teaching pre-writing

Have you heard of "blank page syndrome?" This is when students stare at a blank computer screen or piece of paper. The cursor blinks, the pen twiddles, without a word appearing on the page.

Writing with fluency and volume is not natural for most people. Teaching pre-writing strategies helps students to get started so they can organize their thoughts and build momentum. Some examples of prewriting strategies include:

Listing questions the student has about an expository topic.

Listing opinions from many perspectives for an argumentative piece.

Using a plot diagram to outline a narrative.

#2: Sentence combining

Grammar instruction often overwhelms teachers just as much as grammar rules overwhelm students. One simple entry point is teaching students explicit techniques for combining sentences. Teachers can present students with sophisticated sentence structures, which lead to more sophisticated thoughts. The teacher can include terms and rules into these lessons because there is context for them.

#3: Studying mentor texts

Students learn to write by watching good writers and-in some sense-doing what they do. For example, are your students interested in writing editorials to share their views on an issue? Then the whole class can study editorials from popular news sites.

In the follow-up, students can then read a variety of editorials on their own. They can make lists of the structural and stylistic techniques that writers of the genre use. Furthermore, teachers can ask students to copy the style of good sentences from these mentor texts. This leads into writing full pieces in the style of mentor texts that the class has studied.

Shared writing is a highly effective instructional strategy that can be used to teach writing skills to students of all ages and skill levels. This approach involves the teacher and students collaborating to create a piece of writing, such as a story or an essay.

As the teacher models the writing process, students are able to observe and participate in the process of planning, drafting, revising, and editing a piece of writing. By working together with instructors and peers, students are able to learn from one another and receive immediate feedback from the teacher.

This collaborative approach helps to build confidence and motivation in students while also improving their writing skills. Shared writing also allows for differentiated instruction, as the teacher can adjust the level of support based on each student's or each group's needs.

Renaissance: Providing solutions for reading and writing success

Effective reading and writing instruction can be challenging to plan and deliver. With so many needs in a single classroom, a teacher needs a whole toolkit of strategies. There are no magic tricks for improving literacy, but there are guiding principles.

Renaissance offers teachers a variety of resources to support effective reading and writing instruction. Our solutions include:

FastBridge and Star Assessments, for reliable insights into students' current reading skills and instructional needs.

Accelerated Reader, to motivate and monitor students' independent reading practice and spark a love of reading.

The myON digital platform, which provides 24/7 access to thousands of books and news articles-along with embedded reading and writing tools.

Freckle for ELA, for differentiated practice on essential reading and writing skills across K-12.

Whether you're an instructor looking for greater insights into your students' needs and abilities, or you're looking for strategies to help improve their reading and writing capabilities, Renaissance's solutions provide instructors with the tools and resources they need to help their students develop the skills necessary for academic success.

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Reading and writing strategies for education

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Explore how these eight reading and writing strategies can help teachers set students up for academic success.

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Literacy development is the process of learning words, sounds, and language. Children develop literacy skills in order to learn to read and write confidently and eventually improve their communication skills overall.

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Why is Literacy Development Important for Children?

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Literacy development is each stage a child passes through on their way to reading and writing. Read more about the 5 stages with Learning Without Tears!

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Science can provide exciting opportunities for students to make discoveries and use their language skills, especially through inquiry-based lessons. This section offers strategies, resources, and guidance for helping ELLs succeed in science, as well information about the Next Generation Science Standards.

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Speak slowly, distinctly, and write down key terms – Anyone who has learned a foreign language in class, then traveled to a country where the language is spoken, has noticed that it is difficult to understand natives because they seem to “talk too fast”. Emphasize visual literacy - It is often said that math and music are universal languages –ones that can be read regardless of one’s primary language.

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Strategies for English Language Learners

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A multilingual classroom is a classroom with learners having more than one languages at their disposal (irrespective of level of competence), including learners from migrant backgrounds, such as first- and second-generation and newly-arrived immigrants and refugees. Multicultural classrooms are classrooms that embrace diversity and incorporate ideas, beliefs, or people from different countries and cultural backgrounds.

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What is a multilingual classroom?

A multilingual classroom is a classroom with learners having more than one languages at their disposal (irrespective of level of competence), including learners from migrant backgrounds, such as first- and second-generation and newly-arrived immigrants and refugees. As a result of globalisation, intra-European mobility and international migration, such classrooms have nowadays become the norm rather than an exception in Europe.

Linguistic and cultural diversity is nowadays a growing reality in school classrooms.

Why is using English as a lingua franca important?

Nowadays, English is the most widely employed language in Europe and beyond and, very frequently, the only option for people who do not share their mother tongue or have another language in common. Using it is important not only for personal communication in various social domains, including the Internet, but also, for professional reasons. It is a 'shared' language, in other words, that opens doors for better social and professional opportunities.

In Greece, Norway and Turkey, about 9.7% of 15-year-old students are currently in schools where more than 25% of students speak at home a language which is different from the language of schooling. At the same time, the percentage of foreign-born people in Portugal increased from 1.3% in 1991 to 8.3% in 2015, while, in Italy, immigrant children alone have almost doubled during the past 10 years, representing, in 2015, 11.7% of the total number of children in the country. .

How can we support multilingual classrooms?

Being able to communicate effectively in a 'shared' language which opens doors for better social and professional opportunities is necessary for all learners. Nowadays, English serves as the most frequent 'shared' language around the world. Professional development primarily for English language teachers is, therefore, crucial so that they embrace the linguistic diversity in their classrooms and raise their awareness of the importance of English in connecting learners with each other, the local communities and the whole world.

For more information about the European policy on multilingualism, linguistic diversity and multilingual classrooms, visit the European Commission webpage.

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A multilingual classroom is a classroom with learners having more than one languages at their disposal (irrespective of level of competence), including learners from migrant backgrounds, such as first- and second-generation and newly-arrived immigrants and refugees. As a result of globalisation, intra-European mobility and international migration, such classrooms have nowadays become the norm rather than an exception in Europe.

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This is an example of the classrooms. The most important part is to make sure all students feel welcomed and at home.

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There are several regional varieties of English: General Australian, Standard British English, General American, Standard Scottish English, etc. What is SE in Britain is different from the accepted SE of the United States, India, or Canada.

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English is the mother tongue of almost 380 million people around the world. In addition, it is used as a second language by close to 740 million people worldwide. There are several regional varieties of English: General Australian, Standard British English, General American, Standard Scottish English, etc. What is SE in Britain is different from the accepted SE of the United States, India, or Canada. Spelling and grammar may differ slightly, and there will be local words and idiomatic expressions. However, the variants are still mutually intelligible.

In their written forms, different standards of English do not vary to any significant degree. Essentially, there are two main variants of standard written English used in the world today, British English and American English, with variants subordinate to one or both of them. For example, countries in Central and South America, as well as Asian-Pacific countries (Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines), have a preference for American English. Other countries, such as Australia and South Africa, have written standards that maintain close links to British English. Written standard Canadian English, however, uses spelling from both British and American English, reflecting the historical relationship to Britain and contemporary influence from the United States.

What do we mean by 'Standard English'?

According to British linguist David Crystal, the Standard English of an English-speaking country may be defined as

a minority variety (identified chiefly by its vocabulary, grammar, and orthography) which carries most prestige and is most widely understood.

What does this definition tell you?

David Crystal points out that SE is merely one of many variants of English in an English-speaking country. It is widely understood by most people in the country, but only a minority of the people use it in their everyday speech. The linguistic features of SE are primarily features of grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. Pronunciation is less relevant, since SE can be spoken with a wide variety of accents. In writing, which is where SE is used the most, the consistent use of SE is only required in certain tasks such as formal letters, reports, newspaper articles, school essays, etc.

In spite of SE being a minority variety, it carries more prestige than other varieties of English, and is often adopted by people who in some way have a greater influential force on society than others (e.g. people with political or economic power, people from higher social classes or with a certain educational background, etc). According to the American linguist James Sledd, SE is 'the English used by the powerful'. The prestige that is attached to SE makes it the preferred variety of communication in the leading institutions of a country, such as its government, courts, public services, the media, and its educational institutions. Also, it is the variety of English that is taught to foreign learners of English - like you.

Standard English vs non-Standard English

Is it fair to say that Standard English is more correct than non-standard English, such as dialects, regional accents, and sociolects? SE has often been defined as the only proper, correct English. Non-standard varieties of English, on the other hand, have often been associated with low status and poor education, and have at times contemptuously been labelled as 'broken English', 'gutter English' or 'substandard English'.

However, we often forget that Standard English (irrespective of which national Standard English we are talking about) is a minority variety. Most people master and understand SE because that is the language of education and public life. However, only about 10% of native English speakers choose to use SE as their everyday dialect. Non-standard English variants, with their unique grammar, slang, and pronunciation, are far more common, and we can hear people from all walks of life using non-standard words and phrases in their spoken English. For example, double negations are not uncommon (i.e. 'That won't do you no good'). The same can be said about words like 'ain't' and 'innit'; words that are not accepted in SE. The fact is that the great majority of native English speakers use a non-standard form of English, which can be very different from SE.

There are many misconceptions about what is 'correct' and 'incorrect' English. The fact is that no varieties of English are 'right' or 'wrong', 'better' or 'worse'. However, some ways of speaking and writing are just better suited to different situations and audiences. What type of English you use is more a matter of appropriateness than of correctness. In a formal setting, it is natural to opt for SE, as it is the variant that will ensure that you are easily understood. Opting for a non-standard variant may cause confusion and misunderstandings. People may also have various prejudices against non-standard variants of English, so using SE leaves less room for people to pre-judge you and what you have to say.

Dialects and accents only enrich the linguistic landscape that we find in the English-speaking world. However, it is essential to know when it is most appropriate to use Standard English and when you should use non-Standard English, and to be able to code switch between the two.

Sources

Crystal, D (1997). English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Crystal, D (1995). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hickey, R. Standard English and standards of English. Retrieved from: https://www.uni-due.de/~lan300/Standards_of_English_(Hickey).pdf

Trask, R.L. Why Do Languages Change? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Relatert innhold

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Standard English - One of Many Varieties of English - Engelsk 1 - NDLA

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Scottish English is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English.

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Multiple strategies can be used during conversations about the texts students are reading to support the development of students' inferential language. These include asking students to make predictions, engage in problem-solving, make hypotheses, and compare and contrast concepts.

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Academic language refers to the oral, written, auditory, and visual language proficiency required to learn effectively in schools and academic programs—i.e., it's the language used in classroom lessons, books, tests, and assignments, and it's the language that students are expected to learn and achieve fluency in.

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A well-written language objective will tell students exactly what they need to learn and how they will express the new knowledge and skills of the lesson. An example of a language objective is as follows: The student will be able to write a compound sentence on the board.

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Objective language is a way of talking about things in a way that does not express opinion, feelings, personal biases etc. Being objective means talking in a way that is measurable, quantifiable and is based on data and scientific fact. It also means not exaggerating or distorting the data.

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Introduction

In English there are two speaking styles we can use when taking about things, objective language and subjective language. Using the correct style in an appropriate situation can make you seem more professional or empathetic and more natural.

Objective Language

Objective language is a way of talking about things in a way that does not express opinion, feelings, personal biases etc. Being objective means talking in a way that is measurable, quantifiable and is based on data and scientific fact. It also means not exaggerating or distorting the data.

That person has seven cats.

This style is useful for academic writing. As such, it is used a lot when describing graphs, charts and scientific data etc. If you are doing an exam such as "IELTS Academic Writing" then you will want to use this style in your answer.

Subjective Language

Subjective language is the opposite. By using this type of speech we are expressing our opinions, feelings and personal biases. These things can't be measured and can conflict with other peoples opinions. We can also exaggerate certain situations.

That person has too many cats.

In this example we can't measure how many cats are too many. Also, what might be too many cats for one person might not be too many cats for another.

This style is mostly used outside of scientific data situations (speaking casually with friends, creative writing etc). If you are doing an exam such as "IELTS General Training Writing" then you will want to use this style in your answer.

Objective Example Sentences Subjective Example Sentences

The price is rising.
Many people enjoy the taste.
The house has 7 bedrooms.
He has £7,000,000.
A large percentage of people enjoy it.
I eat at the restaurant twice a week.
The amount dropped by 50%.

The price is expensive.
It is tasty.
The house is big.
He is rich.
It is awesome.
I eat at the restaurant all of the time.
The amount dropped ridiculously.

Objective VS Subjective Language Quiz

Check what you've learned with the quiz below: -

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Objective VS Subjective Language - English XP

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In English there are two speaking styles we can use when taking about things, objective language and subjective language. Using the correct style in an

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1 - Vocabulary Instruction

There are three types of vocabulary: tier 1 is basic vocabulary, tier 2 is grade level vocabulary (terms most native English speakers are familiar with), and tier 3 is low frequency content specific vocabulary. ALL students need explicit instruction in the third tier! Being aware of all 3 types is important, and knowing your students is key in deciding which words might need front-loading before a lesson.

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I teach 5th and 6th grade math to beginning English language learners. This post shares 3 critical strategies that support ELLs in the understanding of math concepts AND in the language of math. These are three "must haves" for any math classroom with ESL students, especially those with newcomers!

"Math is a universal language." Have you heard this saying? I must admit, it's drives me a little crazy! Have you seen "standardized" testing? There is a LOT of language involved in math, and for students who are new to the country, this poses a lot of obstacles. Not only do we teach grade level math concepts to our students, but we also need to teach the language of math.

So how can we best support our beginning ELLs in math? There is a reason I put vocabulary instruction at the top of the list. It simply cannot be ignored if we want our students to be successful.

1 - Vocabulary Instruction
There are three types of vocabulary: tier 1 is basic vocabulary, tier 2 is grade level vocabulary (terms most native English speakers are familiar with), and tier 3 is low frequency content specific vocabulary. ALL students need explicit instruction in the third tier!Being aware of all 3 types is important, and knowing your students is key in deciding which words might need front-loading before a lesson.

Ex. of Tier 1 Basic Vocabulary - tall, short, fast, long, more, less, far, close, heavy, light, around, cover, most, many, about, big, small, fill, full, empty, all, etc.

Ex. of Tier 2 "Grade Level" Vocabulary (math language) - increase, decrease, greatest, least, altogether, replace, combine, random, weight, length, opposite, distance, etc.

Ex. of Tier 3 Content Vocabulary - ratio, probability, quadrilaterals, polygons, equations, diameter, circumference, coefficient, variable, volume, capacity, scalene, kilometer, etc.

In classrooms with beginning ELLs, vocabulary is one of the main focuses of instruction. Terms from all 3 levels need to be explicitly taught. Analyzing the math lesson during the planning phase and looking for terms that need front-loading is vital to providing comprehensible instruction. On days that I'm introducing a new concept, I KNOW that my primary focus is on vocabulary.
---- Vocabulary Building Activities ----
I use the KIM Strategy for direct vocabulary instruction. To read a post about this highly effective vocabulary strategy, click HERE.

Key vocabulary is introduced, a simple kid friendly definition is produced and visual "memory clue" is illustrated.

Make vocabulary fun:)

Write terms on one set of cards and visuals or examples on another set, then pass out cards to students. As an "exit ticket" they must find their matching partner.

The vocabulary terms on this day were "ascending" and "descending." My sixth graders used the KIM strategy in their notebooks at the beginning of class. We practiced putting numbers (fractions, decimals, percents) in ascending and descending order. At the end of class, I passed out index cards with percentages, and their "exit" task was to get into descending order. Then I mixed the cards up and asked them to get into ascending order.

I always add an interactive notebook activity, or a foldable activity, to follow up. This resource provides students with a reference during their independent work time. These also are used as study tools before unit assessments.

To find these math resources, click HERE.

The direct vocabulary instruction always come first, then I find ways to get my students up and out of their seats for fun vocabulary building activities. This physical activity helps to solidify their understanding. An interactive notebook, or foldable, activity usually follows. Then we practice using the vocabulary throughout the unit with sentence frames to support their language acquisition.

2 - Visuals and Anchor Charts
Beginning ELLs do the majority of their learning by watching. Meaningful visuals are key to their understanding. My lessons are loaded with visuals and I am constantly drawing pictures to show what something means. I really wish I could draw!!

It's always a challenge, but my students get a kick out of my efforts. LOL! If only it could be this simple...

It would be so much easier for me, and for them! :)

Color coding is also an effective visual strategy. My students copied this capacity "diagram" in their math notebooks using 5 different colors.

Add visuals to math notebooks for each lesson so that students have a reference.

On the left hand page is a visual chart for the "Types of Lines" vocabulary. To be successful with independent activities, such as centers and homework, they have everything they need in their notebooks.
Use images that relate math to the real world around them.

I often use the"Essential Questions for 6th Grade Math" pages by The Illustrated Classroom. They've been a real life saver to me! The visuals are great and the text is simplified. I print them at 75%, cut the excess edges off, then have my students glue them into their notebooks. It works great!

Create a visual math word wall. I use this word wall, also by The Illustrated Classroom. Another math reference tool with visuals, and a great place to introduce AND review content vocabulary.

Math Videos - I absolutely love using short math videos in class, especially the ones on You Tube by NumbeRock!!

The visuals are spot on, and each video is short, only about 2-3 minutes. My students love them and can see the math concepts in action. These videos are often a part of my introductory lessons.

I also use Brain Pop Jr. videos.

Even though the "Jr." version is for grades K-3, the focus is on vocabulary, and the language is simplified, so compared to the upper elementary BP version, I find that it's a better fit for my beginning 5th and 6th graders.

Creating anchor charts is also invaluable. Pinterest is such a great place to find inspiration for math anchor charts! It's my go-to destination for ideas! As long as we are learning about a concept, the anchor chart stays up for viewing. When we go back to review at the end of the year for state assessments, or spiral back to a concept later, the anchor chart gets pulled out again. Some charts stay up all year!

The most important thing to remember about teaching beginning English language learners, IMO, is that you need to show the concept visually FIRST, along with explicit vocabulary instruction. Even with definitions, adding a visual can be "worth a thousand words." ;)

When I am planning a math lesson, I think to myself, "How can I show this concept to my students?" And... "Where can I add meaningful visuals?" If I'm teaching fractions, I want to show them parts of a whole. Maybe that means breaking a Hershey's candy bar into pieces, or cutting a pan of brownies into equal parts. (I see a chocolate theme happening here!) If I am teaching probability, I want to show the concepts of certain, impossible, likely and unlikely.

It's all about Visuals - Visuals - Visuals!!
3 - Hands On Activities
Manipulative and hands-on activities are a great way for students to see "how" math works. Cubes, tiles, measuring tools, foldable activities, food, tangrams, fraction pieces, dice and games are just some ways we can get our students working on and practicing math skills. When students are using their hands, they are focused on "doing" something, compared to when they are note taking or using receptive skills to understand a lesson or new vocabulary. Here they get to practice and try out their math thinking. It's also a great way for ME to see what they understand, as well as what might need clarifying. When math is FUN, and students have had both vocabulary building and meaningful visuals beforehand, the hands-on activities are where they can dive in and practice what they've learned.

Vocabulary, visuals and hands-on activities are the 3 must-have strategies for any math classroom with English language learners, especially beginners. Here's an example of all 3 in action.

Direct Vocabulary Instruction - term: "Data - a collection of information (facts, numbers, measurements)" Students copy this in their notebooks.

Visuals - Bar Graph Anchor Chart: Question Posed- "Which color do you like best?"

Collecting Data - Students come up and color in their favorite color choice. Then we analyze the the data. I ask questions like, Which color did most students like best? Which color did the least, or smallest, number of students like best? Which color did no students like the best? How many students chose the color red? How many students chose the color green? etc... This is a great time to build that tier 1 and 2 vocabulary.

Next, I want to model how to take this data and show it in a different way using a circle graph. See pics below.

>>> Data and Statistics - Day 2 <<<

We review the data from the circle graph and then convert fractions to percents in a whole group setting.

Hands-On Activity - My students gather data and use it to create their own circle graph. They will also convert fractions to percents.

They each get a baggie of skittles and predict how many are inside. Then they take out the skittles and gather their data. They count and note the amount for each color. Next they write the fraction for each color and convert that number into a decimal. Last, they create the circle graph the same way I modeled with the colored strips the day before. (The M&M Lab Activity by Lisa Tilmon can be found here.) My students all had a firm understanding of data collection after these 2 days. My teacher heart was smiling:)

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Vocabulary -- Visuals -- Hands-On Activities -- Oh Yea!!

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I hope that you found some helpful tips in this post. I'd love to hear about a strategy that you find to be a "must-have" when working with beginning English language learners!

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Math Strategies for Beginning English Language Learners

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An educational blog for sharing ideas, strategies and resources that support teachers of English Language Learners.

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Teaching methods of mathematics include lecture, inductive, deductive, heuristic or discovery, analytic, synthetic, problem solving, laboratory and project methods. Teachers may adopt any method according to the specific unit of syllabus, available resources and number of students in a class.

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January 13, 2021

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Mathematics is a subject that is quite different from others, both in terms of difficulty and in terms of usage. Every parent desires that their child succeeds in mathematics. But, teaching a child the concepts of mathematics is difficult. This is the reason why most of the parents are confused regarding how to teach maths in an interesting way to their children.

The ultimate goal of mathematics is understanding the material presented, applying the skills, and recalling the concepts in the future. There is a list of concepts revolving around multiple formulas that help to solve different problem sets and make different decisions. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the material rather than memorizing the procedures of mathematics.

Mathematics is a subject that requires constant practice and revision. If this is not done, students tend to forget the concepts. Some students find it interesting while others find it difficult. This is because of the strategies applied by the teacher regarding how to teach maths. As it is such a different subject, the teachers have to apply a whole different set of strategies while teaching mathematics.

In this article, we will be listing down some of the approaches and strategies of teaching mathematics. These mathematical teaching strategies will help them understand how to teach maths in an interesting way to students. Hence, moving forward to some of these mathematical teaching strategies.

15 Strategies on how to teach Math-PDF

Math is a subject that requires constant practice and revision. Explore some of the effective approaches and strategies to teach students mathematics through this article. Here is a downloadable PDF to explore more.

Approaches and strategies in teaching mathematics

Create an effective environment that is open for discussion

Teachers should start by laying down the agenda of the class and must keep an open platform wherein each and every student must be encouraged to raise questions.

Teachers should understand that students will take time in understanding the concepts of mathematics. Therefore provide them with due feedback, practice assignments, doubt clearing sessions, and revision papers.

Explain to them the purpose behind learning a particular topic.

Mathematics is a subject which could actually be visualized and compared to practical life. Therefore, teachers can come up with creative ways like images or videos to teach maths in an interesting way to students.

They can illustrate the problem sets by making a child visualize the practical side of what is mentioned in the problem.

The problem sets given in maths can be solved in multiple ways. Therefore as a teacher, you should teach the students all the possible ways of solving a problem.

Not every student will grasp and understand the same method of coming to a solution. Therefore, it must be an open platform wherein the students are given an option to understand the most relevant approach towards coming to a solution.

In order to determine that every student has actually learned the objective of a class, it is necessary that every student communicate both orally and in writing with the proper reason.

Reasoning gives a proper idea about the understanding of the student about the concept. This will promote their engagement and learning.

As stressed upon before, mathematics is the subject where you require constant practice. Therefore, we encourage every teacher to provide students with some practice assignments for their home.

Make sure that these assignments are not very tough and help the student to understand the concept in a better way. These assignments are given in order to boost the morale of the students and make them get a relevant hold of the subject.

Before starting to teach any particular topic in mathematics, it is very important to segregate the problem sets based on that level of difficulty. Start with a few easier problems.

Teachers must keep raising the bar for all the students slowly and steadily.

As teachers, you must be enthusiastic and encouraging. You must try to prevent students from getting these negative attitudes. Try to comfort and console the students who are struggling.

This will help them build their confidence and their ability to solve the problem.

As a guide, it becomes very important to know about the progress of the child. Therefore it is imperative to conduct proper examinations.

These examinations can take various forms like quizzes, classroom discussions, detailed assignments, etc. This will help the teachers to take proper actions for individual students.

This project assignment helps the students to do proper research and understand a particular topic in a much more detailed manner.

Provide them with the guidance to do a particular project but let them do the research on their own. This will bring out their creativity and brings the best out of them.

Many teachers become very rigid in the pace of completing a particular topic. They often forget to evaluate the homework given by them. Well, we say this is not a problem.

But a teacher must walk through the classroom and observe the dynamics of the students. The teacher must talk to every student individually and ask them questions. This will give them a fair idea about how much a student is understanding.

This will help the students to develop their mental abilities and skills. This will also give them a whole new learning and thinking process. They will be able to describe and solve a problem in their own certain way.

Games will also encourage active engagement and participation. There are many math games available on phones and computers. It will promote their strategic mathematical thinking, computational fluency, and understanding of operations.

In mathematics, there are a number of concepts that are abstract. Hands-on learning will help the students make their concepts concrete.

Consider incorporating the manipulatives of mathematics wherever possible. For example, you can use building blocks to teach a variety of mathematical skills.

Every kid has their own way of learning math. Don't make them grasp and memorize the formulas or procedures. Memorization does not foster understanding.

Therefore, build a stronger conceptual understanding and mental connection. This will build a strong foundation. To know more about learning styles click here.

Build a proper growth mindset among the students. This keeps them motivated and boosted. Provide them with certificates, stickers, badges, or trophies as they progress.

Teachers can have weekly announcements of the best students of the week. Such recognition will help them repeat the good work. To know more about the growth mindset click here.

We all know how difficult maths could be. We all have been there. Therefore, it becomes very important to be patient with the child and to teach them in a step-by-step sequential manner. This will prevent them from getting afraid of mathematics.

Effective strategies for teaching students with difficulties in mathematics

5-10% of the students suffer from this problem

Understanding the concepts becomes difficult

Similar numbers tend to confuse the kid

Inability to make quick calculations

Inability to judge time, speed, and distance

Inability to grasp and hold numbers for calculations in the brain for a long time

Well, there is nothing to be worried about. It is a common issue with a lot of children. With a proper step by step approach of learning and understanding, dyscalculia is easily solvable. It is important to consult a specialist but it is equally important for parents to show care and support at every stage of the development process. Some of the steps which parents can take are:

Active participation with the child

Applying maths to small household works and using them as examples for the child

Making them play games which are maths oriented

Abacus classes can be a great source of learning

Teaching through a step by step approach of getting an answer

Clearing the doubts that a child asks in the learning process

Understanding his/her abilities and setting the difficulties on those parameters

Conclusion

We hope some of these approaches and strategies of teaching mathematics will effectively improve the dynamics of a classroom. Teachers and parents must not worry about how to teach maths. Rather they must focus on how to teach maths in an interesting way.

Making things fun makes everything easier. In the entire process, it becomes very essential to understand the mindset of the child. This will help elders to develop and connect better relations with the child.

Cuemath, a student-friendly mathematics and coding platform, conducts regular Online Classes for academics and skill-development, and their Mental Math App, on both iOS and Android, is a one-stop solution for kids to develop multiple skills.Understand the Cuemath Fee structure and sign up for a free trial.

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Math is a subject that requires constant practice and revision. Explore some of the effective approaches and strategies to teach students mathematics through this article.