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Fueling Academic Growth for English Learners

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Fueling Academic Growth for English Learners

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This article has great information on bilingual education and how to encourage academic growth.

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The Reading Teacher - 2011 - Cummins - Fueling Academic Growth for English Learners.pdf

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I chose this because it provides great framework on how to do formative assessments

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Formative assessment-discovering what students know while they're still in the process of learning it-can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes-for teachers, not students-because we're using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts? Or, more likely, which students are ready to move on and which need a different path?

When it comes to figuring out what our students really know, we have to look at more than one kind of information. A single data point-no matter how well designed the quiz, presentation, or problem behind it-isn't enough information to help us plan the next step in our instruction.

Add to that the fact that different learning tasks are best measured in different ways, and we can see why we need a variety of formative assessment tools we can deploy quickly, seamlessly, and in a low-stakes way-all while not creating an unmanageable workload. That's why it's important to keep it simple: Formative assessments generally just need to be checked, not graded, as the point is to get a basic read on the progress of individuals, or the class as a whole.

7 Approaches to Formative Assessment

1. Entry and exit slips: Those marginal minutes at the beginning and end of class can provide some great opportunities to find out what kids remember. Start the class off with a quick question about the previous day's work while students are getting settled-you can ask differentiated questions written out on chart paper or projected on the board, for example.

A quick way to see the big picture if you use paper exit tickets is to sort the papers into three piles: Students got the point; they sort of got it; and they didn't get it. The size of the stacks is your clue about what to do next.

No matter the tool, the key to keeping students engaged in the process of just-walked-in or almost-out-the-door formative assessment is the questions. Ask students to write for one minute on the most meaningful thing they learned. You can try prompts like:

What are three things you learned, two things you're still curious about, and one thing you don't understand?

How would you have done things differently today, if you had the choice?

What I found interesting about this work was...

Right now I'm feeling...

Today was hard because...

Or skip the words completely and have students draw or circle emojis to represent their assessment of their understanding.

2. Low-stakes quizzes and polls: If you want to find out whether your students really know as much as you think they know, polls and quizzes created with Socrative or Quizlet or in-class games and tools like Quizalize, Kahoot, FlipQuiz, Gimkit, Plickers, and Flippity can help you get a better sense of how much they really understand. (Grading quizzes but assigning low point values is a great way to make sure students really try: The quizzes matter, but an individual low score can't kill a student's grade.) Kids in many classes are always logged in to these tools, so formative assessments can be done very quickly. Teachers can see each kid's response, and determine both individually and in aggregate how students are doing.

Because you can design the questions yourself, you determine the level of complexity. Ask questions at the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy and you'll get insight into what facts, vocabulary terms, or processes kids remember. Ask more complicated questions ("What advice do you think Katniss Everdeen would offer Scout Finch if the two of them were talking at the end of chapter 3?"), and you'll get more sophisticated insights.

3. Dipsticks: So-called alternative formative assessments are meant to be as easy and quick as checking the oil in your car, so they're sometimes referred to as dipsticks. These can be things like asking students to:

write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,

draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or

do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

Your own observations of students at work in class can provide valuable data as well, but they can be tricky to keep track of. Taking quick notes on a tablet or smartphone, or using a copy of your roster, is one approach. A focused observation form is more formal and can help you narrow your note-taking focus as you watch students work.

4. Interview assessments: If you want to dig a little deeper into students' understanding of content, try discussion-based assessment methods. Casual chats with students in the classroom can help them feel at ease even as you get a sense of what they know, and you may find that five-minute interview assessments work really well. Five minutes per student would take quite a bit of time, but you don't have to talk to every student about every project or lesson.

You can also shift some of this work to students using a peer-feedback process called TAG feedback (Tell your peer something they did well, Ask a thoughtful question, Give a positive suggestion). When you have students share the feedback they have for a peer, you gain insight into both students' learning.

For more introverted students-or for more private assessments-use Flipgrid, Explain Everything, or Seesaw to have students record their answers to prompts and demonstrate what they can do.

5. Methods that incorporate art: Consider using visual art or photography or videography as an assessment tool. Whether students draw, create a collage, or sculpt, you may find that the assessment helps them synthesize their learning. Or think beyond the visual and have kids act out their understanding of the content. They can create a dance to model cell mitosis or act out stories like Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" to explore the subtext.

6. Misconceptions and errors: Sometimes it's helpful to see if students understand why something is incorrect or why a concept is hard. Ask students to explain the " muddiest point" in the lesson-the place where things got confusing or particularly difficult or where they still lack clarity. Or do a misconception check: Present students with a common misunderstanding and ask them to apply previous knowledge to correct the mistake, or ask them to decide if a statement contains any mistakes at all, and then discuss their answers.

You can use sticky notes to get a quick insight into what areas your kids think they need to work on. Ask them to pick their own trouble spot from three or four areas where you think the class as a whole needs work, and write those areas in separate columns on a whiteboard. Have you students answer on a sticky note and then put the note in the correct column-you can see the results at a glance.

Several self-assessments let the teacher see what every kid thinks very quickly. For example, you can use colored stacking cups that allow kids to flag that they're all set (green cup), working through some confusion (yellow), or really confused and in need of help (red).

Similar strategies involve using participation cards for discussions (each student has three cards-"I agree," "I disagree," and "I don't know how to respond") and thumbs-up responses (instead of raising a hand, students hold a fist at their belly and put their thumb up when they're ready to contribute). Students can instead use six hand gestures to silently signal that they agree, disagree, have something to add, and more. All of these strategies give teachers an unobtrusive way to see what students are thinking.

No matter which tools you select, make time to do your own reflection to ensure that you're only assessing the content and not getting lost in the assessment fog. If a tool is too complicated, is not reliable or accessible, or takes up a disproportionate amount of time, it's OK to put it aside and try something different.

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7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

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Within these methods you'll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they're still learning.

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Week 5 INST 363 NOTE-TAKING GUIDE: Language Across the Content Areas & Lesson Planning

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Week 5 INST 363 NOTE-TAKING GUIDE: Language Across the Content Areas & Lesson Planning

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I chose this resouce because it is my notes on teaching language across content areas.

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This presentation has fantastic information over strategies for reading and writing development and key information over the topic.

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For math learning for EBs/ELs, lots of symbols, hand manipulatives, and visuals are very important. Math can have jargon associated and this can be difficult for ESL students.

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This document has commentary over how to have inclusivity into a classroom successfully.

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This is my learning reflection regarding math instruction.

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INST 363 Note-Taking Guide: Reading/Writing Development

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INST 363 Note-Taking Guide: Reading/Writing Development

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I chose this resource because it provides summative information on strategies for reading and writing development from this course.

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INST 363 Strategies for Reading-Writing Note-Taking Guide .docx

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This is my reflection from reading and writing development.

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I chose this resource because it is an application activity that my group focused on science instruction for EB/ELs.

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This is my learning reflection regarding the importance of art in ESL education

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I chose this resource because it is my learning reflection for EB/ELs in SPED.

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INST 363 LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE - Part B-1-1

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INST 363 LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE - Part B-1-1

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Our lesson plan used science instruction.

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INST 363 LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE - Part B-1-1

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The classroom referred to is a fantastic example of multicultural education.

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This is my research paper I wrote for INST 362 with lots of information on second language acquisition motivations and studies. It is a case study paper.

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INST 363 Math & Science Methods for EBsELs Note-Taking Guide Fall 2024

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INST 363 Math & Science Methods for EBsELs Note-Taking Guide Fall 2024

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I chose this document because it is my math instruction notes from this course.

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INST 363 Math & Science Methods for EBsELs Note-Taking Guide Fall 2024.docx

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I chose this resource because it has lots of information on summative vs formative assessments.

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Formative assessment

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work

help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

Formative assessments are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic

submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture

turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative assessment

The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:

Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

CONTACT US to talk with an Eberly colleague in person!

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Formative vs Summative Assessment - Eberly Center - Carnegie Mellon University

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INST 210- Section 505- Unit 2 Lab Document- Group D

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INST 210- Section 505- Unit 2 Lab Document- Group D

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I chose this because it is my lab notes for the entire semester of when I took INST 210- which is a class about special education. There is lots of good info about SPED education

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INST 210- Section 505- Unit 2 Lab Document- Group D

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I chose this because it is my reflection over GT education

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Meeting the LinguisticNeeds of High-PotentialEnglish Language Learners

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Meeting the LinguisticNeeds of High-PotentialEnglish Language Learners

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This is a great resouce on GT for EB/ELs.

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This is my drive folder for my technology in the classroom. There is loads of information on different technologies for students and teachers.

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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This is a great resource on different tools for language learning

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Language Tech Lab - The University of Iowa

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FluentKey contains a library of language learning videos (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish) filled with authentic movies, music, news, commercials, and more. You can use these videos to do live comprehension checks with your students using the phone app.

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14 Examples of Formative Assessment [+FAQs] - University of San Diego

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14 Examples of Formative Assessment [+FAQs] - University of San Diego

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This is a list of ways to use formative assessments.

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University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education

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Traditional student assessment typically comes in the form of a test, pop quiz, or more thorough final exam. But as many teachers will tell you, these rarely tell the whole story or accurately determine just how well a student has learned a concept or lesson.

That's why many teachers are utilizing formative assessments. While formative assessment is not necessarily a new tool, it is becoming increasingly popular amongst K-12 educators across all subject levels.

Curious? Read on to learn more about types of formative assessment and where you can access additional resources to help you incorporate this new evaluation style into your classroom.

What is Formative Assessment?

Online education glossary EdGlossary defines formative assessment as "a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course." They continue, "formative assessments help teachers identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning standards they have not yet achieved so that adjustments can be made to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support."

The primary reason educators utilize formative assessment, and its primary goal, is to measure a student's understanding while instruction is happening. Formative assessments allow teachers to collect lots of information about a student's comprehension while they're learning, which in turn allows them to make adjustments and improvements in the moment. And, the results speak for themselves - formative assessment has been proven to be highly effective in raising the level of student attainment, increasing equity of student outcomes, and improving students' ability to learn, according to a study from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

On the flipside of the assessment coin is summative assessments, which are what we typically use to evaluate student learning. Summative assessments are used after a specific instructional period, such as at the end of a unit, course, semester, or even school year. As learning and formative assessment expert Paul Black puts it, "when the cook tastes the soup, that's formative assessment. When a customer tastes the soup, that's summative assessment."

14 Examples of Formative Assessment Tools & Strategies

There are many types of formative assessment tools and strategies available to teachers, and it's even possible to come up with your own. However, here are some of the most popular and useful formative assessments being used today.

Students break out into small groups and are given a blank chart and writing utensils. In these groups, everyone answers an open-ended question about the current lesson. Beyond the question, students can also add any relevant knowledge they have about the topic to their chart. These charts then rotate from group to group, with each group adding their input. Once everyone has written on every chart, the class regroups and discusses the responses.

Strategic Questioning

This formative assessment style is quite flexible and can be used in many different settings. You can ask individuals, groups, or the whole class high-level, open-ended questions that start with "why" or "how." These questions have a two-fold purpose - to gauge how well students are grasping the lesson at hand and to spark a discussion about the topic.

These written summaries of a lesson or subject ask students to complete three separate write-ups of varying lengths: short (10-15 words), medium (30-50 words), and long (75-100). These different lengths test students' ability to condense everything they've learned into a concise statement, or elaborate with more detail. This will demonstrate to you, the teacher, just how much they have learned, and it will also identify any learning gaps.

Think-pair-share asks students to write down their answers to a question posed by the teacher. When they're done, they break off into pairs and share their answers and discuss. You can then move around the room, dropping in on discussions and getting an idea of how well students are understanding.

This formative assessment tool can be written or oral and asks students to respond to three very simple prompts: Name three things you didn't know before, name two things that surprised you about this topic, and name one you want to start doing with what you've learned. The exact questions are flexible and can be tailored to whatever unit or lesson you are teaching.

This is a great participation tool to use mid-lesson. At any point, pose a poll question to students and ask them to respond by raising their hand. If you have the capability, you can also use online polling platforms and let students submit their answers on their Chromebooks, tablets, or other devices.

Exit/Admission Tickets

Exit and admission tickets are quick written exercises that assess a student's comprehension of a single day's lesson. As the name suggests, exit tickets are short written summaries of what students learned in class that day, while admission tickets can be performed as short homework assignments that are handed in as students arrive to class.

This quick, formative assessment tool is most useful at the end of the day to get a complete picture of the classes' learning that day. Put one minute on the clock and pose a question to students about the primary subject for the day. Typical questions might be:

What was the main point?

What questions do you still have?

What was the most surprising thing you learned?

What was the most confusing aspect and why?

Creative Extension Projects

These types of assessments are likely already part of your evaluation strategy and include projects like posters and collage, skit performances, dioramas, keynote presentations, and more. Formative assessments like these allow students to use more creative parts of their skillset to demonstrate their understanding and comprehension and can be an opportunity for individual or group work.

Dipsticks - named after the quick and easy tool we use to check our car's oil levels - refer to a number of fast, formative assessment tools. These are most effective immediately after giving students feedback and allowing them to practice said skills. Many of the assessments on this list fall into the dipstick categories, but additional options include writing a letter explaining the concepts covered or drawing a sketch to visually represent the topic.

Quiz-Like Games and Polls

A majority of students enjoy games of some kind, and incorporating games that test a student's recall and subject aptitude are a great way to make formative assessment more fun. These could be Jeopardy-like games that you can tailor around a specific topic, or even an online platform that leverages your own lessons. But no matter what game you choose, these are often a big hit with students.

Interview-Based Assessments

Interview-based assessments are a great way to get first-hand insight into student comprehension of a subject. You can break out into one-on-one sessions with students, or allow them to conduct interviews in small groups. These should be quick, casual conversations that go over the biggest takeaways from your lesson. If you want to provide structure to student conversations, let them try the TAG feedback method - tell your peer something they did well, ask a thoughtful question, and give a positive suggestion.

Allow students to take the rubric you use to perform a self assessment of their knowledge or understanding of a topic. Not only will it allow them to reflect on their own work, but it will also very clearly demonstrate the gaps they need filled in. Self assessments should also allow students to highlight where they feel their strengths are so the feedback isn't entirely negative.

Participation cards are a great tool you can use on-the-fly in the middle of a lesson to get a quick read on the entire classes' level of understanding. Give each student three participation cards - "I agree," "I disagree," and "I don't know how to respond" - and pose questions that they can then respond to with those cards. This will give you a quick gauge of what concepts need more coverage.

List of Formative Assessment Resources

There are many, many online formative assessment resources available to teachers. Here are just a few of the most widely-used and highly recommended formative assessment sites available.

FAQs About Formative Assessment

The following frequently asked questions were sourced from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), a leading education professional organization of more than 100,000 superintendents, principals, teachers, and advocates.

Before you tackle formative assessment, or any new teaching strategy for that matter, consider taking a continuing education course. At the University of San Diego School of Professional and Continuing Education, we offer over 500 courses for educators that can be completed entirely online, and many at your own pace. So no matter what your interests are, you can surely find a course - or even a certificate - that suits your needs.

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University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education

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14 Examples of Formative Assessment [+FAQs] - University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education

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Traditional student assessment typically comes in the form of a test, pop quiz, or more thorough final exam. But as many teachers will tell you, these rarely tell the whole story or accurately determine just how well a student has learned a concept or lesson. That's why many teachers are utilizing formative assessments.

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This is my learning reflection regarding summative assessments.

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This is a great article on language being acquired through art.

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Welcome to the beginning level of the J. Paul Getty Museum's innovative Language through Art: An ESL Enrichment Curriculum! We hope that you and your students will find these lessons and materials rewarding as you explore together the ways in which looking at and expressing ideas about art helps to improve language skills.

Historically, education departments in art museums have focused on using works of art to engage with art history and artistic practices. In recent years, museums have been reconsidering the relevancy of an art historical focus to their local communities. In Los Angeles, where the J. Paul Getty Museum is located, current student demographics indicate that 41 percent of students are English language learners, 94 percent of whom are Spanish speaking. Through Language through Art: An ESL Enrichment Curriculum, the Museum's Education Department seeks to address the needs of this audience by using the universal language of visual art to bridge language barriers. The curriculum uses art objects as a catalyst to enhance language skills, develop new vocabulary, and expose diverse visitors to a variety of world cultures and experiences.

The curriculum provides important resources for English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers, while engaging English language learners. In 2008, a research project was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of both the beginning and intermediate/
advanced levels of the Language through Art curriculum by speaking with 160 teachers who had implemented these materials in their classrooms. One of the key findings of this study was that the beginning level of the curriculum, written in 2005, was too advanced for lower-level ESL students. We therefore repurposed the former beginning-level materials for the intermediate level, and then wrote this new set
of beginning-level lessons in response to teachers' recommendations. The full evaluation can be found online.

Using the Lesson Plans

The materials are divided into three themes: People, Things, and Places.

Within each theme, there are three lesson topics with student activities for each of those lessons. In addition, we have suggested other ideas for extended enrichment activities for the lessons.

Each lesson focuses on artworks from the Getty Museum's collection. The objectives or language goals that each lesson addresses, along with the materials needed to implement the lesson, are listed at the beginning of each lesson plan. Also listed are the names of artworks and artists. More information about the artworks and artists is provided on downloadable information sheets for each lesson. Please familiarize yourself with the artworks and artists before each lesson.

Student activity sheets for each lesson are provided as downloadable student handouts. They are for photocopying and handing out to your students at the time of each lesson.

The materials can be taught consecutively, but each activity can also be used on its own. You may adapt the lessons as best fits the structure and skill level of your class. While the activities and topics correspond roughly to the goals and objectives for the curricula of students learning English, teachers can decide which lesson(s) to use depending upon their students' needs and abilities.

You may find that students ask questions for which you will not have the answers. When this happens, inform students how they can do further research (going to the library, using Internet search engines, visiting getty.edu, etc.) to learn more about art objects. It is important to let students know that our understanding of art and artists is an ongoing discovery in which we rarely have all the answers.

Credits
The J. Paul Getty Museum Education staff wrote this curriculum under the guidance of a Teacher Advisory Group. For their invaluable assistance with this project, we would like to thank Misty Cho, Glendale Community College; Quinn Harmon-Kelley, Venice Community Adult School; and Karen Vallejo, University of California, Irvine.

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Language through Art (Beginning Level) (Education at the Getty)

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A series of lessons for K-12 and adult learners of ESL focusing on building language skills through art

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Language Objectives: The Key to Effective Content Area Instruction for English Learners

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Language Objectives: The Key to Effective Content Area Instruction for English Learners

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I chose this article because it is a great resource with information on how to write effective language objectives.

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This article provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels.

This article written for Colorín Colorado provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and includes:

what a language objective is

steps that teachers can take to create language objectives

how to implement language objectives in a general education classroom

how to align objectives to content and language standards

ideas and resources on how to support teachers as they become familiar with this practice

how to use language objectives in distance learning environments.

Language Objectives: An Overview
Mrs. Shell has been teaching eighth grade math for twelve years. She has deep content area knowledge and wants to provide all of her students with authentic activities and tasks to relate the significance of the mathematical concepts that she teaches to their lives. Mrs. Shell has always felt successful at teaching her classes but this year has been different. Her sections include students with more diverse backgrounds than previous years, particularly more English learners. As Mrs. Shell was beginning to feel frustrated with her inability to reach all her students because of their needs, she learned about one way to make her content more comprehensible to all her students - creating and posting objectives that tell the students not just what content concepts they will learn in each lesson, but also the academic language they will need to learn and use to meet the state's math standards. With this knowledge, Mrs. Shell is now confident that she not only knows what to teach, but also how to teach it so that all her students can be successful.

Generally speaking, academic English is the language of schooling and the language that helps students acquire and use the content area knowledge taught in schools (Anstrom, DiCerbo, Butler, Katz, Millet, & Rivera, 2010).

Teaching content to ELs: The challenge

In my work supporting general education and ESL/bilingual teachers who provide sheltered instruction for English learners (ELs), I have met many teachers like Mrs. Shell. While these teachers want to provide effective instruction for their ELs, often they don't see themselves as language teachers and so they aren't sure where to begin with their students.

These teachers aren't alone, however, and they are facing a challenge shared by teachers across the country. We know that for school-age students, academic language is crucial for school success (Francis, Rivera, Lesaux, Kieffer, & Rivera, 2006). In addition, research allows us to state with a fair degree of confidence that English learners best acquire English when language forms are explicitly taught and when they have many opportunities to use the language in meaningful contexts (Goldenberg, 2008).

Yet while the explicit instructional support that ESL and bilingual teachers provide is essential to English learners' academic language development, English learners receive a majority of their instruction from general education and content area teachers who may not have experience teaching academic language development.

The question becomes then: What do general education classroom teachers need to do in order to support the academic English development of language learners in both face-to-face and virtual environments, especially when English learners are one of many types of students they serve?

Teaching content to ELs: The solution

One principle that teachers of English learners can begin to apply immediately is creating and posting language objectives for their lessons (whether in the classroom or online in a virtual space. Many teachers are familiar with using content objectives to identify what students will learn and be able to do in the lesson. However, they are less likely to include language objectives that support the linguistic development of their students.

Implementing language objectives can be a powerful first step in ensuring that English learners have equal access to the curriculum even though they may not be fully proficient in the language. This is because the second language acquisition process requires opportunities for the language learner to be exposed to, practice with, and then be assessed on their language skills (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

To this end, language objectives:

articulate for learners the academic language functions and skills that they need to master to fully participate in the lesson and meet the grade-level content standards (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

are beneficial not only for language learners but for all students in a class, as everyone can benefit from the clarity that comes with a teacher outlining the requisite academic language to be learned and mastered in each lesson.

Now let's take a closer look at some examples and how to write language objectives.

Back to top

Writing Language Objectives

Interview with Dr. Jennifer Himmel

Learn more about language objectives in this podcast interview with Dr. Himmel from Teaching Multilingual Learners, produced by Tan Huynh.

What is a language objective?

Language objectives are lesson objectives that specifically outline the type of language that students will need to learn and use in order to accomplish the goals of the lesson. Quality language objectives complement the content knowledge and skills identified in content area standards and address the aspects of academic language that will be developed or reinforced during the teaching of grade-level content concepts (Echevarria & Short, 2010).

These objectives involve the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing), but they can also include:

Below are examples of language objectives for different content areas and grade levels. They come from the Common Core State Standards for Math and English Language Arts (2012) and state standards in New York and California.
Sources:
How do I create effective language objectives?

Dr. Cindy Lundgren discusses the process of writing language objectives in this excerpt from her Meet the Expert interview.

Language objectives are directly correlated to content objectives. Once a teacher determines the lesson topic from the appropriate content standards, the teacher will want to begin thinking about the academic language necessary for English learners to complete the tasks that support the content objectives. This identification of the academic language embedded in the lesson's content will become the basis for the lesson's language objectives.

You can use the following guidelines to start thinking about appropriate language objectives for the lesson:

1. Decide what key vocabulary, concept words, and other academic words students will need to know in order to talk, read, and write about the topic of the lesson. Those words might be taught as a language objective. They should include technical terms, such as ecosystem, and terms like distribution that have different meanings across content areas. Other terms to highlight are those that language learners may know in one context, such as family (as in parents, siblings, etc.), but that have a different use in science (e.g., family of elements in the periodic table).

2. Consider the language functions related to the topic of the lesson (e.g, will the students describe, explain, compare, or chart information). See your state English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards for examples of these functions for English language arts, math, science, and social studies for all English proficiency levels and grade-level clusters.

3. Think about the language skills necessary for students to accomplish the lesson's activities. Will the students be reading a textbook passage to identify the stages of mitosis? Are they able to read a text passage to find specific information? Will they be reporting what they observe during a scientific demonstration to a peer? Do they know how to report observations orally? Acquiring the skills needed to carry out these tasks might be the focus of a language objective.

4. Identify grammar or language structures common to the content area. For example, many science textbooks use the passive voice to describe processes. Additionally, students may have to use comparative language to analyze two related concepts. Writing with the passive voice or using comparative phrases might be a language objective.

5. Consider the tasks that the students will complete and the language that will be embedded in those assignments. If students are working on a scientific investigation together, will they need to explain the steps of the procedure to one another? The language objective might focus on how to explain procedures aloud.

6. Explore language learning strategies that lend themselves to the topic of the lesson. For example, if students are starting a new chapter in the textbook, the strategy of previewing the text might be an appropriate language objective.

(Adapted from Short, Himmel, Gutierrez, & Hudec, 2012. Used with permission.)

Aligning Language Objectives and Standards

English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards

Developing appropriate language objectives for lessons involves becoming familiar with a state's content area and ELP standards. Whereas the content standards will provide the topic of the lesson and what exactly the students should be doing with that topic (e.g., solving problems, creating models, ranking ideas), the English language proficiency or development standards help to identify language skills and functions that students should be working on to achieve academic language fluency. These ELP standards can help to identify:

English Language Arts (ELA) standards

Other resources in addition to the ELP standards are a state's English Language Arts standards or the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History, Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CCSS). The English Language Arts and Literacy CCSS might be especially useful to teachers of English learners due to its attention to literacy across the content areas.

Additional resources to consult, especially if a state is a member of the WIDA consortium, are the Model Proficiency Indicators (MPIs) outlined in their ELP standards. The MPIs outline what an English learner at a specific level of English language proficiency can do in a language domain (e.g., listening) by addressing the language functions embedded in an example topic for that content area with appropriate scaffolds or support (Gottlieb, Cranley, & Cammileri, 2007). Classroom texts and other materials (e.g., science investigations, primary source documents) are other good sources to consult when preparing a lesson.

Getting Started

How can I get started?

Careful lesson planning

In creating measureable and student-friendly language objectives that support the content objectives, it is important that learner tasks in the lesson are aligned with the objectives. It is not enough to have well-written objectives that promote language acquisition if the lesson is lacking in tasks that support the objectives. If the language objective for a middle school social studies lesson is for the students to orally retell the key characteristics in a historical event using sequential language, it is important that the teacher previews sequential language with the students, such as providing sentence stems or frames, and builds into the lesson some structured pair work so the students have an opportunity to retell the event to a peer. Therefore, careful lesson planning is another essential step in preparing effective language objectives.

Collaboration

It is also useful for content area and ESL/bilingual teachers to plan lessons together, as we saw with the 7th grade science lesson scenario involving Mr. Zhang and Mr. Lewis. In this co-planning scenario, each teacher used his expertise to better integrate content and language instruction for the language learners. This type of collaboration can help a teacher like Mr. Zhang learn more about the second language acquisition process of his students and can help a teacher like Mr. Lewis become more familiar with the grade-level content expectations that his English learners encounter in content area classes.

How do I know which language objectives are best for my students?

The language objective that the teacher selects will depend on what the English learners in the class need most at that point in the year and what language is most important to understanding the content concepts. If the students have already spent a good deal of time working with new vocabulary, then the teacher might consider having students use that vocabulary to develop their writing skill by writing a summary of the process they followed.

Conversely, the teacher might want to help students become more proficient with a particular type of graphic organizer in order to develop more strategic language learning. As all teachers know, teaching is a dynamic and complex process that requires a multitude of decisions to be made. However, the advance planning required in creating language objectives allows teachers to better anticipate the academic English needs of all students thus increasing the comprehensibility of the lessons.

It is important for teachers to realize that even though their lesson may include all four language skills (it is good if they do, since the language skills reinforce one another), they do not need to post a language objective for every language-related item addressed in the lesson. Teachers address many instructional needs in a 50- or 60-minute class period. Rather than highlighting all language uses in a particular lesson, it is important for the teacher to think about what is non-negotiable in that lesson.

In other words, the teacher should keep the perspective of the English learner in mind and ask, "Of all of the skills and functions addressed in my lesson, which is most important for helping students meet the grade-level standard and develop their language proficiency?" These objectives then must be measureable (i.e., can you see or assess the student's mastery of that objective?) and written in language that accounts for the linguistic and cognitive development of the students.

How can I make language objectives "student-friendly"?

Both of the above objectives are measurable, but both also take into account appropriate developmental stages of the students. Teachers of young students (e.g., PK or K) may even want to consider further adapting the objectives. For example, we have seen kindergarten teachers use symbols such as a pencil to symbolize "write" and a mouth to symbolize "talk" when they post their objectives for the children to see. We have also seen teachers of young learners rely on pictures to show the key terms they want the students to use or to convey the topic of the lesson (e.g., a picture of a ruler and of hands to discuss standard and non-standard measurement).

One way that teachers can ensure that their language objectives are measureable and student-friendly is by using appropriate verbs. Because language objectives should provide students with practice in the four language skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking, verbs related to those skills might include, but are not limited to, the following:

List

Retell

Summarize in writing

Record

Read

It is also important to not equate low language proficiency with limited cognitive ability. Therefore, teachers will want to make sure that the language objectives they create also reflect tasks that fall on the higher end of Bloom's Taxonomy and use verbs (e.g., orally justify) accordingly.

As noted above in the guidelines to creating language objectives, language functions are also a potential source for language objectives. Verbs related to language functions might include:

When should I share language objectives with students?

To help students take ownership of their learning and provide explicit direction to students, especially the English learners who are processing content in a new language, it is important that objectives be stated at the beginning of the lesson and reviewed with the students at the end of the lesson to allow them to assess if they have met the objectives (Echevarria, Vogt & Short, 2008).

How this happens may differ according to the grade level and content area of the class. Some teachers like to have the students choral read the objectives, while teachers of older students sometimes have them record the language objectives in their journal in addition to asking an individual student to read them aloud. Some teachers, such as those who teach science, like to reveal the objectives later in the lesson, perhaps after the warm up or exploratory activity, so that they can maintain an inquiry-based approach (Echevarria & Colburn, 2006).

Should I differentiate language objectives based on my students' language proficiency?

Although all teachers have students of varying language proficiency and skill levels in their classes, it is not necessary to differentiate language objectives by creating and posting multiple language objectives that reflect these proficiency levels. Rather, teachers should have one language objective that is appropriate for all students to meet. To provide the appropriate differentiation, the teacher would provide different scaffolds (e.g., adapted text, visuals, sentence frames) for students to use in order to reach the objectives.

For example, an appropriate language objective for an upper elementary language arts class might be for the students to be able to orally list text features found in a non-fiction book. For lower proficiency language learners, the teacher may give them a word bank from which to choose the text features; therefore, the students are meeting the same objective but with the appropriate amount of linguistic support from the teacher.

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Using language objectives in a distance learning environment

While teachers like Ms. Shell understand that the characteristics of good teaching for English learners does not change in a virtual environment, they do understand that instruction will necessarily need to look different in order to account for the challenges that distance learning presents for many learners.

Accordingly, teachers will need to think through how to:

Presenting language objectives

Many different ways exist for teachers to present language objectives in remote learning. For example, teachers might:

begin every virtual class by orally reading and presenting the content and language objectives in their Google slides and then asking students to briefly summarize in the chat box the activities they will be doing in that lesson to meet those objectives.

post the objectives at the top of a shared digital document that serves as a capture sheet for the lesson. A teacher might then ask learners to self-assess their progress towards meeting those objectives at the end of the document.

use live or recorded videos, especially when working with English learners with lower English proficiency. These videos can include props, for example ears to signify a listening objective.

use realia, such as rocks, if one of the lesson's language aims is for students to orally describe different types of sedimentary rocks.

Monitoring student understanding and engagement

Teachers in distance learning environments must also carefully consider how they will assess learner understanding and engagement throughout the lesson. Given the challenges virtual learning platforms present towards capturing data on learner comprehension (e.g., paralinguistic cues such as facial expressions, gestures, posture) teachers working in virtual environments know that it is more important than ever to ensure that students clearly understand the content and linguistic aims for each lesson.

Using comprehension checks and assessing progress

It is also essential that students understand how teachers will measure their progress towards meeting each objective. Towards this aim, teachers must build in multiple comprehension checks throughout the lesson that align to the lesson's objectives. Teachers can:

At the conclusion of a lesson, teachers can assess student progress towards meeting objectives via:

tickets out that are submitted digitally

the recording of a Flipgrid or use of another video platform where learners respond to a prompt that requires learners to use the academic language highlighted in the lesson's objectives.

Teachers can respond to the submitted tickets out or video with feedback that explicitly targets the students use of the language. When appropriate, teacher can provide learners with additional resources and/or support towards mastering that particular language skill or function. Teachers might also use that linguistic data to inform mini-lessons conducted to small groups of English learners during office hours or intervention time.

Next Steps

How can I learn more?

For more information on the SIOP Model, see Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model (Echevarria, Short, & Vogt, 2008).

Although language objectives can be implemented in any lesson design approach, they are especially congruent with sheltered instruction and the SIOP Model. Since language objectives ensure that teachers meet the unique linguistic needs of English learners, they are sometimes easier to implement in the context of instructional practices espoused by the SIOP Model.

Practices that focus on explicit academic language teaching include:

Below are other resources that can help you learn more about creating language objectives and about integrating academic language into content area classes.

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Final Thoughts

We realize that it takes teachers some time to become very comfortable with creating language objectives, but our experience has shown that the implementation of language objectives can bring immediate benefits to instruction. Some immediate benefits include teachers understanding more concretely that they are both a content area and language teacher - as one teacher said in a CAL SIOP Model workshop, "I now see myself as a math teacher AND a language teacher".

We have also observed that when teachers consciously plan to meet the academic English needs of their learners, they end up with better planned learner tasks, and students begin to have more ownership of their content area and language learning. When it comes to building proficiency in academic English, as many teachers in our workshops remind us, "If you want to see it, you have to teach it." Therefore, if teachers want to see language development, language objectives are a great first step in helping teachers explicitly teach it.

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Recommended Resources

Further reading

Short, D., Himmel, J., Gutierrez, S., & Hudec, J. (2012). Using the SIOP Model: Professional development for sheltered instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M.E., & Short, D. (2010). The SIOP Model for teaching mathematics to English learners. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Echevarria, J., & Short, D. (2011). The SIOP Model: A professional development framework for a comprehensive school-wide intervention. Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) Brief. http://www.cal.org/create/resources/pubs/professional-development-framework.html

Himmel, J., Short, D., Richards, C., & Echevarria, J. (2009). Using the SIOP Model to improve middle school science instruction. Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) Brief. http://www.cal.org/create/resources/pubs/siopscience.html

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2010a). The SIOP Model for teaching history-social studies to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2010b). The SIOP Model for teaching science to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Vogt, M.E., Echevarria, J., & Short, D. (2010). The SIOP Model for teaching English language arts to English learners. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Jennifer Himmel is the Project Director for the National Center for English Language Acquisition at the Manhattan Strategy Group. She previously served as the SIOP Manager at the Center for Applied Linguistics, a non-profit organization for language education research, policy, and practice in Washington, DC. She has served as a curriculum developer and research associate for the U.S. Department of Education funded project, Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE) that is investigating academic achievement of ELLs in grades 4th-8th, and as a language testing specialist for the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs® language proficiency test. She currently manages the SIOP Model professional development service line and provides technical assistance and professional development in sheltered instruction to districts and schools.

Video Clips: Language Objectives

How to Write Language Objectives: Tips for ELL Educators

In this video from Syracuse, NY, Jesus Ortiz, a bilingual teacher, learns how to write a language objective from Areli Schermerhorn, a peer evaluator with expertise in ELL and bilingual education.

Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains language objectives

In this excerpt from her Meet the Expert interview, Dr. Cynthia Lundgren explains the value of writing language objectives when teaching English learners.

Anstrom, K., DiCerbo, P., Butler, F., Katz, A., Millet, J., & Rivera, C. (2010). A review of the literature on academic English: Implications for K-12 English language learners. Arlington, VA: The George Washington University Center for Equity and Excellence. Education.www.ceee.gwu.edu.

Echevarria, J., & Colburn, A. (2006). Designing lessons: Inquiry approach to science using the SIOP Model. In A. Lathman & D. Crowther (Eds.), Science for English language learners (pp.95-108). Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association Press.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (2008). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP Model. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Echevarria, J., & Short, D. ( 2010). Programs and practices for effective sheltered content instruction. In California Department of Education (Ed), Improving education for English learners: Research-based approaches. Sacramento, CA: CDE Press.

Francis, D., Rivera, M., Lesaux, N., Kieffer, M., & Rivera, H. (2006). Practical guidelines for the education of English language learners: Research-based recommendations for instruction and academic interventions. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. www.centeroninstruction.org/files/ELL1-Interventions.pdf

Goldenberg, C. (2008). Teaching English language learners: What the research does-and does not-say. American Educator, Summer 2008, pp. 13-44.

Gottlieb, M., Cranley, E., & Cammilleri, A. (2007). Understanding the WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards: A resource guide. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, on behalf of the WIDA Consortium.

Short, D., Himmel, J., Gutierrez, S., & Hudec, J. (2012). Using the SIOP Model: Professional development for sheltered instruction. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (2007). WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, on behalf of the WIDA Consortium http://www.wida.us/standards/elp.asp

You are welcome to print copies or republish materials for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to Colorín Colorado and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact [email protected] .

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Language Objectives: The Key to Effective Content Area Instruction for English Learners

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This article provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content-area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels.

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Introduction

This web page is intended for students who are following GCE Advanced level (AS and A2) specifications in English Language. This resource may also be of general interest to language students on university degree courses, trainee teachers and anyone with a general interest in language science. It contains a basic guide to the structure of the English language.

Please note that I have not set down prescriptive rules which must be obeyed. I have described language, using both traditional terms and some of the categories and descriptions of modern grammar. English is not "derived" from Latin (whatever Prince Charles thinks) but has a Germanic origin, although much of our lexicon comes from French and the classical languages of Greek and Latin. None of this classical lexis was found in Old English, of course - it has entered English from the Renaissance onwards, most of it in comparatively modern times, thanks to its extensive use in science.

Some of the language categories of traditional grammar have more coherence than others. Nouns and verbs are fairly coherent, while adverbs (or all the words classed by lexicographers as such) are certainly not.

If you have any comments or suggestions about the guide, please contact me.

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We can study the structure of language in a variety of ways. For example, we can study

classes of words (parts of speech),

meanings of words (semantics), with or without considering changes of meaning,

how words are organised in relation to each other (syntax),

how words are formed (morphology),

the sounds of words (phonology) and

how written forms represent these (lexicography).

There is no universally accepted model for doing this, but some models use the notion of a hierarchy, and this may prove fruitful for you. The framework (description of structure) you will study here is written to be comprehensive yet succinct. Elsewhere, in studying language theory, you will focus on a selective area, and investigate this in more detail.

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The most basic units of meaning are simple words (e.g.: dog, yes and swim) or the elements of complex words (e.g.: un- -happi- and -ness in unhappiness). These basic elements are called morphemes, and the study of how they are combined in words is morphology.

The study of how words are organised into phrases, clauses and sentences is usually referred to as syntax.

A longer stretch of language is known as discourse, the study of its structure as discourse analysis.

This hierarchy is partly explained by the table below, from David Crystal's The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. The right hand column should be read upwards, in the direction of the arrow.

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sentences
are analysed into
clauses
are analysed into
phrases
are analysed into
words
are analysed into
morphemes

↓ ↑

sentences
are used to build
clauses
are used to build
phrases
are used to build
words
are used to build
morphemes

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The following table shows a three-part model of the structure of English.

Morphology

Syntax

Discourse

morphemes

↓

words

phrases

↓

clauses

↓

sentences

relationships between sentences in longer stretches of language

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Morphology

This is the study of the structure of words. The name comes from Greek morphos (=shape or form). The smallest units of meaning may be whole simple words (e.g. man, run, big) or parts of complex words (e.g. un-, -faith- and -ful in unfaithful) which are called morphemes.

Some morphemes, such as faith in un-faith-ful or dream in dream-ing can stand alone as words which make sense. These are known as free morphemes. You will see how very many simple words are free morphemes, but can combine with other morphemes, both free and bound (see below) to form complex words.

Where two simple words are joined together to form a new complete word, this is called a compound word. Examples include teapot, starlight and careworn. When these terms are first coined, they are shown in some dictionaries with a hyphen, as light-house or fish-finger.

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Other morphemes, such as prefixes and suffixes (collectively called affixes), cannot stand alone - they need to be part of a complex word to make sense. Examples are dis- in dis-miss, dis-pute or dis-grace, -ing in dream-ing, -ness in happi-ness or sad-ness and even -s used to form plurals, as in boy-s or horse-s. These morphemes are said to be bound morphemes.

Inflection and derivation

Bound morphemes are traditionally divided into two further classes. Sometimes a word is changed in its form to show the internal grammar of a sentence (quot;agreementquot;). Examples would be plural forms of nouns ( dog + s → dog-s) or past (imperfect) tenses of regular verbs ( want + ed → want-ed). The study of such changes is inflectional morphology (because the words in question are inflected - altered by adding a suffix).

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Other compound or complex words are made by adding together elements without reference to the internal grammar of a sentence. For example, the verb infect suggests a new verb disinfect (=to undo the action of infecting). New words are often formed by noun + -ize, noun + ism, or verb + able ( scandalize, Stalinism, disposable). The study of such words, "derived" from existing words or morphemes is derivational morphology. The elements of which the word is made may have a grammatical relationship within the word (you may find this idea difficult), but their formation is independent of the syntax of the clause or sentence in which they occur. If you find this puzzling, two things may help:

Inflectional morphology is much easier to recognize. A relatively small number of types of inflection (showing number or tense, say) covers most cases.

All compound and most complex words show derivational morphology. If a complex word does not show inflection it will show derivation.

But note: a complex word may show both inflection and derivation! A derived word may be inflected to show, for example, tense or number: deported or disposables (as in nappies or diapers).

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This table shows how the most common kinds of inflection are found in three word classes:

Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives and adverbs

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This table illustrates how derivation can occur:

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Remember that morphology is the study of the structure of words. The structure of words can also be studied to show how the meaning of a given morpheme, or its relation to the rest of the word, varies from one complex word to another. Consider how sun works in the following words: sunbeam, sunburnt, sundial, sunflower, sunglasses, sunlight, sunrise, sun-spot (scientific sense), sun-spot (tourist sense), suntan.

Inflection does not really yield "new" words, but alters the form of existing ones for specific reasons of grammar. Derivation, on the other hand, does lead to the creation of new words. David Crystal ( Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language; p. 90) lists four normal processes of word-formation, of which three are examples of derivation:

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Prefixation

(derivational)

Suffixation

(derivational)

Compounding

(derivational)

Conversion

(not derivational)

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Words considered as wholes can be categorized according to how they work within phrases, clauses or sentences. These categories, traditionally called parts of speech are now more usually known as word classes. Parts of speech are labels for categories in which words are usually placed. But in a given sentence a word from one category may behave as if it were in another. A dictionary will only record established or standard usage.

The traditional parts of speech were of eight kinds, excluding the two articles ( a/an, the). These were nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, and interjections. Modern linguists prefer to list words in classes that are coherent - all the words in them should behave in the same way. But if this principle were applied rigidly, we would have hundreds of classes, so irregularities are tolerated!

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Closed and open word classes

Table of closed word classes | table of open word classes

Some classes of words are called closed because they contain a relatively small number of items to which no new words can normally be added. These are words (prepositions and conjunctions) which make connections (connectives or connectors), pronouns and words (including articles) like the, some, each that co-occur with nouns - these are called determiners.

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She, them, who, that, himself

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Problems of classification

Some words are difficult to classify. Not all grammatical descriptions will place them in the same word class. This, these or those are sometimes classified as demonstrative (or distinctive) adjectives or pronouns. Possessives, like my, his, their, are sometimes classified as pronouns (showing the word from which they are formed), sometimes as adjectives, showing their grammatical function of qualifying nouns: usually they are pronouns when alone ( I like that) and adjectives when they precede a noun ( I like this weather). Traditional lists of adverbs contain words like very which qualify other adverbs or adjectives. This word class is sometimes called a "dustbin" class, because any word which defies classification will be put in it! Among words which have sometimes been classified as adverbs are the following: however, just, no, not, quickly, tomorrow and when.

This incoherence has long been recognized by grammarians who subdivide adverbs into further categories, such as adverbs of time, place or manner.

In trying to organize words into coherent classes, linguists will consider any or all of the following: what they mean (semantics), their form (morphology), provenance (historical origin) and function in a phrase, clause or sentence (syntax).

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Some words, such as numbers, do not fit in any of the word classes given above. They can behave as adjectives ( one loaf or two?) or pronouns ( I want one now!). And no one description of word classes is regarded as finally authoritative. Some classes (such asverbs or conjunctions) are fairly coherent. You should be able to discuss the problems of how or where to classify words which seem not to "fit".

Also note that a dictionary does not (or should not) prescribe, but indicates the word class or part of speech where a word is usually placed. But in a given sentence, if the speaker or writer has used it as if it were in a different class, then this is where it should be placed.

For example, toilet is usually classified as a noun. But UK primary school teachers often speak of toileting children ( I had to toilet John twice today). In describing such a sentence, you should be guided by the internal grammar of the sentence (syntax) rather than the dictionary. Here toilet is a transitive verb. If this usage becomes standard, lexicographers will record it. This kind of word formation is called conversion, a self-explanatory name.

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Kinds and Functions of Words:
Word Classes or Parts of Speech

Every statement is a combination of words, and every statement says something to communicate information. The simplest possible kind of statement - for example, Dogs bark - has two kinds of words in it. It has a what word, dogs, and a what happens word, bark. These kinds of words are the most basic parts of any statement. If a person only says dog, no statement is made, and no information is conveyed. A sound is made that calls to mind a common, four-footed animal, but nothing regarding it is learned.

The what words are called nouns. They tell what is being talked about. They are identifying words, or names. Nouns identify persons, places, or things. They may be particular persons, places, or things: Michael Jackson, Reykjavik, World Trade Center.Or they may be general nouns: singer, town, building. Concrete nouns indicate things that can be seen such as car, teapot, and potato. Abstract nouns denote concepts such as love, honesty,and beauty.

It is rather odd that English grammar should retain this abstract-concrete distinction for nouns. It appears to be a survival from the philosopher Plato, who divided the world into mind and matter. If it has any value it is in the philosophical field of epistemology (theory of knowledge). It does not really reveal anything for linguists beyond itself. That is, we can, if we wish, try to place nouns in the sub-categories of concrete and abstract, but once we have done so, this categorization has no further value for the study of language. Moreover, modern science confuses the issue, since it shows that many things we once supposed to belong to mind, are in fact, embodied in matter. A thrill is not only abstract, since it involves matter at the level of biochemistry.

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The what happens words are called verbs. They are the action words in a statement. Without them it is impossible to put sentences together. It is the verb that says something about the noun: dogs bark, birds fly, fish swim. Verbs are the important words that create information in statements. Although nouns alone make no statement, verbs can occasionally do so. Help! gives the information that someone is in trouble, and Go away! tells someone or something emphatically to leave.

Besides nouns and verbs there are other kinds of words that have different functions in statements. They are pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, articles, prepositions, and a very few words that can be called function words because they fit into none of the other categories. All of these kinds of words together are called parts of speech. They can just as well be called parts of writing because they apply to written as well as to spoken language.

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Nouns and articles

Nouns can be particular or general: the house, a house. The words the and a are articles, or, in more technical terms, determiners. A house can be any house, but the house is a quite definite building. When a noun begins with a vowel ( a, e, i, o, u, and, occasionally, y) the indefinite article a becomes an for the sake of easier pronunciation - an apple, an elephant, an orange. Sometimes an is used before words that start with h, especially if the h is silent: an onorary degree. If the h is sounded h a is the standard form: an 'otel, a hotel.

Nouns can be singular or plural in number: cat, cats.

In some cases es is added to make nouns plural: dress, dresses.

Some nouns change their forms in the plural, without adding an s but by changing or mutating a vowel: foot, feet; man, men; mouse, mice; goose, geese.

Some nouns do not change at all in the plural: sheep, fowl.

There are also group nouns, called noun phrases. This means that two or more nouns, or a noun and an adjective, are put together to form what amounts to, or works like, one noun: football stadium, rock concert, orange tree. In each case certain nouns - football, rock, orange - are attached to other nouns, and each modifies or describes the second noun in some way to convey a different kind of object. A football and a football stadium are two entirely different things, though they both have to do with the same game.

Some nouns are one-of-a-kind names: Suez Canal, Elvis Presley, Empire State Building. Also called proper nouns, they are capitalized to set them off from general nouns. Sometimes adjectives (words that describe nouns) are also capitalized. This normally happens when the adjective is made from a proper noun, especially a place or person: literature, American countryside, English theatre. Elizabethan

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Proper nouns are contrasted with common nouns (naming words for general classes of things which contain many individual examples). In fact many of the nouns that we consider proper are still names for more than one individual, as with the name of a model of car (like Ford Escort or VW Beetle, which might have been produced in the millions). Like the abstract-concrete distinction, the common-proper categories may originate in Platonic philosophy, which contrasted the many things in the real world with unique ideal originals of which they are imperfect copies. It is of more practical concern, since it is meant to inform the written representations of words (whether or not to use an initial capital). Unlike German (which uses a capital for all nouns) or Norwegian (which never does), English has a mixed and inconsistent system which changes over time, and which is confused by the individual tendencies of writers. One problem is that a descriptive phrase (like the second world war) can become petrified into a title, so that we write Second World War or World War Two. And Queen Juliana is or was the queen of the Netherlands, but Queen Elizabeth II is, to many of her subjects, simply the Queen, or even The Queen. In these cases, the "correct" forms are not universally standard for all writers of English, but more a matter of publishers' house styles.

Many introductions to English grammar for schoolchildren are to blame for presenting this common-proper distinction as if it were very straightforward - by referring only to well-behaved kinds of proper noun, such as personal names or the names of cities, rivers and planets. In such introductions the distinction is introduced chiefly to lead onto instruction about the use of capital letters in writing such nouns.

Nouns are used in different ways: The dog barks. The man bit the dog. In the first case, dog is the actor, or the one that initiates the action of the verb. In the second, dog is acted upon. In The dog barks, dog is the subject of the verb. In the other sentence, dog is the object of the verb.

Sometimes a noun is the indirect object of a verb: He gave the dog a bone. Bone is the direct object; it is what was given. Because it was given to the dog, dog is considered the indirect object of the action.

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Nouns can also be objects of prepositions - words like to, in, for, and by - so the above sentence could read: He gave a bone to the dog. The words to the dog are called a prepositional phrase.

Some verb forms take nouns as objects: Drinking milk is good for you. In this sentence, milk is the object of the verbal form drinking. Such a combination of verb and noun is called a verbal phrase.

Nouns can show possession: The dog's collar is on the table. The collar is possessed, or owned, by the dog. All possession does not indicate ownership, however. In The building's roof is black, the roof is on, but not owned by, the building. Adding an apostrophe and an s to a noun shows possession ('): the cat's tongue, the woman's purse. If the noun is plural or already has an s, then often only an apostrophe need be added: the mothers' union (that is, a union of many mothers). The word of may also be used to show possession: the top of the house, the light of the candle, the Duke of Wellington.

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Pronouns

Personal pronouns | Demonstrative pronouns | Indefinite pronouns | Relative and interrogative pronouns

There are several words that are used to replace nouns. They are called pronouns. Pro in Greek means "for" or "in place of".

Personal pronouns

Some pronouns are called personal pronouns because they take the place of specific names of persons, places, or thing, as in: Has Fred arrived? Yes, he is here. Here he is the personal pronoun that replaces Fred. As indicated in the table, there are both subject and object personal pronouns as well as those that show possession. In His house is the white and green one, his is a personal possessive pronoun.

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*Some authorities give my, your, his, her, our, your and their as possessive adjectives or pronominal adjectives,as they qualify nouns.

Some personal pronouns are formed by the addition of -self or -selves as a suffix: myself, ourselves, yourself, himself, herself, itself, and themselves.

Demonstrative pronouns

Some pronouns - this, that, these, those - refer to particular people or things: This is mine, and that is yours. These are demonstrative pronouns. The demonstrative words can also be used as adjectives: this house, those cars.

Indefinite pronouns

Pronouns that refer to people or things in general are called indefinite pronouns. Like the demonstrative pronouns, they can be used as adjectives: another day, both animals, many weeks.

Relative and interrogative pronouns

The words who, whose, whom, that, which, and what are called relative pronouns. (The word that can be a demonstrative or a relative pronoun.) They create relative clauses in a sentence: The committee, which met last night, discussed your report. The words which met last night form a relative clause that describes the subject of the main clause, the committee.

Sometimes a relative pronoun is used as the subject of a question such as Who ate the pizza? Here it is classed as an interrogative pronoun. Interrogate means "ask" (questions).

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Verbs

Verbs are the action words in a statement. They tell what is happening - what a noun is doing or what is being done to it, or the state of being, becoming, thinking or feeling. A verb with a subject, which will be in a particular tense is a finite verb. Without a subject it will be the infinitive form (for example, to think, to dream) or a gerund (the present participle, used as a noun: is bad for you). smoking

When a verb denotes what a noun is doing, the noun is said to be the subject of the verb: The man speaks. When the verb denotes what is being done to a noun, the noun is the object of the verb: The man eats jelly. The noun jelly is the direct object of the verb. Verbs can also take indirect objects: Parents give children toys. In this sentence, toys is the direct object, (what is given) and children is the indirect object. The parents do not give children but toys.

Verbs that take objects are called transitive verbs, and those that normally do not take an object are intransitive verbs (but note that an intransitive verb may be used transitively in non-standard speech or writing). Some common transitive verbs are: tell, give, show, eat, buy, take, and see. Some verbs can be both transitive and intransitive: a story (transitive), and Tell Time will sleep, walk, rest, come, and tell (intransitive). Verbs like go are nearly always intransitive. The most common verb of all, to be, is intransitive in all of its forms: am, are, is, was, were, and been.

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Tenses (time signals): Verb tenses tell the time when an action takes place. Any action or condition may be in the past, present, or future: he was, he is, he will be. Most common verbs simply add an -ed to show the past time, or form the past tense, as it is normally called. Thus walk becomes walked. Other verbs, sometimes called irregular (or strong) verbs, do not add -ed. Instead they undergo an internal change: sing, sang, sung; fly, flew, flown; go, went, gone.

Auxiliary verbs: In the sentence She will sing even though he cannot stay, the verbs will and cannot are called auxiliary, or helper, verbs. Other auxiliary verbs are the incomplete or modal verbs: can, could, may, might, shall, should, and would.

The various forms of the verb to be can also be used as auxiliaries: I am going. He was singing. They have been shopping. The verb have - and its other forms has and had - are also common auxiliaries to indicate past action.

Participles: The verb form used with auxiliaries is the participle. There is a present participle , talk talk ing, and a past participle, I talk (present tense) or I am talking (present continuous) to show present action and ed. Thus, a person can say either I talked (imperfect), I have talked (perfect), or I had talked (pluperfect) to show past action. When a present participle is used with an auxiliary verb, the purpose is to show continuing or ongoing action. She the laundry. He is doing when someone interrupted him. Note that this uses a present participle with a past tense auxiliary verb ( was) to indicate continuous was speaking past action.

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Verb flexibility: Verbs and verb forms can be used in a number of ways in sentences. A verb can be the subject of a statement ( To walk is good exercise) or its object ( I like to walk). In each case, the infinitive form to walk is used as a noun. Participles can be used in the same way: He likes swimming. Flying is great sport. In the first sentence, swimming is the object of the verb, and in the second, flying is the subject.

Verb forms can also be used as adjectives, or words that describe nouns. In a wrecked car, the word wrecked is a past participle used as an adjective.

Occasionally a verb form or verb phrase can be used as an adverb: He was pleased to meet her. The phrase to meet her modifies the adjective pleased.

Adjectives and adverbs

Adjectives and adverbs are descriptive words, sometimes called modifiers because they restrict meaning. They add detail to statements. The difference between the two is that adjectives modify only nouns, pronouns, and verb forms used as nouns; adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.

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Adjective function: An adjective may be a single word: blue, tall, funny, warm. As a single word, it may come before the noun - the blue sky - or after the verb - the sky is blue . Adjectives may be positive ( tall), comparative ( taller) or superlative ( tallest). Adjective phrases usually follow the noun they describe: the girl . The phrase with blond hair with blond hair describes girl. Adjective clauses also usually follow the noun: The child wins. The clause who finds the most Easter eggs modifies child. who finds the most Easter eggs

Adverb function:The most common use of an adverb, of course, is to describe verbs: He ran quickly. Actually, however, adverbs can modify anything but nouns or verb forms used as nouns. Typically adverbs express:

time (now, then)

manner (happily, easily)

degree (less, more, very)

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Although many adverbs are formed by adding -ly to adjectives ( quick, quickly; happy, happily), adverbs have no characteristic form. They must be identified by the function they perform in a sentence. In the sentence That is a fast car, fast is an adjective. But in He ran fast , it is an adverb.

Certain adverbs (how, when, where, why, whenever, and wherever) are called relative adverbs because they introduce relative clauses in a sentence: The keys are upstairs where you left them. The clause where you left them modifies the adverb upstairs.

Other adverbs are called conjunctive adverbs because they join one clause with another. Some of these adverbs are: therefore, accordingly, besides, furthermore, instead, meanwhile, and nevertheless.In the sentence He was tired; therefore he stayed home, the word therefore modifies the clause of which it is a part and connects that clause to the previous part of the sentence. Note that therefore is not to be used as a conjunction, hence the semi-colon.

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Conjunctions

Conjunctions are joining words: they connect words, phrases, or entire clauses. There are two general kinds of conjunctive words: coordinate and subordinate.

Coordinate conjunctions join elements that are grammatically the same: two or more words, two equivalent phrases, or two equivalent clauses. The most common coordinate conjunctions are: and, but, or, for, nor, so, yet.

He wants both money and power.

Neither money nor power matters.

Either she will go, or she will stay.

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Subordinate conjunctions. While coordinate conjunctions connect equal grammatical elements, subordinate conjunctions introduce dependent or conditional clauses.

Although she has money, she buys few luxuries.

Because he was late, he missed the train.

After the movie is over, we shall have dinner.

Other word uses. Words that operate as conjunctions can often be used in other ways: as adverbs, prepositions, adjectives, or even pronouns.

We have met before (before is an adverb).

Before they leave, let us have dinner (before is a conjunction).

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There are other words besides conjunctions that serve as connectors (or connectives) in sentences. The relative pronouns who and which are often so used.

Some of the conjunctions work both as adverbs and conjunctions in the same sentence. This is often true of consequently, however, therefore, and nevertheless.

Note the semi-colon (;). This is standard here but is non-standard before but or and. (This appears to be changing, as speakers and writers treat words like nevertheless as conjunctions.)

It is possible to make clauses with conjunctions into separate sentences, especially when writing for literary effect.

In the second case the clause is so obviously dependent that it would not stand alone as a sentence and make sense. It can only be written that way for emphasis or some other effect.

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Prepositions

Prepositions are words or groups of words, that introduce phrases; and these phrases modify some element in a sentence. What follows a preposition is normally a noun, pronoun, or noun clause. A word that follows a preposition is its object, and, in the case of pronouns especially, this affects the form of the word.

He walked near her (never He walked near she).

He gave them to her and me (neverHe gave them to she and I or He gave them to her and I).

One of the problems in spotting prepositions in a sentence is that many of the words that are usually prepositions can also be used as adverbs.

They sat before the counter (before is a preposition,and the whole prepositional phrase serves as an adverb, modifyingsat).

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Noun: A noun is a name for someone or something. It can be someone or something in particular, or someone or something in general.

Pronoun: A pronoun is a substitute for a noun or a noun phrase.

Verb: A verb is the action word in a statement. Some verbs link the subject to a noun, pronoun, or adjective.

Adjective: An adjective is a modifier. Usually it modifies, or makes more exact, the meaning of a noun or pronoun.

Adverb: An adverb is a modifier. Usually it modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.

Conjunction: A conjunction is a connector. A coordinate conjunction connects words or groups of words that are grammatically the same. A subordinate conjunction connects a subordinate, or dependent, clause to a main clause.

Preposition: A preposition is a connector that introduces a prepositional phrase. It usually connects a noun or noun phrase to the part of the sentence modified by the whole prepositional phrase, and it shows the relation between the two.

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Modern language scientists have devised other categories of word in relation to syntax, which you should know. A few of these are explained in the table below.

Auxiliary: A word whose function is to assist the main verb in a clause to express basic grammatical contrasts such as person, number and tense. The primary auxiliaries are forms of be, have, do. The modal auxiliaries are such verbs as may, might, should.

Connective: A word which links language units, such as conjunctions and some adverbs

Determiner: A word which co-occurs with a noun to show meanings such as number, quantity or identity (the, some, each)

Head: The main element in a phrase; it may be pre- or post-modified

Intensifier: Traditionally classed as an adverb; a word which adds force or emphasis to a qualifier (extremely stupid, very cleverly)

Modifier: Word or phrase which gives more information about the head element in a phrase (All the beautiful (pre-modification) fish (head) in the ocean (post-modification)

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Syntax and syntactic structures

Parts of speech, or word categories, indicate what words usually do, or may be expected to do. Some of these categories - such as nouns and pronouns - make sense when we consider words in isolation. Others - such as conjunctions or prepositions - only make sense within a longer structure, a phrase, clause or sentence.

Note that these three terms are traditional, and do not easily describe how strings of language work. All are broad categories. The sentence, especially, is much more characteristic of written than of spoken English, and of formal rather than informal usage. Alternatively, we may say that spoken English contains sentence types not usually found in writing.

The internal grammar of phrases, clauses and sentences refers to the principles (sometimes mistakenly called "rules") of structure and organization. Be aware of the tension between model structures devised for textbooks and guides for learners of the language, and the syntax of real sentences (those you have found in speech or writing), which you are subjecting to analysis.

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A phrase is a useful all-purpose name for any short sequence of words (or even a single word, considered as an element in the structure of a clause or sentence), especially a grouping which could be replaced by a single word. A phrase which works like, or equates to, a noun is a noun phrase, one which qualifies a verb is an adverb phrase and so on.

A clause may be short or long, but must contain at least one main, finite verb. A short clause may in fact be identical with a verb phrase: the two terms reflect differences of emphasis or analysis in regard to the language string in question. If you are analysing a sentence, you will look first for clauses; if you wish to see how words have been combined in simple sequences, you will look for phrases. Phrases are especially important for analysing spoken data, and some kinds of written text (such as advertisements or information leaflets) where (written) sentence forms are not considered essential.

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Phrases

Noun phrases | Adjective phrases | Adverb phrases | Pronoun phrases | Prepositional phrases | Verb phrases

Noun phrases

(not part of noun phrase)

Buns

are for sale.

The

buns

are for sale.

All

the

currant

buns

are for sale.

Not quite all

the

currant

buns

are for sale.

Not quite all

the

hot tasty currant

buns

are for sale.

Not quite all

the

hot tasty currant

buns

on the table

are for sale.

Not quite all

the

many

hot tasty currant

buns

on show on the table

are for sale.

Not quite all

the

very many

fine hot tasty currant

buns

which I cooked

are for sale.

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Adjective phrases

These are usually formed from an intensifier, followed by the head (an adjective, shown in bold below). Examples include very happy, not too awkward , and cold enough. They may also be formed from an adjective and a verb construction, such as easy to please, loath to do it.

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Adverb phrases

These are intensifying expressions formed from an intensifier (optional), followed by the head (an adverb, shown in bold below), followed by a postmodifier (optional). Examples would be: terribly slowly, very happily indeed, exceptionally carefully, completely utterly dangerously, quite often and very soon .

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Prepositional phrases (adverbials/adjectivals)

These are formed from the head (a preposition, shown in bold in the examples), followed by a noun phrase. Examples of prepositional phrases are in the teapot, on the bog, and round the bend.

They may be called adverbials since their usual function is to qualify a verb in the same way as an adverb does. You can test this by replacing a given prepositional phrase with an adverb - for example: Fred swam in the river and Fred swam swiftly . Both of these are grammatically standard forms.

They may also function as adjectives: the pirate with the wooden leg .

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Pronoun phrases

These are restricted to a small number of constructions, and are sometimes regarded as a minor type of noun phrase. They are formed from a head (a pronoun, shown in bold below) with a pre- or postmodifier. Examples would be: Silly me! You there! she herself, we all, nearly everyone , and such relative clause types as those who knew Fred .

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Verb phrases

These are quite simple syntactically, although the verb in them may contain important grammatical information, such as tense, number, active or passive voice and so on. (All of these are explained above in the section on word categories). One or more auxiliaries may precede the head (a verb participle, shown in bold below). Examples would be: has died, may have gone, might have been listening . You may be puzzled by the simplicity of these models. Don't be. In order to explain the more complex function of verbs in the predicates of sentences (what they say about their subject), we use the structural model of the clause.

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Sentences and clauses

In the syntax of English and other modern European languages, such as Dutch, French, German or Italian, the two most important structures are almost certainly clauses and sentences. Please note that:

the sentence as we know it, is not found in all languages

the sentence is not a necessary structure in natural language

many written texts and most spoken data are not organized into regular sentence forms

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Before you look at descriptions of either structure, you may wonder why they appear together in the heading above. This is because neither makes sense without the other. Writers of language textbooks may put either of them ahead of the other, depending upon whether their structural model builds (or synthesises) smaller structures into larger ones ("bottom up") or analyses larger structures into smaller ones ("top down"). This is explained at the start of this guide, and briefly again below, under the heading Building or analysing? This guide places clauses before sentences, in keeping with its "bottom up" or synthetic approach. You should try to explain the subject with both synthetic and analytic models.

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Clauses

We can understand a clause in several ways. Simply it can be seen as a verb and the words or phrases which cluster round it. Professor Crystal ( The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, p. 449) describes it as "a structural unit smaller than a sentence but larger than phrases or words". The problem here is that in some cases a clause may appear identical with a sentence or phrase, but the term we use tells us about a different structural feature. A more difficult explanation to follow is that a clause is a syntactic unit consisting of a verb, together with its associated subject, objects or complements and adverbials. Note that the only obligatory ("must have") elements are the subject and the verb (usually, but not always, in this order). So before you can go further, you need to know about these different clause elements (parts of the clause).

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Clauses and clauses

You may have met the term clause in other contexts - it is used to identify short passages within longer ones (such as paragraphs) in such texts as legal or parliamentary documents. The writers of these will often construct artificial sentences which are broken into a series of clauses, so that these can be named. This allows us to write such things as "Paragraph x , clause y of the Sale of Goods Act, 1979 protects consumers." Here clause identifies the unit of syntax (and its meaning or semantic content) but may not in every case exactly match the models explained here or in grammatical reference works.

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Clause elements

Subject | Object | Verb | Complement | Adverbial | Vocatives

These are well worth learning about, as you will certainly want to use them to explain the syntax of language data you are studying in exams or investigations. If you are not able to describe or identify clause types, it is usually acceptable and always helpful to consider how these elements work together. You may use them to explain how sentences work, also. They are:

subject (S), object (O), verb (V), complement (C), adverbial (A)

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Subject

The subject is a noun or noun phrase, pronoun or subordinate clause.

The dog was sick. Fred felt funny. (n)

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. (NP)

I am happy. They are jealous. (pn.)

What she said is untrue. (sub.clause)

In this kind of analysis a series of noun phrases is a single clause element.

Pronouns used as subject are in the subject case (I, she, they not me, her, them)

The subject controls singular-plural verb agreement (You go; she goes ) and agreement of reflexive pronoun objects (I injured myself; they amused themselves )

A subject is usually present in a clause, but it may be omitted in non-standard (especially spoken) structures (Drinks like a fish. Gets here when?) or imperatives (Listen to this).

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Object

Objects usually follow the verb. They may be direct or indirect.

Direct object: Fred bit his thumb. The chimpanzees groomed each other.

Indirect object: Jane gave the gorilla a kiss. Jane gave a kiss to the gorilla. (Note that here there is also a direct object =a kiss)

Just as with subjects, they may be nouns, noun phrases, pronouns or subordinate clauses.

Just as subjects are, pronouns are in the appropriate (object) case (me, her, them).

As above, reflexive pronoun objects agree with their subjects (They amused themselves ).

But unlike subject, the object has no effect on agreement of verb.

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Verb

This is the central and obligatory element. A clause must contain at least one verb phrase, which may be a single verb: Jesus wept. They are drowning. The cow jumped over the moon.

The choice of verb will largely determine what other elements are in the clause.

The verb usually has a subject. A transitive verb is one which takes a direct object. (Strictly this is a tautology since transitive = "taking a direct object")

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Complement

Complement (verb) means "go with". (Do not confuse withcompliment). In clause syntax, the complement is anything which adds to the meaning of the subject (subject complement) or object (object complement).

Subject complement usually follows the verb. The most common verb for a subject complement is the verb to be, but some other verb may be substituted where the meaning of be is expressed. These are called copular (= linking) verbs or simply copulas. In the examples complements are in bold, copular verbs underlined: She is a doctor. That smells heavenly. The students are feeling dazed and confused.

Object complement usually follows the direct object: Football makes me very happy. The voters elected Clinton president of the USA.

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Adverbials

These clause elements add to or complete the meaning of the verb element. They may be single adverbs. But they also include nouns, noun or verb phrases and subordinate clauses: They ran quickly. He went home twice nightly. We walked on the playground. My girlfriend phoned me this morning. I was happy when I saw her again.

Adverbials may appear in several positions in the clause, but are most common at the end: Often I dream. I often dream. I dream often.

Adverbials may perform different functions:

Adding information: I walked quietly .

Linking clauses: The bus was full. However, Fred found a seat.

Adding a comment on what is expressed: Quite frankly we disapprove of violence.

Some verbs (like put) must have an adverbial to complete their meaning: Please put the gun down. The path runs around the field.

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Vocatives

These are optional elements used to show the person to whom a sentence is addressed. They may occur in various positions in the clause. They include names, titles, evaluative labels, the pronoun you and certain kinds of clause: John, it's me. It's me, darling. Hello, Susan, how are you? You daft git, what do you mean? Honey, I shrank the kids. Come out, whoever you are. Come in, ladies, and sit down. Madam Speaker, I will give way.

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Clause types

Clause elements combine to form clauses. The number of patterns is small. According to David Crystal (The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, p. 221) there are only seven basic types.

S + V: I / yawned

S + V + O: Fred / opened / the door

S + V + C: The dinner / is / ready

S + V + A: Dick Whittington / went / to London

S + V + O + O: Romeo / gave / Juliet / a kiss

S + V + O + C: Henry / got / his feet / very wet

S + V + O + A: Sam / put / the bottles / in the cellar

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We can vary these patterns using directives (such as advising, instructing or commanding): Turn left at the junction. Help yourself to a drink. Go to hell! You be quiet.

We can also vary the patterns through pro-forms (words which replace long constructions) and ellipsis (omitting an understood element).

Pro-forms: I've got a lovely cold drink and you've got one as well. (Here one is the pro-form, understood to mean a lovely cold drink.)

Ellipsis: I'd like to drink some tea, but I won't. (Here drink some tea is understood to follow but I won't.)

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Building or analysing?

To understand the contrast in these approaches, see the table at the start of this guide to structure. The two approaches are shown in simple form below:

"Bottom up"/synthetic model: morpheme è word è phrase èclause è sentence

"Top down"/analytic model: sentence è clause è phrase è word è morpheme

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Clause functions and sentence structures

Coordinate clauses

The simplest sentences may contain a single clause. (Simple is a standard description of one kind of sentence.) Where a sentence contains more than one clause, these may be considered of equal grammatical importance. If this is so, these are coordinate clauses. They are joined by a coordinating conjunction, such as and or but. (Some grammarians call the first clause of the sentence the main clause, and the others coordinate clauses). Here are some examples. Apart from the conjunctions ( or, so and and, everything else is a main/coordinate clause):

You can travel by tube, you can drive or you can take the train.

The weather was hot, so I went on my bike.

Lucy opened her window, and in came Count Dracula.

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Subordinate clauses

Sometimes the clauses are placed in a hierarchy: the more important ones are main clauses, while the less important are subordinate clauses. A main or coordinate clause could stand on its own as a sentence, but a subordinate clause works only subject, object, complement and within a sentence. A subordinate clause can do the job of other clause elements. It can work as adverbial, as in these examples:

Subordinate subject clause: What you say is stupid.

Clause as subject = What you say; main clause = X is stupid, verb = is

Subordinate object clause: I did not know that you were here .

Clause as object = that you were here; main clause = I did not know X; verb = did not know

Subordinate complement clause: Your first job is learning this grammar.

Clause as complement = learning this grammar; main clause = Your first job is X; verb = is

Subordinate adverbial clause: Come round when you're ready.

Clause as adverbial = when you're ready; main clause = Come round (X); verb = Come

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Clauses that function as subject, object or complement replace noun phrases, so they are called nominal clauses. Those that function as adverbs/adjectives are adverbial/adjectival clauses.

Some other kinds of nominal clauses are shown below. For clarity, they are all shown in object position. This is not the only place where they may occur, but is the most common.

That clause: I think (that) you know each other. (That may be omitted if understood.)

Wh- clause: I know what you did last summer. (Clause introduced bywho, when, what, why, whether.)

-ing clause: I don't recall seeing her there. (Clause introduced by present participle.)

inf. clause: I wish to confess to my crimes. (Clause introduced by to + infinitive.)

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Adverbial clauses

These are introduced by a subordinating conjunction, which explains the adverbial meaning of the clause. These include when/before/after/while (time); because/since (reason); if/unless/lest (condition), as in these examples:

When the bell sounds, you may leave the room.

We cannot send you the goods, because we are out of stock.

Unless you are good, Father Christmas will bring you nothing.

Two minor types of adverbial clause are inf. and -ing clauses.

Inf. clause: I went to the shop to buy some bread. (Clause introduced by to + infinitive.)

-ing clause: Jane broke her arm while fighting. (Clause introduced by present participle.)

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Adjectival clauses

A familiar type is the relative clause, introduced by a relative pronoun ( who, whom, whose, that, which), as in these examples:

Here is the woman (whom) I married.

This is the book (which) I am reading.

The drink (that) I most like is orange juice.

The relative pronouns are in brackets, as they may be omitted if understood.

Two minor types of adjectival clause are -ing and -ed clauses.

-ed clause: She is the celebrity pursued by the press.

Since past participles do not all end in -ed we may find other verb forms in such clauses: The tea drunk by the students or the exam taken by the pupils .

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Clause elements may be single words of the appropriate category, they may be phrases or even some kinds of subordinate clause. Explaining even simple structures is difficult. Verbal explanations are less easy to make than diagrams. These work best when there is a hierarchical level, as sentences are analysed into clauses, which are further analysed into (more clauses and) phrases, which are analysed into words, which are analysed into morphemes.

In an exam, you are very unlikely to be required to analyse long sequences. Use clause analysis (or phrase analysis) selectively, to establish some point about language acquisition (learning to make or understand structures), about language and society (how structures embody social attitudes to language), language change (how structures or paradigms change over time) or stylistics (how structures embody style).

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The sentence

Sentence types

In many respects, sentences can be analysed in the same terms as clauses, that is separating the elements into the categories of subject, object, verb, complement and adverbial.

However, sentences are also described in terms of:

how clauses are arranged

functions of the sentence

traditional patterns which are used for particular effects in speech and writing

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Clause structures in sentences

The most basic sentence form contains a single clause. This is known as a simple sentence:

Mary had a little lamb.

Chocolate is delicious.

Down fell the rain.

A compound sentence joins two coordinate clauses together:

Mary had a little lamb and took it to school.

I drank some tea and felt better.

Here is a wug and here are two wugs.

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A multiple sentence links clauses of essentially similar type, with coordinating conjunctions.

I came home, sat down, put the kettle on, lit the fire and sat down with a book.

A complex sentence uses subordination to link clauses. It is not necessarily very "complex" in the everyday sense (that is, difficult to analyse), but it may be:

I hope that she will come.

Lest you forget, here is my address.

Having played football, I sat in the bath, while the kettle boiled, thinking of how to spend the evening, which loomed before me promisingly.

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Functions of the sentence

This is a simple kind of classification. Sentences are traditionally categorized into four types: statement, command, question or exclamation. These are readily illustrated by examples (note alternative names).

Exclamation: How happy I feel!

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Other sentence types

Tag questions | Exclamatory questions | Rhetorical questions | Directives | Echoes

David Crystal ( The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, p. 218) notes some other categories. Among these are:

Tag questions

Here a statement is turned into a question, with an interrogative tag at the end. Tags are typical of speech where the speaker changes the function of the sentence in mid-utterance:

Jolly nice day today, isn't it?

Exclamatory questions

Here the structure is that of a question, but the meaning (indicated in speech by intonation) equates to an exclamation:

Didn't she do well? Have I got news for you?

Rhetorical questions

Again the structure is that of a question, but the speaker (or writer) expects no answer. They are used as emphatic statements:

How on earth should I know? Is the Pope a Catholic? Do bears crap in the woods?

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Directives

These are akin to imperatives, but Crystal expands the category to include related functions of instruction, direction and so on. He lists: commanding, inviting, warning, pleading, suggesting, advising, permitting, requesting, meditating, expressing wish or imprecation. Crystal notes that many use the verbs let and do in non-standard ways:

Let me see. Let's go. Let us pray.

Do come in. Do be quiet. Don't do that again.

Echoes

These sentences of a special kind, which reflect the structure of a preceding sentence from a different speaker in a language interaction (usually conversation):

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Special or minor sentence types

Professor Crystal ( The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, p. 216) records some unusual types of sentence, which cannot be analysed in a regular way. They are found in particular kinds of text and discourse - some are common in real speech or fictional dialogue, while others are found in such things as headlines or slogans, where a message is presented as a block of text. They do not follow all the rules of normal grammar, such as verb agreement. Among the types noted by Crystal are:

Formulae for set social situations: Cheers, Hello, Ciao, See you, How do you do? Ta!

Proverbs or aphorisms: Easy come, easy go. Least said, soonest mended.

Short forms as used in messages, instructions or commentaries: Wish you were here. Shearer to Beckham. Simmer gently. Hope you are well.

Elliptical words or phrases with a structural meaning equivalent to a complete exclamation, question or command: Brilliant! Lovely day! Coming? Drink? All aboard! Drink up!

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Structure and style in sentences

Loose sentence | Balanced sentence | Periodic sentence

For purposes of analysing style, sentences may be described as loose, balanced or periodic.

Loose sentence

Here the writer or speaker states fact after fact as they occur, seemingly freely and artlessly, as in the opening of The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe:

"I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull: he got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznoer; but by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called, nay we call ourselves, and write our name Crusoe, and so my companions always called me. "

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Balanced sentence

Here the writer or speaker has a concern for symmetry - the second half of the sentence contains a similar or opposite idea to the first half. These techniques are very effective in persuasion, and are sometimes known as parallelism or antithesis. Consider this from Francis Bacon (1561-1626):

"Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter: they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death."

Or this from Viscount Grey of Fallodon, on the eve of the First World War:

"The lamps are going out all over Europe: we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

Or, finally, this, spoken by President John F. Kennedy:

"Ask not what your country can do for you: ask what you can do for your country."

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Periodic sentence

Here the climax of the sentence comes at its end. A good example is in the opening of Edward Gibbon's 18th century Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

"It was in Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind."

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Studying Language: sources of information

A comprehensive bibliography is published by AQA/NEAB. You and your teachers will use some of the reference works on this list. In addition you may make use of any of the following sources of help.

Dictionaries are an excellent source of information. The best of these give etymologies, identify word classes, record standard and non-standard words and show variant spellings. Some modern dictionaries use a language corpus to indicate words among the thousand (or other number) most commonly used. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and The Shorter Oxford Dictionary are the traditional authorities, but there are excellent dictionaries published by Chambers, Longman, Collins, Cambridge and others.

The most comprehensive reference works are The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language by David Crystal. The former can often be purchased at a discount by joining a book club. At the opposite extreme an excellent introduction to traditional grammar can be found in Dorothy Paull's The Ladybird Book of Spelling and Grammar.

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Broadcast material can also be helpful, and some is available on video or audio-tape from the broadcasters. This includes Professor Jean Aitchison's 1996 Reith Lectures for BBC radio: The Language Web, and Robert McCrum's TV history: The Story of English. A long-running radio series, which investigates a comprehensive range of language issues is R4's Word of Mouth.

For a very full explanation of syntax, especially the function of the independent main clause, see Shirley Russell's Grammar, Structure and Style (OUP, Oxford, 1993; ISBN 0-19-831179-6)

The World Wide Web has a huge range of sites dedicated to language use, too many to list here. Very helpful are translation engines (most browsers or search engines have these) which will alter a given text into English (or a different variety of English). The Web also, of course, will give you access to the language departments of many academic institutions.

Click here for a link to many more on-line sources of information.

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Index of tables

© Andrew Moore, 2000; Contact me

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This study guide supports study of grammar for A-level English.