Module 2: Grammatical and Syntactic Awareness

Overview:
Levels of English learners:
 Beginner
 Elementary
 Pre-intermediate
 Intermediate
 Upper-intermediate
 Advanced
Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR):
 Basic user – A1 Breakthrough or beginner. A2 Waystage or elementary
 Independent user – B1 threshold or intermediate. B2 Vantage or upper
intermediate
 Proficient user – C1 Effective operational proficiency or advanced. C2
Mastery or proficiency.
Grouping students into classes named after exams they are preparing for:
- KET: Key English Test
- PET: Preliminary English Test
- FCE: First Certificate in English
- CAE: Certificate in Advanced English
- CPE: Certificate of Proficiency in English

1. What is the CEFR?

It is a standard, international scale of levels for language learning. It has 6 levels in
ascending order from A1 to C2.
The CEFR gives you a detailed description of learner level by skill, in a language-
neutral format. Because it is language-neutral, it can actually be used for any
language in the world.
2. The CEFR’s approach: Communicative language competence:
CEFR’s approach is based on the notion of communicative language competence–
the increasing ability to communicate and operate effectively in the target language
Communicative language competence has a number of component parts, it includes:
- Linguistic: comprises the knowledge and skills related to lexis, phonology, syntax
and other features of language systems.
- Socio-linguistic: refers to the knowledge and skills involved in using language
functionally in a social context.
- Pragmatic competences: involves the functional uses of linguistic resources
(carrying out language functions, speech acts) using scenarios or predetermined
scripts of interactional exchanges. It also involves mastery of discourse, cohesion
and coherence, the recognition of text types and genres, using irony or parody.
3. Why do we need the CEFR? The CEFR makes it easier for all of us to talk about
language levels reliably and with shared understanding.
4. What is it used for?

The CEFR is used for many different practical purposes:

 Developing syllabuses
 Creating texts/exams
 Marking exams
 Evaluating language learning needs
 Designing courses
 Developing learning materials
 Continuous assessment of others, or self-assessment
 Teacher training programmes

5. What’s in it for you? How can the CEFR be useful for teachers?
- Understanding language levels better
- Seeing more clearly what learners need to work on
- Curriculum plan

UNIT 1: Grammar at Every Level

1. Beginner level:
- ‘Grade’ your language as much as possible. Be animated and reduce the
complexity of anything you say.
- use the technique ‘modelling’: demonstrating exactly what you are talking about
and using visuals.
- Subject pronouns: are used to replace the noun which is the subject of the
sentence
e.g. ‘Mary is American’, we can replace the noun (Mary) with ‘she’, a subject
pronoun

The subject pronouns in English are:

 I – 1st person singular

 you – 2nd person singular
 he/she/it – 3rd person singular
 we – 1st person plural
  you – 2nd person plural
 they – 3rd person plural

Absolute beginner: An absolute beginner has no knowledge of English.

Sound and practical advice for teaching absolute beginners:
- Keep it simple
- Use the right approach
- Encourage interaction
- Make a personal connection
- Minimise your students’ cognitive burden
- Can they see and hear
- Learn a bit of their language
- Review constantly
- Be animated
2. Elementary level:
Your students should hopefully be familiar with the subject pronouns and the verb
‘be’ in positive sentences (I am, you are, he/she/it is…)
Introduce the question statements using a listening task where the students must
complete the gaps with the correct form of the verb be for example:
Man: ____ you Scottish?
Woman: No, I’m Irish! Where ___ you from?
Man: I’m from the USA.
Woman: ___ he from the USA too?
Man: Yes, we ___ both from California.
3. Pre-intermediate level:
- Introduce modal verbs of permission and obligation.
Modal verbs - can, must, may etc.
- are always followed by another verb but they tell us the function of that
main verb.
Some of the modals of permission/obligation (must, may, can, should, have to) have
negatives (must not, may not, don’t have to etc.) which aren’t exactly opposite in
meaning.
4. Intermediate level:
Relative clauses are used to give additional information about something without
starting a new sentence.
-combine sentences in a way that is natural and avoids repetition
- five different relative pronouns (who, which, whom, that and whose)
-three relative adverbs (where, when, why)
Question and answer:
1. That’s the girl. I invited her to the cinema.
- who, that
2. A dog is an animal. It is related to the wolf.
- which, that
3. That’s the house. My grandparents used to live there.
- where
4. In which of these sentences can ‘who’ be replaced by ‘that’?
- the boy who we met yesterday is very nice.
5. Look at the following five sentences. Can we replace the relative pronoun with
‘that’?
a. Mrs Smith, who is very nosy, lives in the house with the blue door.
- NO
b. The shoes which I bought yesterday aren't very comfortable
- YES
c. The church, which we visited while we were on holiday last year, is very old
-NO
d. He’s the man whose car was stolen last week
- NO
e. Did you see the bird which landed on the roof?
-YES
5. Upper intermediate:
An important feature of any upper-intermediate course should be the distinction
between gerunds and infinitives.
In sentences where more than one verb is used, the first verb determines the form of
the second.
e.g. it is incorrect to say ‘I enjoy listen music’. This is because the first verb ‘enjoy’ is
always followed by the gerund (the -ing form of the verb).
e.g. Likewise, the sentence ‘I’ve decided going to university’ doesn’t sound right at
all. Here we need the infinitive form of the verb (the verb in its original state) with
‘to’ : ‘I’ve decided to go to university’.
Question and answer:
1. I play dance music when I’m sad and want ______ better.
- to feel
2. I can’t stand _______.
- queuing
3. I can’t ________ tonight, I have to study.
- come out
6. Advances level:
An active sentence is one which follows the usual formula of subject + verb +
object/complement:
e.g. He built the stadium in 1998
A passive sentence, however, inverts this order, placing the object at the beginning.
e.g. The stadium was built (by him) in 1998
- passive sentences are used to place emphasis on the object, rather than the
subject of the sentence, or when the subject is unknown or unimportant.
To form a passive sentence we always use the verb ‘be’ (in the same tense as the
verb from the active sentence) + past participle. If we look at the previous example,
the verb is ‘built’ which is the past simple form of the verb ‘build’.
Question and answer:
1. Complete the passive sentence with the correct past participle.
- was closed
2. Active: Somebody has stolen my wallet. Passive: My wallet __________.
- has been stolen

Questions and answers:

1. Which of the following is an example of something you would NOT teach at
elementary level?
- relative clauses
2. Can you replace ‘which’ with ‘that’ in the following sentence? ‘The flowers, which I
love, are daffodils.’ Y/N?
- NO
3. Choose the correct verb form to complete the passive [Link]: Charlotte
thinks someone was following [Link]: Charlotte thinks she_____________.
- was being followed
4. The two modal verbs ‘have to’ and ‘don’t have to’ mean exactly the opposite. T/F?
- FALSE
5. False beginners are those students who have perhaps had a little English
learning, or who have picked up English more informally and inconsistently.
- TRUE
6. An absolute beginner has no knowledge of English.
- TRUE
7. When teaching absolute beginner students, it’s best to write a lot of information on
the board and have students copy it down while you continue to explain concepts.
- FALSE

UNIT 2: Key Grammatical Terms and Their Functions

Part Of
Function Examples A Few Subcategories
Speech
to describe a noun, a pronoun comparative (taller) superlative
Adjective tall intelligent
or part of a sentence (most intelligent)
frequency (sometimes), time
to describe a verb, adjective or
quickly finally (yesterday), manner (angrily),
another adverb by giving
Adverb sometimes degree (completely), quantity
more information about how,
yesterday (few), attitude markers
when something happens
(apparently)
addition (and), condition
but
to connect a clause, sentence (since), contrast (yet), purpose
Conjunctions and
or word (so that), reason (because),
so
result (therefore), time (before).
articles (the), demonstrative
this
to clarify which noun is being adjectives (that), possessive
Determiners my
referred to adjectives (his), quantifiers
both
(both)…
ouch
to express strong feeling
Exclamations wow doubt (erm), pain (ouch)…
(informal, spoken language)
oh no
abstract (hope), countable
milk
to name things, people, (people), uncountable (sugar),
Nouns parents
places, concepts proper (Liverpool), collective
beauty
(army)…
 cause/effect (due to), contrast
to link a noun/noun at
(unlike), dependent (wait for),
Prepositions phrase/pronoun to another until
movement (towards), place
word or phrase throughout
(under), time (during)…
I personal (subject pronouns he,
to replace/refer to a noun or him object pronouns them…),
Pronouns
noun phrase ours possessive (mine), reflexive
herself (himself), relative…
walk
Verbs to show an action or state believe Transitive, intransitive…
try
[Link] grammatical terms:
Transitive and intransitive verbs:
- A transitive verb takes a direct object; that is, the verb transmits action to an object.
e.g. He sent the letter. ( letter = direct object of sent)
She gave the lecture. ( lecture = direct object of gave)
- A transitive verb can also have an indirect object that precedes the direct object.
The indirect object tells to or for whom the action is done, although the words to and
for are not used.
e.g. He sent Robert the letter.
She gave her class the lecture.

- An intransitive verb does not take an object.

e.g. She sleeps too much.
He complains frequently.

Gerunds- gerunds are words that are formed from verbs but act as nouns. You can
spot them because they will be verb+ing acting as a noun.
E.g. I love shopping!
The word ‘shop’ is a verb. Shopping is a verb with an –ing ending acting as a noun.
It is the subject of this sentence.
2. Root words:
Word ‘trees’ or ‘maps’ can also be useful for identifying different parts of speech and
helping students increase their vocabulary. You essentially start with a ‘root’ word,
then try to find as many different variations on that word by adding prefixes (e.g. un-,
mis-), suffixes (e.g. –ly, -ful) or by adapting different parts of the word. Take a look at
the example below using the root word ‘believe’
 - unbelievable
- misbelieve
- disbelief
- belief
- believable
- believer
Questions and answers:
1. Look at the sentence, “He thought the test was really difficult even though he had
studied so hard”. Which word from the three below has a different grammatical
function?
- difficult
2. Which of the following words which all derive from the root ‘satisfy’ is NOT an
adjective?
- satisfactorily
3. In the following sentence, what part of speech is the word ‘bravery? “His incredible
bravery was rewarded with the badge of honour."
- noun
4. Which of the following can an adverb NOT modify?
- noun

UNIT 3: Sentence structure

The main parts of a sentence – morpheme, word, phrase, clause, subject and
predicate.
1. Sentence- a set of words standing on their own as a unit of sense, its
conclusion marked by a full stop or equivalent (question mark; exclamation
mark). Begins with a capital letter and include a verb. No minimum number of
words it must contain. The only pre-requisite is a main subject and main verb.
2. Morpheme – the lowest unit of a language that can convey meaning. You
cannot break a morpheme down into anything smaller that has meaning.
Many simple words are morphemes, e.g. boy, hut, talk. Eg. Child + ren; talk +
s; blind + ness. Ren, s, and ness all convey some meaning, even though none
of them is a word in its own right. If we try to break them down any further, we
just end up with graphemes or phonemes:
R+e+n – A grapheme is a term from linguistics meaning the smallest unit in
writing that can change meaning. This is a letter or group of letters
representing a single phoneme, e.g.
B ng ea - phoneme is a distinctive speech sound.
 3. Word - A word is the smallest meaningful bit of sense in a sentence. Each of
these words has a different job to do.
4. Phrase - a phrase is a short, single piece of information. It can be a word, or
a small group of words, that forms a meaningful unit within a sentence.
5. Clauses - A clause is a larger word group that includes a little more
information. It consists of at least two phrases - one is a noun phrase known
as the subject, and the other is the verb.
6. Subject - The subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing, or idea that is
doing or being something. You can find the subject of a sentence if you can
find the verb.
7. Predicate - A predicate is the completer of a sentence. This is just a term
used to label the part of a sentence or clause which contains a verb and
states something about the subject.

Simple sentence - A simple sentence consists of one clause that has a subject and a
verb. A simple sentence puts across one simple idea or thought. It’s a sense unit – a
complete unit of meaning.
e.g. Carlos smiled. (Carlos is the subject; smiled is the verb)
The dog barked. (The dog is the subject; barked is the verb)

Compound sentences - This is a sentence of two or more main clauses joined by a

coordinating conjunction (also called a connective). Compound sentences contain
two or more pieces of information and the pieces are linked by connectives.
Coordinating conjunctions are connectives which link text together, such as: but;
and; or.

Complex sentences - A complex sentence is used to put across more detailed

ideas. A complex sentence contains one main clause that can make sense on its
own and one or more minor or subordinate clauses that are linked to it. We’ll call
these minor clauses subordinate clauses from now on. It just sounds better.

Questions and answers:

1.. A sentence is a set of words standing on their own as a unit of sense, its
conclusion marked by a full stop or equivalent (question mark; exclamation mark).
- True
2. I eat. This is not a sentence.
- False
3. You can break a morpheme down into smaller parts that have meaning.
- False
4. A verb phrase is a verb of more than one word. It includes one or more helping
(auxiliary) verbs and one main verb.
- True
5. A clause is a group of related words containing a subject and a verb.
- True
6. A simple sentence consists of one clause that has a subject and a verb.
- True
7. Manufactured in Germany. This is correct English and is a sentence.
- False
8. A subordinate clause is also called an independent clause.
- False

UNIT 4: Tenses
CASSIAL (Choose, Analyse, Sequence, Select, Identify context, Auxiliary materials,
Learner error).
1. Which of the two tenses talks about general past experience?
- Past present
2. Which of the two tenses requires a specific time period?
- Past simple
Present and Past Tenses
Present
Present simple: routine/habitual actions or things which are generally true
e.g. ‘I work every Saturday’, ‘cats chase mice’
Present continuous/ Present progressive: happening now or around now
Form: am/is/are + verb + -ing
e.g. ‘John is working today’
Past
Past simple: completed, finished actions with a specific time reference
Form: use the past tense of the verb
e.g. ‘I wrote 10 letters yesterday’
Past continuous/ Past progressive: actions in progress at a particular time in the
past, actions interrupted in the past, two actions happening simultaneously in the
past
Form: was/were + verb + -ing
e.g. ‘What were you doing at 10.00 last night?’, ‘I was writing letters’
Future
Present continuous: fixed future plans/arrangements with a specific time reference
Form: am/is/are + verb + -ing
e.g. ‘He’s seeing Jim on Sunday afternoon’
‘going to’ + infinitive verb: future intentions and predictions
e.g. ‘She’s going to have a baby!’
‘will/won’t/shall’ + infinitive verb: predictions, instant decisions, promises,
suggestions and offers
e.g. ‘I think it will rain tomorrow’, ‘I promise I’ll do my homework later’
Future Continuous/ Future Progressive: an action in progress at a particular time
in the future
Form: will + be + verb + -ing
e.g. ‘In 2050 we will all be driving electric cars’

FULL Tense Table: Twelve tenses in modern English

A. There are three simple tenses:
1. Present Simple: showing whether an action or condition occurs
2. Past Simple: showing whether an action or condition occurred
3. Future Simple: showing whether an action or condition will occur
B. There are three perfect tenses
4. Present Perfect: showing whether an action or condition has occurred relative to
the present
5. Past Perfect: showing whether an action or condition had occurred relative to the
past
6. Future Perfect: showing whether an action or condition will have occurred relative
to the future.
C. There are six continuous (also called progressive) tenses:
7. Present Continuous: showing whether a continuous action or condition is
occurring in the present
8. Past Continuous: showing whether a continuous action or condition was occurring
in the past
9. Future Continuous: showing whether a continuous action or condition will be
occurring in the future
10. Present Perfect Continuous: showing whether a continuous action or condition
has been occurring relative to the present
11. Past Perfect Continuous: showing whether a continuous action or condition had
been occurring relative to the past
12. Future Perfect Continuous: showing whether a continuous action or condition will
have been occurring relative to the future.

Questions and answers:

1.. Which tense do we use to talk about a finished past action with a specific time?
- Past simple
2. Can we use non-action verbs (e.g. know, like, be etc.) in a continuous/progressive
tense? Y/N?
- No
3. How do we form the past perfect continuous?
- had + been + verb + ing
4. Which tense do we use for future plans without a specific time?
- going to + infinitive
5. You scored goals. This statement is in the Past Simple Tense (also called the
Simple Past Tense).
- True
6. Are you going to watch the game tonight? This question is in the Future Simple
Tense (also called the Simple Future Tense).
- True
7. You hadn’t eaten paella before you went to Spain. This statement is in the Present
Perfect Tense.
- False
8. The match will have finished by the time we get back. This statement is in the
Future Perfect Tense.
- True
9. You were not driving when she phoned. This statement is in the Present
Continuous Tense (also called the Present Progressive tense).
- False

UNIT 5: Teaching Grammar

1. Understanding prescriptive and descriptive grammar
grammar generally refers to the rules and conventions by which words are ordered
and changed to form a sentence.
Grammar can be prescriptive or descriptive.
Prescriptive grammar sets out rules which should be followed if you wish to write
‘correct’ or ’good’ English.
e.g. Never start a sentence with And or But.
Descriptive grammar seeks to describe how language is actually used in the real
world.

2. Different modes of presenting grammar to learners

Present material visually
Use timelines
Present material through situations
Present material through demonstration

3. Teaching grammar to different levels

…………………….

Question and answer:

1.. Descriptive grammar seeks to describe how language is actually used in the real
world.
- True
2. Prescriptive rules are not important.
- False
3. Timelines are simple diagrams that can help learners see relationships between
verb forms and their time reference.
- True
4. There is a set format for making a timeline.
- False
5. It would be appropriate to teach grammar formally and explicitly to students under
the age of, say, 8-9 years old.
- False
6. Never teach grammar in isolation when teaching younger young learners.
- True
7. Language recycling is when a student meets and uses a word several times so
that eventually it is remembered and recalled naturally.
- True
8. When teenagers are struggling a bit, or are a bit disenchanted with grammar, use
metalanguage.
- False
9. A needs analysis is a process of finding out what needs a learner has.
- True
10. Function is what a word does in a sentence.
-T

Module 3

Unit 1 and 2 questions and answers:

1.. In the presentation stage of PPP, which of the following should come first?
- Model sentence
2. A role-play activity is an example of a task appropriate for which stage of PPP?
- Production
3. The majority of your lesson should focus on the ‘Practice’ stage. T/F?
- False
Unit 3
1.. In the TTT approach, what step comes first?
- Test
2. The TTT approach requires you to tailor your lesson to the students’ needs. T/F?
- True
3. The TTT method allows students to call upon their prior knowledge of the target
language. T/F?
- True
4. Once you’ve found a lesson planning method that suits you, you should always
stick to it. T/F?
- False
5. Task-based learning should involve a task which is…?
- Free
6. PPP, TTT and Task-based Learning are the only three styles of lesson planning.
T/F?
- False

Unit 4
1.. Extrinsic motivation is the urge to engage in a learning activity for its own sake,
for the enjoyment it provides, or the feelings of accomplishment it evokes.
- False
2. You don’t need to be motivated to motivate your learners.
- False
3. The motivated person yesterday may not be the motivated person today.
- True
4. Motivation is very strongly related to achievement in language learning.
- True
5. A motivated learner is discouraged by setbacks or apparent lack of progress.
- False
6. Students are more likely to be interested in tasks that relate to themselves or their
interests.
- True
7. Regular and formal assessment is not a very powerful motivator.
- False