General grammar midterm exam

TEFL & ICT MA Program 2012 -2013English General Grammar Instructors: Dr. Mrs. Jennifer EvansMid. Term Exam Paper Dr. Youssef Tamer

It is worth stating from the outset that learning a second or a foreign language is of

paramount importance in everybody’s life broadly speaking and in the educational progress

track of learners and employed in particular. Personally speaking, learning a second

language and/or a foreign one has always been a significant inspiring experience in my life as

once a learner, then later as a teacher then now as both.

This mixture or combination of learning and teaching roles has enabled me to look at

the teaching and learning of a second language from different varied perspectives, those

from the learner’s eyes and the others from the teacher’s. it also helped me first consider

the difficulties critically and rationally I once had as a learner approaching learning a second

language and then second to seek better ways to teach a second or a foreign language to my

current and future learners in a more professional and inspiring way, but this time as a

teacher. Teachers always teach, yet, they do not teach the same way for the simple reason

that they embed more or less certain different theories in a practical way in their teaching

based on their different personal experiences regarding learning and teaching a second

language both as learners and teachers. Therefore, the fact that English grammar has its own

set of complicated rules and regulations makes it a tough language to master. A good

number of students struggle with these rules. These exacting and tricky rules and challenges

make it necessary for any teacher of English to have a formal training in teaching practices

and methods. It is not enough to have sufficient skills in listening and understanding the

language only. Even a native speaker of the English language requires a methodical and

intensive training program to qualify as a good teacher of English as a foreign language. In

this narrative paper, I will shed light on my experience in learning a second and a foreign

language including a discussion of certain English grammatical structures that I have studied

TEFL & ICT MA Program By Yassine AIT HAMMOU


so far this year in comparison and contrast to English, French and Arabic languages that I

have learnt at school. The focus will be mainly on these grammatical structures: adjectives,

adverbs, determiners and negation. I will also give some room to reflect upon the teaching

demonstrations, lessons and activities I have seen so far and how effective they are to

students in the Moroccan context.

To begin with, adjectives in English seem to have simple structures and are easier to

understand and use than it is the case in French and Arabic. While in English the same

adjective form can be used with masculine, feminine, singular and plural with no change in

the form, adjectives in French and Arabic are of more complex structure. An adjective must

agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies. French and Arabic adjectives

therefore have four forms: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural and

feminine plural. The masculine singular is also an adjective's basic form, which is listed in

dictionaries. The feminine singular is normally formed by adding -e to the basic form. In the

example below I will compare some adjectives from French with other adjectives in English

regarding the difference in terms of the forms of adjectives:

Examples:

French English Un homme élégant* An elegant* man

Une femme élegante* An elegant* womanUn bureau Lourd* A heavy* desk

Une voiture lourde* A heavy* car

*elegant and heavy have got the same form for both man (masculine) and woman (feminine)

* élégant / lourd (masculine)/ élégante / lourde (feminine) have got different forms for referring to different genders.



The plural of adjectives in French is normally formed by adding -s to the singular

(masculine and feminine respectively). However, in English adjectives keep the same form

whether the noun they modify is singular or plural as you can see in the examples below:

French EnglishSingular Plural Singular Plural

Un home riche des gens riches A rich man Rich menUne belle femme Des belles femmes A beautiful woman Beautiful women

These complicated rules and structures make it often difficult and confusing for

students learning French as a second language as the case in Morocco. They noticeably find

out such a big difference between these two languages when they start learning English for

the first time. Personally speaking, I had hard time understanding and learning how to

correctly use adjectives in French in different learning stages of my life from primary stage,

through middle and high school stages to college stage. The thing I have never encountered

learning adjectives in English.

Most adjectives in French, when used attributively, appear after their nouns: le vin

rouge ("the red wine"). A number of adjectives (often having to do with beauty, age, or size

…etc) come before their nouns: une belle femme ("a beautiful woman"). However, some

adjectives change position depending on their meaning, sometimes preceding their nouns

and sometimes following them. To give an example, un homme grand means "a tall man",

whereas un grand homme means "a great man".

However if we have a look at Arabic, all adjectives occur after the noun.

English: A beautiful car A handsome boy



Sayaratun jamilatun waladun wassim

Arabic:

As far as adverbs are concerned, as in English, adverbs in French are used to modify

adjectives, other adverbs and verbs or clauses. Most adverbs are derived from an adjective

by adding the suffix -ment to its feminine form (-ment is analogous to the English suffix -ly),

though some adverbs are derived irregularly just like the case with irregular adverbs in

English.

Let’s see more examples showing this similarity between English Adverbs and French

Adverbs:

English FrenchPeter walks slowly Peter marche doucement

Tom speaks quickly (quick + ly) Tom parle rapidement (rapide + ment)

Thus, from my personal perspective based on my personal learning background

regarding French as my second language and English as a foreign language, I think that the

use of adverbs in French is somehow easy and

As for negation, I can shed light on some similarities and differences between English

and French regarding this grammatical structure. Again here, negation in English seems to be

plain and easier than negation in French which sounds complex. French usually expresses

negation in two parts, with the particle ne attached to the verb, and one or more negative

words that modify the verb. Negation encircles a conjugated verb with ne after the subject

and the negative adverb after the conjugated verb. However in English negation words

usually occur after the subject and before the main verb. See the examples below


سيارة جميلة فتى وسيم

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_particle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverb


Examples:

French Englishje ne sais pas I do not knowIl ne fume pas He does not smoke

This difference makes some learners make mistakes by misusing certain grammatical

rules when they get grammatical interference from French to English. I have personally

noticed, throughout the 6 year of my teaching, lots of mistakes done by students. Some of

those are shown in the following: I know not … / I have not … / I watched not…

However, there are certain structures with negation words which are the same in both languages, English and French like in the given examples below:

French EnglishIl ne fume plus. He does not smoke anymoreNous n'avons vu personne. We did not see anybody

Another similarity is that it is possible for rien and personne to be used as the subject

of a sentence, which moves them to the beginning of the sentence (before the ne) just like

the case in English:

French EnglishRien n'est certain. Nothing is certain.Personne n'est arrivé. Nobody came.

Another grammatical structure where differences are well manifested between

English and French are articles and determiners. In French, articles and determiners agree in

gender and number with the noun they determine; this inflection is made in speech as well

as in writing. Perhaps for this reason, they are required in French much more often than in

English.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determiner_(linguistics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_(grammar)


French has three articles: definite, indefinite, and partitive. The difference between

the definite and indefinite articles is similar to that in English (definite: the; indefinite: a, an),

except that the indefinite article has a plural form (~some). The partitive article is similar to

the indefinite article, but is used for uncountable nouns.

ArticlesFrench English

le, la, (definite) the (definite) un, une (Indefinite) a, an (Indefinite)

In English articles be it definite or indefinite are used with both masculine and

feminine, however in French there is a distinction between masculine articles and feminine

ones. Le and un for masculine and la and une for feminine. This makes it again hard for

learners of French as a second language to use the appropriate article with certain words.

This personally happens to me that I sometimes get confused whether to use masculine or

feminine article with a particular word. Yet, in English it is much easier to use definite and

indefinite articles with words.

English: the house, the car, the boy, the book, a man, a woman,

French: La maison, la voiture, Le garçon, Le livre, un homme, une femme

As regards the activities and techniques we have been exposed to during General

English Grammar presentations so far, I believe all of them are interesting and motivating in

the sense that they all without exception tried to involve the learners in such a dynamic way

which I personally lacked in most of English Grammar classes I had at high school. Most of

my former teachers taught grammar as a set of rules to be understood, remembered and

mastered throughout immediate practical exercises in the textbooks or workbooks or on the



blackboard. I have not noticed much of contextualized situations where I and other former

learners could practice the newly taught grammatical structures in a vivid, motivating and

meaningful way. Thus, the techniques and activities my classmates have demonstrated and

conducted during the teaching of grammatical structures were rich, inspiring, effective and

practical. Role plays, scenarios, narrative short paragraphs, group activities, the use of power

point, videos, songs, …to name but a few were all helping in the hole understanding of the

grammatical structures. Besides, we as learners were much involved in the whole process of

the activities which was crucial in grasping the structures. Furthermore, the incorporation of

ICT in teaching was of great importance, help and motivation for all of us. It also saved much

of in-class time which we have seized for better reflections about our learning. However,

before in the past, there was not much focus on the group activities. Most of exercises were

done either individually or sometime in pairs. Finally, I entirely believe that such activities

are surely effective for teaching my students and also suitable for the English teaching in

Morocco which has witnessed remarkable changes gearing toward more use of varied

activities along with authentic learning materials and ICT potentials and facilities to create an

appropriate learning context for learners in order to be good communicators and

distinguished producers.

All in all, teaching English grammar to learners of English as a second or foreign

language is not an easy task to do. Therefore, Teachers have to be prepared for the most

bizarre mistakes learners may come up with at any time, and need to know how to handle

these delicate situations appropriately. Opting for suitable effective methods, techniques

and approaches is mandatory nowadays. Teachers know best their students and are called



upon to make their best in making their classrooms a better space for authentic learning to

take place. They should not forget that the ultimate goal after all is not just using certain

grammar mechanics to come up with correct sentences, but how well they can use the

language learnt as one entity for effective communication in real contexts.


Education

General grammar midterm exam