English Grammar: Morphosyntactic Elements and Communicative Structures
Unit 12. Essential Morphosyntactic Elements in English. Basic Communicative Structures, Progressive Use of Grammar Categories to Improve Oral and Written Communicative Competence. 0. Introduction. The description of a language includes three components: phonology, grammar, and lexicon. Competent language users know how to pronounce words; they also know the grammatical rules which allow them to produce sentences, as well as words and how they operate. Current language techniques approach the teaching of grammar from a communicative point of view. In this unit, we will first look at the grammatical elements in English, then list the communicative functions of structures, and finally, the teaching and learning of grammar.
1. Essential Morphosyntactic Elements in English.
1.1. Morphemes.
The smallest grammatical units. There are free morphemes (those which can occur on their own as separate words: boy) and bound morphemes (those that cannot occur on their own. Morphological process: they refer to the way words are formed. Prefixation (an affix is placed before the base of the word. unhappy), suffixation (an affix is placed after the base of the word. happiness), conversion (a word changes its class without changing its form. Book (noun) to book (verb), compounding (two base forms are added together. Blackboard), reduplication (type of compound in which both elements are the same. Goody-goody), clipping (an informal shortening of a word. Ad- advertisement), blendings ( two words merge into each other. Brunch – breakfast/ lunch), acronyms (words formed from the initial letters of the words that make up a name. USA, UFO).
1.2. Words.
It is a minimal free form. Word classes: Nouns: its meaning and use is decided by determiners, it acts as the head of the noun phrase, it changes form to express singular/plural or the genitive case. Noun can be classified into: Proper (London), common (table), countable (pencil), non-countable butter), variable (boys), non-variable (sheep). Adjectives: These are words that specify the attributes of nouns. They are gradable because they can be modified by adverbs (very nice). They occur in the comparative (nicer) and superlative form (nicest). Verbs: words that denote a process or state of being. They are categorized into two groups: Lexical (the main verb in a verb phrase. They can be regular or irregular. They are capable of contrasts of tense, aspect, person, and number) and Auxiliary (restricted verbs in form and distribution). Adverbs: It modifies a verb by giving information about time, place, or manner in which an action takes place. Type: time and place adverbs (here, tomorrow) degree adverbs (very, quite). Sentence adverbs (maybe, perhaps). Determiners: They serve to specify the number and definiteness of nouns. Indefinite articles (a, an) Possessives (my, your), demonstratives (this, that) quantifiers (some, many), the definite article (the). Pronouns: They can be used to substitute a single noun. Personal (me), Possessive (mine), reflexive (myself), demonstrative (this, that), interrogative (why, which), relative (who, whose), indefinite (somebody). Prepositions: These are words that relate two parts of a sentence to each other. Time (after, since), place (in, on, at), logic (because, in spite of). Conjunctions: It is a word whose main function is to connect words or other constructions. Types: Coordination (and, or, but) subordination (if, when) conjuncts (so, however).
1.3. The Sentence.
They are units that are grammatically complete and semantically independent. The sentences are made up of elements: subject, verb, object, complements. Clause structure: intransitive (the film started. S+V), transitive (he played basketball S+V+O), intensive (I am Spanish S+V+C), complex-transitive (I found the exam easy S+V+O+C). Types of sentence: declaratives, interrogatives, imperative, and subjunctive.
2. Elementary Communicative Structures.
2.1. Form and Function.
Form refers to the grammatical structure (simple, present, continuous…) and function is the meaning and use of structures. The teacher will have to make decisions about what structure (form) to teach and what use (function) to give the structure.
2.2. Communicative Structures in Primary Education.
Communicative language teaching places emphasis on the use of language rather than on form. Mainly communicative structures: social conventions (greeting people, introducing oneself, asking about somebody, giving and thanking, apologizing), getting the listener to do something (command, polite request), giving and receiving information (identity, age, jobs, color, possession, weather, quantity…), expressing opinions and preferences (likes and dislikes), routines.
3. Progressive Use of Grammar Categories to Improve Oral and Written Communicative Competence.
The main objective is learning to use the language. When teaching grammar, the following procedure is suggested: Select the grammatical structure (form) to teach, and what use (function) the structure is to be put to. Present the new language in a context that is familiar to the learner. Visual support is very important to help convey meaning. Teach the spoken form, and introduce the written form only when the students can pronounce it well. Plan activities to practice the language (controlled activities) and then get the students to do activities to use the language more freely (communicative activities). This procedure can be divided into the three main stages: presentation, practice, and production.
3.1. Presentation Stage:
Students are introduced to the form, meaning, and use of a new language item. Using a taped dialogue, using visuals, using realia, miming the situation.
3.2. Practice Techniques:
Once the students understand a new grammatical structure, they need to practice it to absorb the structure and learn it correctly. The activities at this stage are controlled by the teacher. Oral practice: drills (guessing games, competitions), interaction activities (guided dialogues, questionnaires). Written practice: written drills (substitution tables), parallel writing, dictations, consolidating grammar (gap-filling, multiple-choice, word order), and discovery grammar activities.
3.3. Free Production:
Students must be encouraged to use language freely, without teacher control. During this stage, pupils develop confidence and fluency. Oral communicative activities: information-gap activities, communicative games (find your partner), role-play, following instructions, describing personal experience, problem-solving activities, discussions, reaching a consensus. Written communicative activities: writing instructions, short messages, letters, diaries. Writing questionnaires, cooperative writing (story), communicative games (the hangman), describing pictures, projects works.
3.4. The Teacher’s Attitude Towards Errors.
Errors must not be regarded as signs of failure, but as evidence that the student is working his way towards correct rules. The teacher’s attitude to error is of crucial importance for the learner. Corrections must be done positively and with encouragement. The teacher should first explain the error and then devise a series of activities (oral and written) to practice the problematic linguistic forms.
4. Conclusion.
There is no doubt that the knowledge of grammatical structures is essential to master a language. A learner cannot use words unless he/she knows how and when to use them. Learning a language requires the knowledge of both the form and functions of that language. Language teaching based entirely on learning correct language structures is meaningless, since it has little to do with the nature of language, which is communication. Contemporary methodology encourages us to teach grammatical structures for real communicative purposes. This can be done by maintaining a balance between activities that focus on accuracy (practice activities) and those that concentrate on fluency (communicative activities).