general grammar midterm exam
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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
TEFL & ICT MA Program 2012 -2013English General Grammar Instructors: Dr. Mrs. Jennifer EvansMid. Term Exam Paper Dr. Youssef Tamer
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.
TEFL & ICT MA Program By Yassine AIT HAMMOU
TEFL & ICT MA Program 2012 -2013English General Grammar Instructors: Dr. Mrs. Jennifer EvansMid. Term Exam Paper Dr. Youssef Tamer
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
TEFL & ICT MA Program By Yassine AIT HAMMOU
TEFL & ICT MA Program 2012 -2013English General Grammar Instructors: Dr. Mrs. Jennifer EvansMid. Term Exam Paper Dr. Youssef Tamer
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
TEFL & ICT MA Program By Yassine AIT HAMMOU
سيارة جميلة فتى وسيم
TEFL & ICT MA Program 2012 -2013English General Grammar Instructors: Dr. Mrs. Jennifer EvansMid. Term Exam Paper Dr. Youssef Tamer
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.
TEFL & ICT MA Program By Yassine AIT HAMMOU
TEFL & ICT MA Program 2012 -2013English General Grammar Instructors: Dr. Mrs. Jennifer EvansMid. Term Exam Paper Dr. Youssef Tamer
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
TEFL & ICT MA Program By Yassine AIT HAMMOU
TEFL & ICT MA Program 2012 -2013English General Grammar Instructors: Dr. Mrs. Jennifer EvansMid. Term Exam Paper Dr. Youssef Tamer
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
TEFL & ICT MA Program By Yassine AIT HAMMOU
TEFL & ICT MA Program 2012 -2013English General Grammar Instructors: Dr. Mrs. Jennifer EvansMid. Term Exam Paper Dr. Youssef Tamer
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.
TEFL & ICT MA Program By Yassine AIT HAMMOU