Countable Versus Uncountable Nouns

  Let's begin our examination of parts of speech with nouns. Nouns are our naming words. They name a person or people, such as Jack, Jill, brother, Prime Minister. We have a place or places such as kitchen, Tokyo. Things or the things around us: pen, light, camera. We have our concepts and ideas: beauty, democracy. These people, things, places and concepts fall into two basic subcategories. Those subcategories are countable and uncountable. As their name suggests, the differentiation here is whether or not we can count our nouns or if we cannot count them. We have our countable nouns: dogs, pens, are two examples. The very nature of the words means that we can count these nouns one dog or 5, 10. Then, we have our uncountable nouns. The nouns that cannot be separated: music, bread....  [Read more]

  In this TEFL/TESOL review video trainees Emma and Angelo discuss their experiences during the third week of their course in Phuket. They outline some of the course assessment components and they talk about their teaching practice sessions and how much they valued the experience. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next. Classroom Management unit is a very important one because it is one of the most important and continuous role a teacher has to take...  [Read more]

  Mary from the US took the 120-hour TEFL course with tutor support and videos after being recommended the course by her friends who are already teaching. In this TEFL review video, Mary discusses her experience of taking the course. Mary found the course videos to be helpful in presenting the course materials in a more visual way, which helped her to better absorb the information. She also found the tutors to be very responsive to her questions often replying within 24 hours. One of the main benefits of the course was that Mary was able to study in her own time enabling her to fit study around her job. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that...  [Read more]

  Here we look at the difference between "less" and "fewer". This set of words is often used incorrectly and we decided to take a closer look at the difference to help you avoid mistakes. The key difference is that the word "less" is used to refer to uncountable things while "fewer" is used to refer to countable things. Keeping this in mind will help you figure out which word to use in all situations. Remember the '10 items or less' line at the supermarket" Well, it's actually a mistake. If you are purchasing several items then these items are countable, which means the checkout should be called the ?10 items or fewer" line. Other examples of the difference between the two words are "I have been to fewer countries than you" (countable),"I have less money than you" (uncountable)....  [Read more]

  In this video we explain the difference in using "amount" and "number". The word "amount" is used when we want to refer to uncountable commodities such as water, electricity, money etc. Whereas, "number" is used to refer to individual things that are countable such as book, cat, chair etc. In the example "a greater amount of people are going to the gym" the use of "amount" is incorrect because we can count "people". In this case "number" needs to be used. A good example of the use of "amount" is "a greater amount of rain came down in November compared to October". Here "rain" is uncountable so "amount" should be used. Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into...  [Read more]

  And now we'll have a look at our articles. We can divide articles into these groupings: indefinite, using a or an, definite, using the, and oftentimes referred to as the zero article, is actually the absence of an article all together. With the indefinite article, we use it in a nonspecific way. "This is a pen," it's one of many pens. When using the definite article, we use it in a specific way. "This is the pen I'm using." We also use the indefinite article when mentioning something for the first time. "I have a boy and a girl." We use the definite article when mentioning that same thing an additional time or any additional times we mention it. So "I have a boy and a girl. The boy is eight and the girl is six." With the zero article, we don't use an article at all. We use it to...  [Read more]