New Milford, Pennsylvania TESOL Online & Teaching English Jobs

In this unit we learned about the parts of speech, covering the basic sentence, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, articles, prepositions and conjunctions. Within each of these parts of speech there are subset types, some with grammar rules to follow and some that are without rules and simply need to be memorized. Nouns name people, places, things, and abstract ideas. Examples are Tim (proper noun), kitchen (common noun), family (collective noun), lifejacket (compound noun), and love (abstract noun). Within nouns, there are countable and uncountable nouns. This means, as the name suggests, whether or not they can be counted--and some can be both countable and uncountable depending on the context of the sentence. Examples of countable nouns are apple(s) and mirror(s). Examples of uncountable nouns are music (you can't say, "a music", or "musics" but you can say, "some music"). Nouns also have their plural forms, and whether you add an "s", "es" or "ies" depends on the ending of the noun. If it ends with ch, sh, x or s you add "es" (watches, dishes) and if it ends in a consonant plus y you would drop the y and add "ies" (fairy to fairies). There are many irregular exceptions, like tooth to teeth, child to children, and there are no rules for these exceptions. Adjectives describe a noun, and there is a logic to the order in which multiple adjectives are listed to describe a noun. The order goes: size, age, color, material. Example: A big, new, grey, and soft blanket. There are comparative adjectives, which you can typically add "er...than" to the adjective, such as "stronger than", and "smarter than". However, if the word is a consonant, vowel, consonant, such as "sad", you would double the last consonant to say "sadder than". Adjectives with more than two syllables like "beautiful" do not add er, but add "more" in front, such as, "more beautiful". There are also the superlative forms of these adjectives, which you typically add "est" to, such as "shortest." But if the adjective is three syllables or more, like intelligent, you would add the word "most" in front to say, "most intelligent." Similar to the comparatives, you may need to double the last consonant or drop the y and add an i (hottest, easiest). Verbs are words that describe an action, and the action can either be doing (things we can see), or a state (things we cannot see). For example, "working" vs. "owning". There are transitive and intransitive verbs, where the transitive verb is followed directly by an object, like "Joe watches the television," and where the intransitive verb cannot be followed directly by an object, like "Susan is sleeping." There are four verb forms, which are the base form (run), the past simple (ran), the past participle (ran), and the present participle (running). Many of the most common verbs are irregular, and therefore there is no rule to follow here. There are also adverbs, with describe the verb. The are five main types of adverbs, which are time, manner, degree, place, and frequency. These are typically treated by adding an "ly" to the end of the word, such as "quickly running," or "softly singing". If the adverb ends in a y, the y will be dropped and "ily" is added, such as "easily jumped". Adverbs are normally placed after the object of the transitive verb, and immediately after the intransitive verb. When there are multiple adverbs in a sentence, the common rule to remember the order is place-manner-time. Next I learned about pronouns, which can replace the noun in the sentence. There are a few different types of pronouns and students of different nationalities often confuse them. There are personal, possessive, reflexive, and relative pronouns. Personal pronouns can either be the subject or the object in the sentence, for example "I went to the store" vs. "The store owner yelled at me". Possessive pronouns are used to show the object is in possession of the subject, as in "The chair is hers". Reflexive pronouns are myself, herself, itself, etc. and relative pronouns are used to connect clauses in a sentence, such as "The glass that I see is blue". There are two types of articles in English, definite (the) and indefinite (a, an). We use a definitive article when speaking about a particular member of a group, like "The balloon is red." If you are not talking about a particular balloon, you might say something like "I saw a balloon today." If you're mentioning something for the first time, you typically use the definitive article, and then the next time you mention it in a following sentence you would use the indefinite. There are geographical rules about when to use "the" that need to be memorized. There are also several rules to follow to know whether to use "a" or "an" before the noun. You use "a" when it is followed by a consonant or consonant sound, such as "a bike", "a cupcake". You would use "an" when it is followed by a vowel, such as "an envelope", "an itch". Lastly, if the article is followed by a plural noun, you would actually use the word "some", like "some candles". Gerunds are the ing form of a verb that is taking the place of a noun, and is used how the noun would be used in the sentence. An example is "Holly is taking the test". Prepositions show a relationship between a noun or pronoun and some other word in the sentence. There are three main types, which are time/date (The test is at 3:00pm), movement (I am driving over the bridge), and place/position (My water is beside my bed). Students often struggle with these concepts because there is no common placement of them. Lastly, conjunctions can either join words in the same class or group, such as "I like peas and potatoes", or "The bus is loud but also fast," or conjunctions can join clauses of sentences, such as "I am fit because I work out."