Download the more the most - waltergbyerseslpages

79
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS: A GUIDE FOR ESL TEACHERS: HOW
TO TEACH THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF ENGLISH
IRREGULARITIES IN MODERN ENGLISH
In Chapter 3 of my thesis, I presented the analysis of my survey carried out at the
beginning of the school year 2008-09 in the Charlotte Mecklenburg School System. I sent
surveys out to ESL teachers working at high, middle and elementary level schools. I sent
out ten surveys to high, middle, and elementary level schools respectively. After the
surveys were sent out, I sent the ESL teachers weekly e-mail reminders, asking them to
please submit their feedback. Unfortunately, I got back only ten replies after six weeks.
From the ten surveys, six surveys were by elementary teachers (60%), one by middle
school (10%), and three by high school teaches (30%). The Charlotte Mecklenburg
Schools have a hundred and one elementary schools, thirty-three middle schools and
thirty-four high schools. On the whole, there are a hundred sixty-eight schools at CMS.
Since I got back only the surveys of ten teachers working at different schools, their
feedback represents 6.8 % of 168 schools (http://www.cms.k12.nc.us/allschools/
allschools.asp).
Analysis of the surveys returned shows that the teachers who teachers who replied
the most were elementary teachers, then high school teachers and finally, middle school
teachers. Personally speaking, I was surprised by this result. I believed that high school
teachers would be the teachers who would have replied the most and elementary teachers
the ones who would have replied the least because I consider high school teachers are the
ones who would benefit the most from this Guide for ESL Teachers. In addition, high
80
school students’ schemata are richer than elementary students,’ and when learning a
second language, high school students have developed more metacognitive strategies to
acquire a second language than a student at the elementary level, and they use strategies
which are successful to them in their use of their L1 to learn English as their L2. For
example, elementary school students do not ask as many questions regarding why the
simple past of break is broke, or why the plural of goose is geese and not gooses.
Students in elementary school absorb the language as it is taught to them in a natural
way. However, teenagers enquire and want a reasonable explanation to their questions.
Many reasons might account for why not all thirty ESL teachers returned
the survey. CMS Schools employ many VIF teachers from different countries who are
mostly ESL teachers and work at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for one, two, or three
years and leave the United States again. One ESL teacher sent me an email and told me
that she was new at CMS and that she did not feel confident or experienced enough to
complete the survey. I replied, telling her that her experience from her home country was
welcomed as well. However, this teacher did not submit her survey. As was this case with
this teacher, other teachers may have felt the same way.
Another assumption might be that the survey was too long (ten pages) and
required an informed consent to be read and signed. Completing a survey of ten pages
long might be discouraging for some people. The survey also had a holistic overview
regarding different difficulties ELL learners encounter when learning English as a second
language. Furthermore, since the survey considered categories such as grammar,
semantics, and syntax; provided different examples; and focused thoroughly on different
81
difficulties ESL students may have in the acquisition of English as a second language, the
thorough analysis might have been too long for busy teachers to complete.
In order to create the booklet “A Guide for ESL teachers: How to Teach the
Historical background of English Irregularities in Modern English,” I have compiled data
and recommended different websites, links to assist ESL teachers in different areas such
as pronunciation or grammar. Some websites have videos, which are a useful tool to use
in class to practice the four domains (reading, listening, speaking and writing) in the
acquisition of the English language.
I have organized the guidebook in two parts. The first part includes the areas of
irregularities that ELL students have difficulties with in English: grammar, semantics,
syntax, phonology, orthography, and punctuation. The second part focuses mainly on
difficulties encountered in the English language by students of particular nationalities.
Activities to foster English are grouped by nationalities, such as exercises for students
from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Spanish-speaking countries. This section of the guide
offers different kinds of exercises taken from a variety of websites. In addition, it lists
different web sites to use in class to foster the learning of English in the different
domains.
In the survey, one of the teachers suggested including notes related to the
different cultures of the students in the ESL Program. This is the reason that I have
included different articles written by Judie Haynes, as her articles are very explicit on
how to relate with the culture of different ELL students in different situations. Her
articles are a useful and meaningful source of data for any ESL teacher and are useful to
share with mainstream teachers, who have ELL students in their classes. Her articles deal
82
with topics such as facts or fictions in the different cultures and myths of second
language acquisition.
Furthermore, I also have included a list of web sites to be used by ESL teachers
in class. In general, students love to use technology, and in the twenty-first century,
students must be able to use a computer, and the Internet is mandatory for students to be
successful in this competitive world. The different web sites provide a variety of
exercises for ESL teachers to use with their students and videos to practice pronunciation,
fluency, or English grammar.
The usefulness of this guidebook will depend on the frequency and the manner in
which ESL teachers will use it in class. Only time will tell how effective this guide will
be once teachers begin using it, and only then will I be able to test the first research
question of my thesis: Would a teacher’s guide focused on English irregularities be used
by ESL teachers?
Eventually, I will know if having a guide with the historical background of
English irregularities will help ESL teachers explain the irregularities of the English
language in a more meaningful way or not, and if, consequently, whether or not this
guide will be useful to ELL learners in the acquisition of English as a second language. In
addition, I will be able to find out if ESL students will become more engaged in the
acquisition of English as a second language, and if by knowing the historical background
of English irregularities, students will remember English exceptions when they have to
use them.
The second research question of my survey was
83

What kinds f English irregularities cause the most struggles for the ESL
students in class?
This question was partially answered by the ten surveys that I got back. Because
of the small number of surveys I got back, the question of my hypothesis was answered
to a certain level but not completely. A larger percentage of completed surveys is needed
to have a holistic representation of the reality of the difficulties ELL students have while
learning English in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. However, I hope the guide will be
meaningful and useful to ESL teachers working with students from different nationalities
at CMS or in other school systems.
According to the data from the Home Language Summary Report & LEP
Enrollment, October 1, 2007, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System has 23,019
language minority students and 17,035 Limited English Proficient Students, and on the
whole, 119 different languages are spoken and 141 different countries represented at
CMS schools. (http://www.cms.k12.nc.us/departments/ESL/PDF/FastFacts.pdf)
With regard to the nationalities of the ELL learners, the teachers reported their
students are from Asia (Vietnam, China, Korea, Iran, Jordan, Russia, Saudi Arabia)
Africa (Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia), Central and South
America (Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Chile, Puerto Rico, Guatemala,
Nicaragua) and Europe (Republic of Moldova, Italy, Ukraine). Twenty-one countries
were named in the survey out of one hundred forty-one.
Languages belong to different families (for example, Indo-European, Uralic,
Afro-Asiatic, the Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, and so on). Each family has unique
grammar, syntax, phonology, orthography, and rules that vary from the rules and systems
84
of other languages. If languages belong to the same family (for example, English,
German, Danish belong to the Germanic languages) they share some common traits since
they are descendants from the same parent language. However, if two languages belong
to two different families (for example, Mandarin belongs to the Sino-Tibetan and Spanish
belongs to the Romance languages), these two languages have completely different
orthography, phonology, grammar, etc. The more differences between two languages, the
wider the language distance between them; consequently, students will have more
challenges to acquire the other language, as there are no commonalities between them
(Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyama, N., 2007, p. 488-491).
Considering the language distance, ESL teachers reported that students from
Liberia, Vietnam, Dominican Republic of Congo, India, China, Taiwan, Korea, Germany,
Mexico, and other Spanish speaking countries have difficulties in categories such as
grammar, semantics, syntax, phonology, and orthography. The nine countries named at
the beginning of this paragraph out of one hundred forty-one have been mentioned to
have the most difficulties in the different categories.
With regard to students from Asian countries, the outcome of my survey reported
that students from India have problems with the /r/ sound. Students from China, Taiwan,
Korea have problems with the pronunciation of [l] and [r]. Some Vietnamese students or
Montanards have problems with all areas due to lack of prior education. Vietnamese
students have problems with the diagraph /-sh/ in initial and final position. Most ethnic
groups have difficulties with the diagraph /th-/ in initial and final positions, with omitting
definite articles (the), and with inflecting verbs. One teacher reported that Asian students
85
have just about every issue since their language does not come from either German or
Romance languages.
Concerning students from Africa, students from Liberia have problems with verb
tense and subject/verb agreement. Some Liberian students who speak British English find
some differences in the meaning of some of American words, and some of the Liberian
students speak with a bit of a French dialect. Some students from the Democratic
Republic of Congo have trouble with pronouncing the initial [h] sound. For example,
they pronounce /hear/ like [ear]. Some students from Somalia and some English
language learners who are refugees have problems in every area due to lack of prior
education. Students from other African countries such as from Senegal have difficulties
with subject-verb agreement in English.
According to the survey, ELL students are more likely to have difficulties with
irregular verbs, use of false cognates, adding the /es/ sound in front of words beginning
with /s/, such as in school. They also have difficulties with pronunciation, such as in not
confusing the consonants /g/, /j/, /h/, /s/ and /z/, in the pronunciation of English vowel
sounds, especially /i/ and /e/. In addition, Spanish speakers have difficulties with /ð/ and
// sounds, and the pronunciation of the inflection /-ed/ to regular verbs endings (/d/ /t/ or
/ It/ sound) whether to add an extra syllable, as in “planted” or not as in “loved.” Spanishspeaking students also have difficulties with mastering subject verb agreement, tense
formation, placement of adjectives before nouns, and other grammatical rules.
Furthermore, one ESL teacher stated that Hispanic students have the easiest time of all
foreign students because of the similarities of some of the English words with Spanish,
since Modern English is made up by 80% of Romance language words, 15% Germanic
86
words and 5% of other languages. Nevertheless, the Germanic sounds and spellings of
some English words are difficult for Spanish-speaker learners. Furthermore, this ESL
teacher reported that the correct use of English pronouns and the -s as plural are issues,
too.
Regarding students from European countries, survey respondents stated that
German students have difficulties with pronouncing the sounds /w/, /v/, and // or /ð/.
One teacher stated that most students from different nationalities, especially Romance
languages, have difficulties with these three sounds. In the survey, ESL teachers stated
that they consider it important to include in this ESL guide the historical background of
the following English exceptions or irregularities

Irregular verbs

Irregular nouns

Frequent misuse of articles (“a,” “an,” “the”)

Frequent misuse of singular/plural nouns and verbs

Difficulty with homonyms and knowing when to use which word/finding
correct meanings

Difficulty with synonyms

Why final /-ed/ sometimes is pronounced as an extra syllable and why
sometimes it is not
Taking into consideration the outcome of the survey by ESL teachers, and the
academic needs ELL students have to acquire English as a second language, I compiled
different resources to explain the historical background of the irregularities of the English
87
language. Additionally I added a variety of websites and online exercises to give students
extra practice. My research has resulted in the following booklet:
A Guide for ESL Teachers: How to Teach the Historical Background
Of English Irregularities in Modern English
Valeria Scherf
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Kathy Lyday-Lee
Greensboro College
88
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
The Purpose of the Booklet
.
.
.
.
.
88
Part I: Categories of English Irregularities Students Struggle
in ESL
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
91
Grammatical Category
.
.
.
.
Nouns .
.
.
.
Compounds .
.
.
Synonyms
.
.
.
Demonstratives
.
.
Adjectives
.
.
.
Adverbs
.
.
.
Doublets
.
.
.
Personal Pronouns
.
.
Interrogative and Relative Pronouns
Semantic Category
.
.
.
.
.
.
91
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
95
99
100
102
103
106
108
108
111
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
114
Phonological Category
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
115
.
.
117
The Great Vowel Shift (The Renaissance 1500 – 1650)
Syntactic Category
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
122
Word Order
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
126
Punctuation Category .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
128
Orthographical Category
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
134
Part II: Difficulties by Nationalities .
.
.
.
.
.
.
135
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
135
140
143
148
.
.
.
.
.
149
.
.
.
.
.
153
Students from Asian Countries.
.
Students from African Countries
.
Students from Spanish Speaking Countries
Students from European Countries .
Useful Websites for an ESL Class
.
.
Characteristics and Tips about Different Cultures
89
The Purpose of this Booklet
A teacher of English knows how difficult it is to some ELL (English Language
Learners) students to learn and acquire the English language as a second language
because English as a vast and varied lexicon, whose spelling of many words includes
clusters of consonants or diagraphs as well as orthography that can be pronounced in a
variety of different ways (e.g. ough in words like through, ought, enough, and though).
Furthermore, the English language has only five vowel symbols but multiple ways to
pronounce each one. To make the language even more difficult for native and second
language speakers alike, its grammar has many types of rules, but also many exceptions,
which make up a long list of irregularities.
An ESL teacher does not have to become a linguistic expert or philologist, but to
be a more effective teacher, he/she should know the origin and the most influential and
relevant developments of the English language, as well as changes it underwent through
time. In this way, an ESL teacher will be able to understand the English language and
transmit this useful knowledge to his/her students. Having this background knowledge
that explains the irregularities and exceptions of English will help ESL students better
understand this complicated language, and perhaps English exceptions will no longer be
an unexplained mystery to ESL students. In addition, both teachers and students will
appreciate the richness of the English language, ESL students will deepen their
knowledge of English, and ESL teacher will be able to unveil to their ESL students the
secrets of the language during its interesting historical lifespan. This knowledge will help
teachers understand traits of English during its evolution and will help teachers apply this
90
knowledge in class with the end goal of helping their students succeed in the acquisition
of English as a second language.
In preparing this booklet, “A Guide for ESL teachers: How to Teach the
Historical Background of English Irregularities in Modern English,” I have compiled data
and included exercises from different websites, as well as links to assist to ESL teachers
in various areas of pronunciation and grammar. Some websites have videos, which are a
useful tool to use in class to practice the four domains: listening, reading, writing, and
speaking in the acquisition of the English language.
I have organized the guidebook in two parts. The first part includes the different
categories that ELL students have difficulties with: the acquisition of English
irregularities in the areas of grammar, semantics, phonology, syntax, orthography, and
punctuation.. The second part focuses mainly on difficulties encountered in the English
language by students of particular nationalities. Activities to foster English are grouped
by nationalities, i.e. exercises to help students from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Spanish
speaking countries. This section of the guide offers different kinds of exercises taken
from a variety of websites and lists websites to use in class to foster the learning of
English in the different domains.
Additionally, data from my research indicated including notes related to the
different cultures of the students in the ESL Program. For this reason I included different
articles written by Judie Haynes, since her articles are very explicit on how to relate to
the culture of different ELL students in different situations. Her articles are a useful and
meaningful source of data for any ESL teacher and should be shared with mainstream
91
teachers who have ELL students in their classes. Her articles deal with topics such as
facts or fictions in the different cultures and myths of second language acquisition.
As additional resources, throughout the guide I include websites to be used by
ESL teachers in class. In general, students love to use technology, and in the twenty-first
century, it is mandatory for students to be able to use the computer and the Internet to be
successful in this competitive world. The different websites provide a variety of exercises
for ESL teachers to use with their students, even videos to watch in class and to practice
pronunciation, fluency, or English grammar.
The suggestions for areas of practice in this guide have come from ESL teachers
in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System and represent issues raised in the
elementary, middle and high school classrooms for ELL students.
The aim of this booklet has been to provide useful, historical knowledge of the
English language to ESL teachers, to enable them to help to their students comprehend
the way this language function. Furthermore, to create consciousness of the importance of
the English language has had, and it has in the global world we are living nowadays. The
usefulness of this guidebook will depend on the frequency and on the manner which ESL
teachers use it in class.
Finally, this booklet exemplifies specific difficulties ESL students from particular
nationalities have in their acquisition of English as a Second Language. The aim will be
to assist ESL teachers in helping their ELL learners of different nationalities with the
difficulties they encounter, which are particular to the ethnic group they belong.
92
Part I: Categories of English Irregularities Students Struggle in ESL
Grammatical Category
Regular and Irregular Verbs
Historical Background.
The Old English language is the language that resulted from different dialects
spoken by Germanic tribes which moved to England around the year 449 AD. One of the
characteristics of the Anglo-Saxons’ language was that their verbs were classified as
weak or strong. On one hand, the weak verbs formed their past tense and past participle
by adding a dental –ed syllable to the stem of the verb, and later on, these verbs came to
be called regular verbs. On the other hand, the strong verbs formed their past tense and
past participle by modifying the root vowel of the stem of the verb, and they are now
known as irregular verbs. These strong verbs were grouped in seven different groups, and
even though they are called irregular verbs today, they presented a type of regularity in
each group in Old English. Each group presented a regular sequence in the way the root
vowel of the stem changed or not in the past tense and in the past participle. In Old
English, there were only three hundred strong verbs. In Middle English, when French was
the prestige language in England, through analogy and leveling many of these strong
verbs became regular ones, or their usage stopped among the English speakers. However,
in Modern English, the seven different groups among the irregular verbs still exist. In
some groups, the vowel of the verb is the same in the past tense and in the past participle
(break, broke, broken), and in others the vowel is the same (hit, hit, hit). The peculiarity
of the strong verbs of having different vowels in different stems of the same word is
93
called gradation or ablaut. Gradation is a characteristic of Teutonic verbs to distinguish
tense (Baugh, & Cable, 2002, p. 60).
In Old English, the verb in the past was different in the singular and in the plural.
In other words, the first and third person singular had one vowel, whereas the second
person singular and first, second and third persons in the plural had another vowel in the
past tense of the verb. Consequently, in Old English, verbs had four forms: the infinitive,
the preterit singular (first and third person), the preterit plural, and the past participle
(Baugh, & Cable, 2002, p. 60).
Baugh, & Cable (2002), provided the following examples of the differences in the
seven groups in Old English are illustrated in the following chart:
Infinitive
Preterit
Preterit
Past
Singular
Plural
Participle
I.
drīfan
(drive)
Drāf
drifon
(ge)drifen
II.
dēosan
(choose)
cēas
Curon
coren
III.
helpan
(help)
Healp
hulpon
holpen
IV.
beran
(bear)
Bær
bæron
boren
V.
sprecan
(speak)
Spræc
spræcon
aprecen
VI.
saran
(fare, go)
fōr
Fōron
daren
VII.
feallan
(fall)
fēoll
fēollon
feallen
(p. 60)
Linguists and philologists tried to explain the origin of the dental suffixes –ed,
which are found in the past tense and in the past participle of regular verbs, but the origin
of this dental suffix is still uncertain; however, many Old English verbs belonged to one
important group of verbs that formed their past tense by adding –ede, -ode, or –de to their
present stem, and by adding –ed, -od, or –d to their past participles. Examples are
94
Verb
Preterite
Past Participle
fremman
(to perform)
Fremede
Gefremed
Lufian
(to love)
Lufode
Gelufod
Liibban
(to live)
Lifde
Gelifd
(p. 61)
Through time and the process of analogy, the weak conjugation has become the
predominant one, and all new coined verbs and verbs borrowed from other languages
became regular verbs and are conjugated as such.
Verbs: Middle English (1150 – 1500)
In this period, English verbs underwent a leveling of inflections and the
weakening of endings following the general tendency of the time. The language suffered
serious losses of strong verbs, even though this group had always been smaller in number
than the weak verbs. Only a few verbs developed a strong past tense or past participle by
analogy with other verbs. Borrowed verbs or new ones formed from nouns and adjectives
became regular verbs. Only a few strong English verbs survived after the Norman
Conquest, as many took the weak inflections or were lost (Baugh, & Cable, 2002, p.
162).
Many of the Old English strong verbs that survived until the Renaissance became
weak verbs or disappeared. Examples of strong verbs that developed weak forms are
bide, crow, crowd, flay, mow, dread, sprout and wade. Some verbs had a strong and weak
form and they alternated their use. Examples are waxen – waxed, sew – sowed, gnew –
gnawed, holp – helped. Another group of verbs were weak at that time, but they became
strong verbs later on. Examples are blowed, growed, shined, shrinked, swinged. Those
verbs that remained strong suffered alterations in the past tense and past participle. Some
95
of the irregular verbs had a past tense different from the one we have currently, like
brake, spake, drave, clave, tare, bare, sware. Bote was the past of bite (like write –
wrote) and the participle baken was used in the Bible more than baked. Brent and brast
were common forms for burnt and burst. Wesh and washen were the past tense and past
participle of wash until the 1590s. All these examples illustrate that in Shakespeare’s time
the use of inflections in verbs was more flexible and less rigid than nowadays (Baugh, &
Cable, 2002, p. 247 – 248).
If you wish to learn more details about the evolution of the Modern English verbs,
please, refer to Baugh, & Cable, (2002), p. 60-61, 162, 245-248.
Exercises
Place the correct form of the past simple or present perfect form of the verb in the blanks.
Example: Henry …wrote…… (to write) his paper last night.
1. I……………………. (to go) to Salisbury this morning, but I ……………. (to
come) back after noon.
2. Tom…………………… (have) a terrible flu, but he is feeling better now.
3. Where is my cell phone? I ……………………(leave) it on my desk, but someone
…………………..(take) it.
4. My parents…………..….. (speak) German at home, but
…………………..(forget) most of it.
5. Richard………………………….. (work) at his company since 1998.
6. “Where’s your cell phone, Ana?” “I don’t know where I left…. (leave) it. I’ve lost
it…. ” (lose)
7. Karen …………………………….(go) to see her parents in Australia, but she
96
……… (come) back again last Monday night.
8. “Where’s Patrick?” “He ………………………………. out to pick the mail (go).
He’ll be back in a few minutes.”
9. I ………. (take) German at school but I…………………………………………
………………… most of it (forget)
Exercises to help students with regular and irregular verb forms can be found at
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/verbs.htm
Nouns
Regular and Irregular Plurals
Historical Background
In Old English, plurals had more than one way to show a plural form in its nouns.
At that time, a variety of inflections were used such as, -as, -u, -ru, -a, -an, or the plural
was shown by a change of a vowel in the noun, or the noun had zero plural. (Freeborn,
D., 1998)
During the time of Chaucer (1343-1400), for example the noun mūð (mouth) had
the following inflections:
In the singular:
Nominative mūð
Genitive
mūðes 
Dative
mūðe
Accusative
mūð
97
In the plural:
Nominative mūðas 
Genitive
mūða
Dative
mūðum
Accusative
mūðas 
(Baugh, & Cable, 2002, p.159)
The –s ending in the possessive singular and of the nominative and accusative
plural was a distinctive inflection in the nouns at that time. The –s in the nominative and
accusative plural was commonly used, and people started identifying the –s as a sign of
the plural. Eventually, by analogy, this -s was added to nearly all nouns as a sign of the
plural (Baugh, & Cable, 2002, p. 160).
In Old English (450 – 1100), nouns had a strong and a weak declension. At the
beginning of Middle English, there were generally two ways to show the plural in nouns:
-s or –es in the strong masculine declension and –en in the weak declension (oxen,
children). Baugh, & Cable (2002) state that in the south of England, the –en form was the
preferred form, and this inflection was added even to nouns that had a strong declension.
However, the use of –s spread quickly in England as a sign of the plural. Originally, its
spread started in the north of England. In the year 1200, -s was the inflection of the
standard plural in the north and in the north Midland areas. By the year 1250, -s began to
be used as the standard plural in the rest of the Midland, and by 1300 it was adopted in all
England (p. 160).
In the case of irregular plurals such as, man – men, goose - geese, tooth - teeth,
and foot- feet, these nouns are from the Anglo-Saxons and have been part of the English
language since Old English, and form their plural by having a vowel mutation or umlaut.
98
Mutation was not a characteristic exclusively of the plural in Old English, since it was
also found in the dative singular, and in the nominative, vocative and accusative of the
plural.
Singular
Plural
Nominative, Vocative and Accusative
fōt
fēt
Genitive
fotes
fota
Dative
fet
fotum
By analogy, the mutation found in the nominative, vocative and accusative started to be
seen as a sign of the plural. Other examples of mutation in English are mouse – mice,
louse – lice. However, this mutation is not found in house – hice (Emerson, 1912).
The noun moose is not affected by the mutation of the previous Germanic nouns,
as moose is an animal common in North America and in Eurasia (In the German
language, this animal is called Elch). Moose is a borrowed word from the Native
American Algonquian tribe, originally from the Ottawa River valley of Canada
(http://www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/moose/page.html).
Another set of confusing plurals involves the null or zero plural, nouns that
undergo no change from the singular to the plural forms. These irregular plurals are Old
English neuter nouns that had no ending in the Nominative or Accusative plural and have
remained unchanged to the present time. Irregular null plurals have subgroups with
different particularities. One subgroup is formed by plurals such as deer, sheep, swine,
meat. In Middle and early Modern English, such examples are more frequent, and many
of them still occur in occasional usage or in certain expressions. Thus folk, head, horse,
pound, and yoke are sometimes used as zero plurals, but with exceptions. Another
99
subgroup is formed by irregular plurals such as night and month. The word night is an
unchanged plural in sennight, fortnight; month in the expression “a twelve month,” and
pound in “a ten pound note.” Partly by analogy of these unchanged plurals, partly
because of a tendency to use certain words in a collective sense, nouns of measure,
whether native or borrowed words, sometimes remain unchanged after numerals.
Examples are brace, bushel, cannon, couple, dozen, fathom, foot, gross, mile, quire,
ream, ton. Measurement phrases do not use the –s or –es inflections as in the case of
three mile and ten pound in Modern English. The use of this zero plural in this type of
phrases was already recorded in works of literature in Middle and in Modern English. An
example is taken from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, “The nearest white settlement
warnt nearer nor four mile.” In addition, adjectival constructions with measurement
phrases such as a five-pound box of candy do not have –s plural in English
(http://www.bartleby.com/61/44/P0384400.html).
Another class of irregular plurals includes nouns ending in voiceless /f/ or /th/, as
wife, and bath. In all such words, the final /f/ or /th/ was voiced before a vocalic ending in
Old and Middle English, and this has remained in the plurals of certain words, or
occasionally in the genitive of compounds, as in calves-head. Other words have assumed
new plural forms with voiced /f/ or /th/ by analogy of the singulars, especially words
containing short /i/ or /u/, which show no change of consonant. This change of /f/ and /th/
originally belonged only to Teutonic words, but one French word, beef, shows a similar
voicing of /f/ in the plural. As words in final /f/ and /th/ show changes of these letters in
the plurals, we should expect final s to be voiced in similar circumstances such as in wolf
100
– wolves, half – halves, scarf – scarves, bath – baths, cloth – clothes, loath – loathes
(Emerson, 2005, p. 299).
Another interesting irregular double plural is child > childru >children. In Old
English, ċild “child” was a neuter Anglo-Saxon noun whose ending was –ru, a marker of
the r-stems in Old English. In the German language, types of nouns such as child are
known as z-stems. According to Algeo, and Pyles (2004), “the z, which became r by
rhotacism, corresponds to the s of Latin neuters like genus which also rhotacized to r in
oblique (nonnominative) forms like genera” (103). Childer was used in the dialects of
British English. However, in Standard English the plural of childer is children, which
ending –en is added to child by analogy with other nouns which had –en from Middle
English such as eyen “eyes,” housen “houses,” shoen “shoes,” and treen “trees.” In
Middle English, -en plurals were numerous, more especially in the Southern dialect. In
the Midland dialect they were also more common than today, for Chaucer uses such
forms as ashen “ashes,” pesen “pease,” hosen “hose,” foon “foes,” been “bees,” toon
“toes.” Such words, however, have become regular, except for dialectal forms, which
sometimes occur. (Emerson, 2005, p. 299-300, Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p. 103, 143).
Compounds
In modern English, words like steamboat, railroad, electric light, sewing
machine, one-way street, are examples of self explaining compounds. These are
compounds of two or more native words whose meaning in combination is either selfevident or are clear by association and usage. This type of words is particularly prevalent
in Old English and many words are formed under this pattern. For example, we have
101
leohtfæt lamp (leoht light + fæt vessel), medu-heall mead-hall, dægred dawn (day-red),
ealohùs alehouse, ealoscop minstrel, èarhring earring, eoþcræft geometry, fiscdèag
purple (lit. fish-dye), fõtãdl gout (foot-disease), gimmwyrhta jeweler (gem-worker),
fiellesèocnes epilepsy (falling-sickness) (Baugh, 1957).
Synonyms
Historical Background
Since its very beginnings, English borrowed words from other languages and added
them to its own lexicon. Through the centuries, the lexicon of English expanded in such a
way that it ended by being a world language with one of the richest and comprehensive
vocabularies. In Old English, English had already adopted many words from Latin, and
after the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror, England was trilingual. Latin was
the language used at church, Norman French was used for governmental matters, and
English was the language of most of the English people (Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p.125).
For these reasons, words from different origins but with similar meanings were common.
According to Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary (2009), “A synonym is a
word or phrase that has the same, or nearly the same meaning as another word or phrase”
(p. 969). Synonyms are a problem to ELL students because using the right word in the
right context is a challenge to any writer, but especially to an ELL student, who has to
have a wide range of vocabulary to be able to replace a word by another one with nearly
the same meaning in an appropriate context. Furthermore, taking into consideration that
English words have their own background, usage, function, and meaning, I dare say there
are not two words with the same exact meaning.
102
According to Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary (2009), “A synonym is a
word or phrase that has the same, or nearly the same meaning as another word or phrase”
(p. 969). Synonyms are a problem to ELL students because to use the right word in the
right context is a challenge to any writer, and further more to an ELL student. ELL
students have to have a wide range of vocabulary to be able to replace a work by another
one with nearly the same meaning in an appropriate context. Furthermore, taking into
consideration that English words have their own background, usage, function, and
meaning. I dare say there are not two words with the same exact meaning.
Exercise
Choose seven synonyms of the word “happy” to complete the following diagram
thoughtful - glad – jubilant – sensitive - excited – kind - mindful – sympathetic –
positive – thrilled - cheerful - content - delighted – interested – hilarious - precious
HAPPY
Exercises to help students with synonyms can be found in the following links,
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/structures/synonyms.htm
http://www.une.edu.au/elc/plagiarism/synex1.htm
http://pbskids.org/lions/games/synsam.html
103
Demonstratives
Historical Background
Old English had two demonstratives. The most common one was that, which in
Modern English can be replaced by the definite article “the” or the demonstrative
pronouns “that, those.” The following chart illustrates the demonstratives in Anglo-Saxon
time.
Masculine
se
Neuter
Feminine
Plural
Þæt
Sēo
þā
Nom.
sē,
Accu
þone
þæt
Þā
þā
Genit.
þæs
Þæs
Þære
þāra
Dativ.
þæm
Þæm
Þære
þæm
Instrum.
þý, þon, þē
þý, þon, þēn
(Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p. 106)
In Old English, there was gender distinction in the singular, but not in the plural.
The masculine and the neuter were the same in the genitive, dative and instrumental.
Eventually, sē, se and sēo were replaced by analogy by these forms þē/ þē and þēo. The
English determiner the originated from the masculine nominative þe, which previous
form was se. However, in comparisons such as “The sooner, the better,” the definite
article the has developed from the neuter instrumental form þē. Algeo and Pyles (2004)
translates the previous phrase as, “By this [much] sooner, by this [much] better” (p. 106).
That originated from the neuter nominative-accusative þæt, and the plural form those was
originated from the other demonstrative (p. 106).
104
The actual demonstrative singular this and plural these were not much used in Old
English. According to Algeo and Pyles (2004), they “had the nominative singular forms
þēs (masculine), þis (neuter, whence Modern English this), and þēos (feminine). In its
nominative-accusative plural, þās, developed into those and was confused with tho (from
þā), the earlier plural of that.” As a result, a new plural was developed for this in Middle
English, which was these (p. 106).
ELL students need to know that this and that are singular, and these and those are
demonstrative plurals. However, this and these are used to refer to objects that are close
to the speaker, and that and those to objects that are far away from the speaker.
Exercise: Use This/That/These/Those
Example: Those trees behind the house.
This red flower in the vase near me.
1. _________ flower over the hill.
2. _________ men by your side.
3. _________ children in your classroom.
4. _________ people in front of the mall.
5. _________ photograph in front of you.
Further exercises of demonstrative determiners (that- this- those – these) may be
found at
http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/exercises/main/grammar.html
Adjectives
Historical Background
105
In Old English, adjectives agreed with the number, gender, and case of the noun
they modified. Even more, the Germanic languages had a weak and a strong declension.
The weak declension was used when it was preceded by the two demonstratives and after
possessive pronouns, and the strong declension was used when the adjective was neither
following a demonstrative, a possessive pronoun nor when it was not in the subject of the
sentence. In the weak declension, -an was the most common inflection. In addition, weak
declensions had no gender distinction in the plural (Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p. 106-107).
The examples below for the foolish king illustrate these inflectional differences
Masculine
Nom.
se dola cyning
Acc.
þone dolan cyning
Gen.
þæs dolan cyninges
Dat.
þæs dolan cyninge
Ins.
þý dolan cyninge
(Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, 107)
After the Middle English Period, the inflections have been leveled and the only
grammatical distinctions are the word order and the comparative and superlative forms.
Comparatives and Superlatives
According to Algeo and Pyles (2004), Old English used the inflectional
morphemes –ra for the comparative and –ost for the superlative forms of adjectives.
Some exceptions used other morphemes, –ira and –ist, and consequently, they had
mutated vowels as in the case of lang “long,” lengra, lengest and eald “old,” yldra, yldest
(Anglian ald, eldra, eldest). At that time, there were already some comparatives and
106
superlatives that had exceptions from their roots in the positive, such as gōd “good,”
betra “better,” betst “best” and micel “great,” māra “more,” mæst “most” (p. 108).
In 2004, Algeo and Pyles reported that other superlatives were formed with a
different inflection –(u)ma- as in forma (from fore “before”). Eventually, this suffix with
m was not seen as a superlative inflection any more, and words like these started to add –
est by analogy to the root of the adjectives. As a consequence, double superlatives started
to exist as formest, midmest, ūtemest, and innemest as well as phrases such as more better
and most beautifulest. The ending –mest (the suffix was not –est) was confused as “most”
even in Old English. As a result, words such as foremost, midmost, utmost, inmost,
uppermost, furthermost, and topmost are found in English (p. 108).
Exercises Comparatives and Superlatives
Fill in the blanks with the comparative or superlative form of the adjective in
parentheses. Where necessary, add “the” before superlatives and “than” after
comparatives.
Example: The Ultimate Aero is the fastest car in the world (fast)
The Vatican City is the smallest country in the world (small)
1. The Bible is considered ______________________ book by millions of people (holy)
2. Saudi Arabia is ____________________ Brazil (hot)
3. Fruits and vegetables are ______________________ junk food (healthy)
4. Charlotte Douglas International Airport has ________________ flights than
Greensboro Airport (more)
5. Most European countries are __________________ South American countries (safe)
6. _____________________ hurricane storms occur during spring (bad)
107
7. My pet turtle is _____________ my cat (old)
Choose the correct answer
1 – The place was _________in the picture.
more beautiful than
beautiful as
beautiful than
2 – It was _____________beautiful place I’ve ever been to.
more
the more
the most
3 – Paul would like some___________information for his research.
farther
further
farther/further
4 – This is the _________hotel I’ve ever been.
Dirtiest
dirtier
more dirty
5 – The international train is __________ airplane.
Most expensive
the most expensive
more expensive than
6 – It was __________assignment I was ever given.
the most hard
the hardest
Either could be used here.
Adverbs
Historical Background
In Old English, adverbs had the ending affix –e, which was the instrumental case
ending as in the case wrāþ “angry,” wrāþe “angrily.” By 1390s, this final –e was dropped
108
as all the other –e’s in the adjectives, and consequently there was no more distinction
between adjectives and adverbs as they just looked the same such as in loud, deep and
slow. The inflection –ly began being used in Middle English because of the inflectional
decay of the /-e/ suffix. In Modern English, most adverbs differ from adjectives by
adding to them the suffix –ly. The following chart illustrates how adverbs evolved since
Old English
Old English
Middle English
Modern English
lēof-e - (lēofly)
lēoflice  lēoflic
lēofli  lovingly
(http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/advconprep.html)
Adverbs also had comparatives and superlatives in Old English. In the
comparative –or was used and in the superlative –ost was added to the adverb. Examples
are wrāþor “more angrily,” and wrāþost “most angrily” (Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p. 108).
ELL students have to learn that adjectives and adverbs are different parts of
speech and that they have different functions within a sentence. Adjectives modify nouns
and are usually placed before the noun. However, adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and
adverbs. There are a variety of types of adverbs (place, time, manner, frequency and so
on). Some adverbs can be placed at the beginning, or at the end of a sentence. Others can
be placed after the verb to be, or before lexical verbs. In addition, most of the adverbs are
an adjective plus the suffix –ly.
Example: Ralph is careful.
Careful is an adjective and it modifies the proper noun Ralph.
Ralph drives carefully.
109
Carefully is and adverb with the suffix –ly and it modifies the verb drive.
Exercises: Adjective or Adverb in English
Fill in the words in brackets as adjective or adverb like in the example.
Example: Paul drives ______ (careful)
Answer: Paul drives carefully (adverb)
1. He drives a _______ car (quick)
2. She sings the song ______________ (beautiful)
3. Peter types the letter _____________(well)
4. Mary is a ____________ teacher (good)
5. The football game is ____________loud today (terrible)
6. You can complete this exercise (easy) _______________
To do further exercises related to adverbs or adjectives go to the following link,
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/interact/esladjadvEX1.html
Doublets
In 1933, Emerson stated, “Another change affecting English as other languages is
the formation of doublets; that is, words that may assume two different forms owing to
difference in stress or to dialectal differences (p. 140). Examples of doublets are pen –
pin, Jim, gem, gym, Mary – marry.
Personal Pronouns
Historical Background
110
Since Old English, personal pronouns are the part of speech that undergone the
least simplification in the English language. On the contrary, the two genitive forms are
more complex today than they were in Old English.
Singular
Dual
Plural
Nominative
Ic “I”
wit “we both”
wē “we all”
Accusative-
mē “me”
unc “us both”
ūs “our(s) (all)”
mīn “my, mine”
uncer “our(s) (both)”
ūre “ours (s)
Dative
Genitive
(all)”
Nominative
þūs “you (sg.)”
git “you both”
gē “you all”
Accusative-
þē “you (sg.)
inc “you both”
ēow “you all”
þīn “your(s)
uncer “your (s)
ēower “your(s)
(sg.)”
(both)”
(all)”
Dative
Genitive
(Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p. 109)
In Old English, the dual form was used when referring to two people, but this
form stopped to be used by the end of Old English. Until Modern English, English had
the second person singular (th-forms) and the second person plural nominative (ye). In
addition, the usage of genitives of the first and second persons disappeared as well as the
strong adjectives. In Modern English, gender appeared in the third person singular forms
Masculine
Nominative hē “he”
Neuter
Feminine
Plural
Hit “it”
hēo “she”
hī “they”
Accusative
hine “him”
Hit “it”
hī “her”
hī “them”
Dative
him “him”
him “it”
hire “her”
him, heom “them”
Genitive
his “his”
his “its”
hire “her(s)
hire, heora “their(s)”
(Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p. 109)
111
Hine was the masculine accusative used in the southwestern dialects of British
English as [ən]. Example “Didst thee zee un?” (“Did you see him?” (OED. s.c. hin, hine).
In Modern English, she is believed evolved from hēo. The pronunciation of hēo was
similar to the masculine pronoun he, which caused confusion. As a result, not even the
feminine accusative hī survived (Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p. 109).
In some dialectal forms of Modern English, the neuter hit is still used when
stressed and at the beginning of a sentence. Because the h in neuter hit was unstressed,
this h disappeared in Standard Modern English. The genitive its appeared in Modern
English, but it is not a development of Old English form his (Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p.
109).
Regarding the third person plural forms, only the dative form reached to Modern English.
Algeo and Pyles (2004) stated, “it is the regular spoken, unstressed, objective form in
Modern English, with loss of h- as in the spoken, unstressed, objective form in Modern
English, with loss of h- as in the other h- pronouns- for example, I told ‘em what to do.”
The pronouns them, they and their are remnants of the Scandinavian legacy in the English
language (p. 110).
Exercise 1
Use the correct personal pronouns, referring to the words in brackets.
Example: _______ often fixes computers (Simon)
Answer: He often fixes computers.
1. ___________ is driving to Florida this weekend (Michelle)
2. ___________ are watching the game on TV now (the children)
3. ___________ was born in Zurich two years ago (Mark)
112
4. ___________ was longer than expected (the training course).
5. ___________ became friends in a foreign country (you and I)
Exercise 2
Which pronoun can substitute for the underlined phrase in the sentence?
1. The Mom gives to her children candies after leaving the shop.
me
them
you
2. I am telling the story to my young nephew
her
us
him
3. I didn’t know Romina’s address.
it
you
her
4. They phoned your wife while you were in your break.
her
us
you
5. Can you open the door for my sister and me, please?
us
them
her
Interrogative and Relative Pronouns
Historical Background
The interrogative pronoun hwā “who” had a singular and two gender forms.
Masculine/Feminine
Neuter
Nominative
hwā
Hwæt
Accusative
Hwone
Genitive
hwæs
(who)
Hwæt
(whose)
Hwæs
(what)
113
Dative
hwæm, hwām (whom)
hwæm, hwām
Instrumental
hwæm, hwām
hwy
(Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p. 110)
According to Algeo and Pyles (2004), “Hwā is the source of our who, hwām of
whom, and hwæt of what. Hwone did not survive beyond the Middle English period, its
functions being taken over by the dative” (p. 110). Whose originated from hwæs and it
was influenced by the interrogative pronouns who and whom. Why derived from the
instrumental neuter hwy. In addition, English had other two interrogative pronouns,
which were hwæðer (which of two) and hwilc (which of many). Furthermore, they even
had inflection forms as strong adjectives. Hwā (who) was only an interrogative pronoun
in Old English, and was not a relative pronoun. At that time, the relative pronoun was the
participle þe, which was only singular. If þe was preceded by sē, it was used as a
compound relative (Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p. 110).
ELL students have difficulties in distinguishing the use of the pronouns who and
whom. Who is always used in the nominative and functions as the subjective complement:
Who is that man? (That man is who)
Whom is used as the object of the verb in a relative clause. For example
The woman whom I wanted to talk to was away on a business trip. (I wanted to
talk to her).
You can also use whom with a preposition:
Simon is the man to whom I sent my CV  I sent my CV to whom? Simon.
Exercises: Choose the Correct Answer: Who/Whom/Whose
1. The woman
(who/whom/whose) car was stolen is my friend.
114
2. I do not know
3. My professors, two of
(who/whom/whose) stole the jewelry at the mall.
(who/whom/whose) attended the TESOL
Conference in Charleston, are excellent professionals.
4. I am writing this letter to
5. Tom did not know
(who/whom/whose) it may concern.
(who/whom/whose) umbrella that was.
115
Semantic Category
English has some words, which are confusing to ELL students due to their
similarity in spelling and sounds such as accept –except, affect – effect, lead – led, there –
their – they’re, to – two – too, any way – anyway, any one – anyone, maybe – may be,
awhile – a while, all right – alright, already - already.
If you want your students to practice words such as these ones, please, refer to
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_spelhomo.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_spelprob.html
116
Phonological Category
The pronunciation of Old English words commonly differs from their modern
equivalents. However, it should be noted that the differences of spelling and
pronunciation that seem at first glance to be Old English, are not so prominent at a closer
analysis. Some strangeness of Old English for a current reader is caused simply by
differences of spelling. For example, Old English used two characters, the thorn [þ] and
the eth [ð] to represent the phonemes [ð] and [Ɵ], such as in the word wiþ (with) or ðã
(then). Neither of these symbols exist in Modern English, and the sound is spelled as a th.
Anglo-Saxons expressed the sound of [æ] in hat by a digraph /æ/, which is very frequent.
Old English vowels had a very different pronunciation before the Great Vowel Shift.
However, some consonants were similar to the ones in Modern English. For example,
Old English used two characters, sc, to represent the sound of [ʃ] as in scēap (sheep) or
scēotan (shoot), and the sound of [k] by /c/, as in cynn (kin) or nacod (naked). We can
infer that the following words were pronounced the same way by King Alfred as they are
pronounced today, even though they may look very different, orthographically: folc
(folk), scip (ship), bæc (back), þorn (thorn), bæð (bath), and þæt (that).
On one hand, one can say that differences of spelling are speculative rather than
real as they represent no difference in the spoken language, and the differences of
pronunciation obey certain laws (Baugh, & Cable, 2002, p. 55).
On the other hand, the English language is not a phonetic language, and some of the
spelling of its lexicon was already established before the Great Vowel Shift took place
(late 1400-1500 and completed by 1700). After the Great Vowel Shift took place, many
117
of the English vowel sounds no longer matched the written vowel spellings (Baugh, &
Cable, 2002, p. 239). As a consequence, the orthography of English words can be a real
challenge to ELL learners, and English is often criticized by its lack of coherence
between its spelling and pronunciation. Baugh and Cable (2002) state examples with the
vowel sound [i], “In English the vowel sound in believe, receive, leave, machine, be, see,
is in each case represented by a different spelling. Conversely the symbol a in father,
hate, hat and many other words has nearly a score of values,” (p. 14), regarding the
consonants Baugh and Cable add, “We have a dozen spellings for the sound of [ʃ]: shoe,
sugar, issue, nation, suspicion, ocean, nauseous, conscious, chaperon, schist, fuchsia,
pshaw” (p. 14). These are examples of why English is so difficult to master even to native
speakers, and the challenge is even bigger to ELL learners (p. 14).
Phonology is important in this booklet because the ELL students at our schools
may have a home language whose phonetic sounds may be different from the English
sounds. For example, Spanish does not have short or long vowels or the sound /z/.
Spanish speakers tend to add the /e/ sound to the words that begin with /s/ such as school.
Most Asian students have difficulties with pronouncing /r/ and /l/. CLD (Culturally and
Linguistically Diverse) students have difficulty in pronouncing //. English is a language
that has evolved greatly since Old English; however, it still has some remnants of Old
English such as its short and long vowels and most of the consonant sounds.
118
Modern
Middle English
Old English
[i] geese
[ē] gees
[ē] gēs
[e]acre
Aker
Bæcer
[ē ] great
Greet
Great
[o]boat
Boot
Bāt
[u] goose
Goos
Gōs
[au] mouse
Mous
mūs
[I] fish
Fish
Fisc
[æ] back
Bak
Bæc
English
(Algeo, 1972, p. 181 -183)
The Great Vowel Shift (The Renaissance 1500 – 1650)
At the time of Chaucer (1343 – 1400), the long vowels still had their
“continental” pronunciation, that is to say, /a/ was pronounced like [a] in father and not
as in name. /e/ was pronounced like the [e] in there or the [a] in mate, but not like the [e]
in meet. This patterned continued until late 1400s, when a great vowel change started to
occur. All the long vowels started to be pronounced with a greater elevation of the tongue
and closing of the mouth. Consequently, the vowels that could be raised were raised (a, e,
e, o, o) and those vowels that could not (i, u) became diphthongs. The following diagram
illustrates the vowel change:
119
(http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/gvs_chart2.html)
(http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/great-vowel-shift)
The exact reason for the Great Vowel Shift is still a mystery for linguists and
historians, and several have been suggested; for example, one hypothesis states that mass
immigration to South East England after the Black Death (1349), led to the different
groups to modify their speech to allow for a standard pronunciation of vowel sounds.
Another theory proclaims that the shift is a consequence of the rise of the middle class
after the Black Death. Regardless of the causes of the Great Vowel Shift, it had a
profound effect on the pronunciation of the language.
The effects of the shift can be seen in the following contrast between the
pronunciation of Chaucer and Shakespeare’s time:
120
M.E.
Chaucer
Shakespeare
(1343-1400)
ī
ē
[f ī:]
[me:de] – (schwa)
(1564-1616)
five
[faiv]
meed
[mi:d]
ā
[na:me] – (schwa)
name
[ne:m]
ō
[go:te[ – (schwa)
goat
[go:t]
ō
[ro:te]
root
[ru:t]
ū
[du:n]
down
[daun]
Before the vowel shift took place, most of the spelling of English words had
become fixed, and it remained the same even though the pronunciation of the long
vowels changed. This is why English vowel symbols no longer correspond to the sounds
they once stood for in English, as they do in phonetic languages like Spanish (Baugh, &
Cable, 2002, pp. 238 -239). This fact caused differences in pronunciation between
American and British English as well. Many American dialects contain words pre the
Great Vowel Shift, such as in the dialect found in New England.
If you want your students to exercise letter recognition sounds, please, refer to
http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/pawpark/pawpark.html
If you want your students to practice English vowels, consonant blends /–l/, /-r/, /s/, diagraphs /–ch/, /-sh/, /-ck/, /–nk/, /-ng/, /kn-/, /ph-/, /wr-/, /th-/, and /wh-/, please go to
Phonics on this link
http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/pawpark/pawpark.html
Homonyms
Historical Background
121
Homonyms are words, which do not have the same roots but have the same
pronunciation due to assimilation, or sound changes. Homonyms can be words that are
written in the same way, such as bear (noun), bear (verb), and words written in a
different way as bare, which are Teutonic words. English has a large number of
homonyms, which cause confusion to ELL learners. Examples are, blow (v), blow (n),
can (v), can (n), hide (v), hide (skin), hide (measure of land), dear (adj), deer (n).
Contamination and confusion of forms caused the origin of some homonyms.
Abide “wait for” derives from the O.E. word abidan; but abide with the meaning “suffer”
is from the O.E. word ābycgan “pay for,” which in Middle English was abyen, which was
confused with the previous word. Another example of confusion are the words bid “pray”
and bid “command” which come from O.E. biddan and bēodan. Other cases of English
homonyms are when the English language borrowed words, which were similar to ones it
already had. In fact, the large number of homonyms in English is a result of the
borrowing of words from other languages (Emerson, 1933, p. 140, 179).
Examples of homophones are
cite - sight- site
to - too - two
they- they’re – their-there are
flue - flew
it’s - its
he’s - his
read – reed - red- read (past)
lead (verb) - lead (noun)
sun - son
hole – whole
Complete the Sentences with the Correct Word
1. The_______________(cite – sight - site) of the place was simply marvelous.
2. Many baskets are woven with natural_________________ (read – reed – Reid).
122
3. Karen__________________ (flue - flew) to Washington DC last week.
4. The ___________________ (son - sun) rises in the east every morning.
123
Syntactic Category
English Syntax
Historical Background
Old English written style is different form Modern English. The latter one uses
long sentences with a variety of structures. Modern English writers use simple,
compound, complex coordinated sentences with nominal, adverbial, or adjectival clauses.
Subordinate sentences express grammatical and semantic relationships, and this style is
known as hypotactic style. However, Old English style is called paratactic and it is
characterized by shorter, simple sentences (Baugh, & Cable, 2002, p. 67).
Through its 1500 years, the English language was influenced by its conquerors,
invaders such as the Scandinavians and the French. Through time, the English language
was influenced mostly by Old German, Latin, Scandinavian, and by French. From these
languages, English not only borrowed words, but in some cases, they even modified the
English syntax and grammar. In addition, it is believed that the omission or retention of
the conjunction that is another remnant of the Danish language; the usage of shall and
will in Middle English was practically similar to the use of these two modal verbs by the
Scandinavians at that time (Baugh, & Cable, 2002, p. 103-104).
Even though there are some differences between the syntax of Old and Modern
English, there are also many similarities between both of them. Examples of differences
between Old and Modern English are
124
a. Many inflections were used to denote the function of words in a sentence by showing
case, number, and gender in nouns, adjectives, and pronouns (Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p.
116).
b. Adjectives had a strong and a weak declension, which showed “definiteness” and they
agreed with the nouns they modified (p. 116).
c. According to Algeo and Pyles (2004), “Numbers could be used either as we use them,
to modify a noun, as in þrītig scyllingas “thirty schillings,” or as nominals, with the
accompanying word in the genitive case, as in þrītig rihtwīsra, literally “thirty of
righteous men.” Such use of the genitive was regular with the indeclinable noun fela
“much, many”: fela goldes “much [of] gold” or fela folca “many [of] people” (p. 116).
d. The genitive inflection was used in Old English in sentences where Modern English
would use an of phrase, such as in þæs īglandes micel dæl “a great deal of the island,” or
literally speaking, “that island’s great deal” (p. 116).
e. In Old English, there were no articles. On one hand, Anglo-Saxons used the
demonstrative se “that,” or þes “this” instead of the definite article “the.” On the other
hand, they used the numeral ān “one” or sum “a certain” instead of the indefinite article
“a/an.” However, all these words used in Old English had a stronger connotation than
current “the” and “a/an.” As a result, Old English did not use definite and indefinite
articles in the way they are used in Modern English (p. 117).
f. In Old English, it was not common to combine verbs such as “have” and “be” with
participles as it is in Modern English as in have written or is writing. In addition, in Old
English did not exist verbal tenses such as the Present Perfect Continuous (have been
writing), however, one form of the verb such as writes and wrote was more commonly
125
used at that time than nowadays. As Old English, did not have a verbal tense as the Past
Perfect “he had come,” Old English used different adverbs of time, for example, to
convey the same meaning. Thus, instead of saying he had come, they said “Hē ær cōm,”
which means “He earlier came” (p. 117).
g. Old English used passive verb phrases as does Modern English. However, instead of
using a past participle, they used a simple infinitive. Algeo and Pyles (2004) report the
following examples, “Hēo hēht hine læran “She ordered him to be taught,” literally
speaking it means, “She ordered him to teach,” but meaning “She ordered (Somoeone) to
teach him,” in which hine “him” is the object of the infinitive læran “to teach,” not of the
verb hēht “ordered” (p. 117). Furthermore, Old English had another way to express
Modern passive and it was by using the indefinite pronoun man “one,” asin hine man
hēng “Him one hanged,” which meant “He was hanged” (p. 117).
h. Old English used the subjunctive more than Modern English. For example, Sume men
cweðaþ þæt hit sy feaxede steorra “Some men say that it [a comet] be a long-haired star”
(p. 117).
i. Impersonal verbs without a subject were also common in Old English. Algeo and Pyles
(2004) provide the following examples, “Mē lyst rædan “[It] pleases me to read” and
Swā mē þyncþ “so [it] seems to me.” The object of the verb (in these examples, mē)
comes before it and in the second example gave rise to the now archaic expression
methinks (literally “to me seems”)” (p. 117).
j. As Old English was a synthetic language, the subject of a sentence could be omitted if
it was clear by the context, and by the ending inflections of the verb or the clause after
126
the subject such as in Hē þē æt sunde oferflāt, hæfde māre mægen “He outstripped you at
swimming [he] had more strength” (p. 118).
k. However, Old English commonly used the subject twice in a sentence, one as a
pronoun and the other as a phrase or clause such as in þā þe þær tō lāfe wæron, hī
cōmmon to þæs carcernes dura “And those that were as survivors, they came to that
prison’s door” (p. 118).
l. Modern English uses the negative adverb preceded by the verb as in “I did not.”
Nevertheless, in Old English the negative adverb ne followed the verb, as in Ic ne dyde “I
did not.” As a result, the negative adverb contracted with certain preceding verbs such as
isn’t, won’t, or hasn’t (p. 118).
m. Even though Old English was not as structured as Modern English is, they syntax of
both was quite similar. In Old English, declarative sentences had already the pattern
subject-verb-complement order common in Modern English, such as in Hē wæs swītðe
sþēdig man “He was a very successful man” and Eadwine eorl cōm mid landfyrde and
drāf hine ūt “Earl Edwin came with a land army and drove him out.” Nonetheless, Old
English had a pronoun object preceding the verb instead of following it in a declarative
statement: Se hālga Andreas him andswarode “The holy Andrew him answered.” In
addition, in Old English, the verb preceded most of the times the subject when the
sentence started with Þā sealed se cyning him sweord “Then gave the king him a sword”:
Ne can ic nōht singan “Not can I nought sing” (I cannot sing anything). Likewise with
the German language, the verb was placed at the end of dependent sentences such as in
God geseah Þā Þæt hit gōd wæs “God saw then that it was good was;” Sē micla here, þe
wē gefyrn ymbe spræcon… The great army, which we before about spoke…” Even more,
127
Old English had also a verb-subject-complement order in their interrogative sentences,
however, they did not use auxiliary verbs as Modern English does as in “Do you have
any companion?” hæfst þū ænigne gefēran? “Hast thou any companion?” (p. 118)
n. Old English syntax was parataxis. Algeo and Pyles (2004) define parataxis as “the
juxtaposing of clauses with no formal signal of their relationship other than perhaps a
coordinating conjunction.” (p. 118). Examples are three sentences retelling a Greek
legend when Orpheus lost his wife Eurydice Dā hē foð on ðæt leoht cōm, dā beseah he
hine under bæc wið ðæs wīfes; ðā losode hēo him sōna “Then [when] he forth into that
light came, then looked he him backward toward that woman; then slipped she from him
immediately” (p. 118).
Word Order
In Old English Literature, variation in the order of subject, verb, and complement
was possible, as it did in Middle English, and it is still possible in Modern English as
well. Even the prose in Middle English period had the same syntax as it has in Modern
English. However, in Middle English a pronoun functioning as an object may be the
subject of the sentence, as in “Yef ðou me zayst, “How me hit ssel lyerny? Ich hit wyle þe
zigge an haste…,” in other words, “If thou [to] me sayest, “How one it shall learn?” I it
will [to] thee say in haste…,” and it Modern English it would be stated as “How shall one
learn it? I will say it to thee in haste…” (p. 149).
In Middle English, nouns could precede the verb in subordinate clauses) “And we,
þet… habbeþ Cristendom underfonge,” literally it means “And we, that… have Christian
salvation received.” Algeo and Pyles (2004) report “In Middle English, the object
128
regularly preceded the verb: me mette “(it) to me dreamed,” that is “I dreamed;” me
thoughte “(it) to me seemed” (p. 149).
Since Modern English is an analytic language, it makes extensive use of prepositions
and auxiliary verbs and depends upon word order to show other relationships. Syntax is
the part of grammar that establishes the correct structures of sentences. In 2007, Fromkin,
Rodman, and Hyams concluded, “The rules of syntax combine words into phrases and
phrases into sentences. Among other things, the rules specify the correct word order for a
language. For example, English is a subject-Verb-Object (SVO) language (p.116).
Modern English has seven basic sentence structures:
1. Subject + Verb
 Richard is working.
2. Subject + Verb + Direct Object
 I am typing a letter.
3. Subject + Verb + Subject Complement
 Sonia is a dentist.
4. Subject + Verb + Indirect Object + Direct Object
 I gave him a present.
5. Subject + Verb + Direct Object + Object Complement
 My parents gave me encouragement
6. Subject + Verb + Direct Object + Adverbial
They put their papers on the teacher’s desk.
7. Subject + Verb + Adverb
I am studying in my room
(DeCarrio, 2000)
129
Exercises
Read the sentences. If you find a mistake, rewrite the sentence by putting the words in the
correct order.
1. Tom her a special gift gave.
______________________________________________________
Correct as it is.
2. Is working Richard in his studio.
______________________________________________________
Correct as it is.
3. The kids put in the refrigerator the drinks.
____________________________________________________
Correct as it is.
4. Is baking Emma a cake.
___________________________________________________
Correct as it is.
If you want your students to exercise word order online, please refer to
http://www.fen.com/studentactivities/WallOfWords/wow19.html
Punctuation Category
A Brief History
At the beginning of writing, punctuation was not used, and there was not space
between the words. In the year 800 A.D. some dots were used between words in some
Roman monuments. In the third century B.C., the librarian in Alexandria started to use
130
the terms “comma,” “colon,” and “period” but their symbols were not the same as the
ones used nowadays, and these punctuation symbols were not very popular. When space
was used between words, its used was not established and it was random. By 1100 A.D.,
the hyphen started to be used when a word was split to go on in the line below, but this
was not very common as it is today.
“Paragraphs” started to be used by the Ancient Greeks, who split units of text by
drawing a horizontal line between other and called these lines paragraphos.
By 1600s, indenting started to be used in paragraphs. The Greeks even used an
outdent in paragraphs, which was called a hanging indent. Since their invention,
punctuation symbols have been used in different ways. For instance, during medieval
times marks such as section, dagger, double dagger were used for decorative purposes or
to cite other authors as footnotes are used nowadays.
In 1450s, the print, which was invented in Germany, influenced all the native European
languages. William Caxton learned the art of printing in Europe and introduced printing
in England. This process rapidly improved the existence of thousands of books and
pamphlets in English. Another consequence of printing is that punctuation was
standardized. Before this, punctuation was more connected to speaking than to reading as
only few people had books and knew how to read. At the beginning, punctuation was
used for rhetorical purposes, as when to pause or when to emphasize a word. When
printing was invented, grammarians started to establish the rules of punctuation based on
structure and not on sound. By the end of the 18th century, the English language was
practically established the way as it is today, and the rules of English punctuation were
131
also set in a standard way, even though, some changes still took place (http://www.nyu.
edu/classes/copyXediting/Punctuation.html#history).
The following example illustrates differences in the usage of punctuation signs
between Middle English and Modern English,
The thyrde temptation that the deuyl maketh to theym that deye. is by Impacyence: that is
ayenste charyte/ For by charyte ben holden to loue god abouve alle thynges.
In current English, the same phrase would be
The third temptation that the Devil makes to them that die is by Impatience; that is
against charity. For by charity be holden to love God above all things.
(http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/punctuation.htm)
As periods were used for both short pauses and full stops at the end of sentences
or paragraphs, it caused confusion, and thereby they stopped being used. In 1535,
Tyndale wrote his Gospels without using the unstable punctuation symbols by Caxton,
who introduced printing to England in 1476. After this writing, the stroke was replaced
by the comma and the semicolon was introduced in the sixteenth century as well.
At the beginning of the 1600s, writers used colons, semicolons and commas
randomly. These punctuation symbols were used to indicate a pause of breath while
reading, and they did no t have a syntactic function. At the end of the 1600s, writers
started to regularize the use of the comma, semicolon and colon. They determined that a
semicolon was used to show a pause greater than a comma but lesser than a period. Other
grammarians opposed these rules. One grammarian named Justin Brenan reported,
132
“What a quantity of useless controversial stuff has been written upon the proper
use of the semicolon and the colon -- but I am wrong in saying that it was useless for, at
last, common sense prevailed and the public threw these stops overboard.”
(http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/punctuation.htm)
Brenan had the intention to use the colon instead of the dash (-), as he justified his
intention by stating, "No one of good taste could use any other stop." Brenan opposed the
idea that punctuation symbols should be used only to indicate pauses, but supported the
idea that punctuation marks should be part of a the structure of a sentence.
At the beginning, the question mark was seen as a sign of interrogation. During
the 1600s, there was a debate whether an interrogative sign had to be used only directly
in a question or indirectly in an indirect question. Since the 18th century, the question
mark has been used only for direct questions.
Regarding the exclamation mark, this punctuation mark comes from the term note
of admiration, as a synonym to this Latin adjective, which shows a state of wonderment.
There are different theories to explain its origin, and one of them it is that it comes from
the Latin word for joy, Io, which was written with the I superscripted on the o.
The latest punctuation symbol added were the quotation marks at the end of the
1600s. Nonetheless, at this time, the bullets started to be used as the sign of a new
punctuation mark. Later on, some grammarians tried to present a new punctuation mark,
to represent a tone of a shocking disbelief, which was a blend of a question and an
exclamation mark (!? or ?!). However, this punctuation symbol did not succeed in its use.
English could have borrowed the Spanish system of punctuation marks at the beginning
133
of an exclamation or of a question, but it did not adopt it (http://www.sjsu.edu/
faculty/watkins/punctuation.htm).
Regarding to the history of the comma, a legend states that the comma was
invented in the third century B.C, and it derives from the Sanskrit language coma, which
means “the partial cessation of operation of thought/the brain.” During the Golden Age of
Greek, Hestrodostrophes, the ancient’s greatest Greek mathematician, invented the
comma, as a stop of thought. Hestrodostrophes’ purpose to create the comma was to
silence the talkative and loud Greek philosophers, at least for a short period of time. His
purpose of creating the comma was to break up thoughts and to split ideas.
Greek mathematicians also started to use the commas to separate digits. The
Greeks entered into a Golden Age and they spread their culture on other foreign people
who could not even read and write and less were aware of the punctuation signs.
Culturally speaking, the Romans were conquered by the Greek culture, and the Romans
took and spread the use of the comma in their writing system. The use of the comma
stayed in use during the whole period of the domain of the Roman Empire.
The next ones to adopt the comma were the monks and the clergy during the
Medieval Ages. Writing was an important part of their lives so the Medieval Monks spent
many hours in the writing of their manuscripts, as it shows it in the following paragraph,
There is nothing to stop things being named by reference
to others, if the name is a relative term, as when things
are said to be "in place" by reference to place, or
"measured" by reference to measure. But concerning
non-relative terms opinions have differed. . .
134
—Thomas Aquinas, from Summa Theologiae
(http://www.rms.hung-sun.com/s-pun.htm)
If you want your students to practice the rules about using commas and to
exercise where to put in commas in sentences, please, go to the following links,
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_commaEX1.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_commaEX2.html
History of the Semicolon (;)
The Italian printer Aldus Manutius the elder created the semicolon to separate
words which had different meanings, and to separate interdependent statements. In 1591,
semicolons started to be used in a more general way. Shakespeare used semicolons in his
sonnets and Ben Johnson included them in his writing system. The semicolon is regarded
as one of the greatest punctuation marks due to its elegancy (ttp://www.spiritustemporis.com/semicolon/history.html).
If you want your students to practice the use of comma vs. semicolon, please,
refer to the following link
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_commacompEX1.html
If you want your students to practice the function and usage of semicolons, colons,
dashes, quotation marks and italics, please refer to the following links
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_overw.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_overvwEX1.html
135
Orthographical Category
Some English words are difficult to spell by ELL students because some words
have an old and diverse background. For example, Algeo and Pyles (2004) report,
“Rhyme and rhytm are twin etymological respellings. English had borrowed rime from
Old French about the year 1200, but by 1560 scholars began to spell the word also as
rythme or rhythm and then a bit later as rhyme” (p. 159). The original word comes from
Greek rhythmos, Latin adopted it as rithmus or rythmus (Algeo, & Pyles, 2004, p. 159).
The consonant l has been added to the word fault (this word comes from Old
French, and in Middle English it was fuate). The l was added to fault because of Vulgar
Latin fallita and due to analogy of the word false (from Latin falsus). In the seventeenth
century, fault was pronounced without the l by analogy with ought and thought (p. 159).
If you want to practice spelling with your students, please refer to
http://teachersfirst.com/getsource.cmf?id=9594
http://www.barryfunenglish.com/games.html
http://www.barryfunenglish.com/enter/gamesTeamSpell.html
136
Part II: Difficulties by Nationalities
Students from Asian Countries
Based on my research, most Asian students have the following difficulties while
acquiring English as a second language.
India  Problems with the /r/ sound
China, Taiwan, Korea  pronunciation of [l] and [r]
Most ethnic groups have difficulties with beginning diagraph /th-/ and ending diagraph
with /-th/
Vietnamese students have problems with beginning diagraph /sh-/ and final diagraph /–
sh/
Omitting definite articles (the)
Inflecting verbs
They have just about every issue since their language does not come from either
German or the Romance languages
Some Vietnamese (Montanards) have problems with all areas due to lack of prior
schooling
To assist ESL teachers in teaching students from different countries from Asia,
the following exercises and grammatical explanations have been supplied to support ESL
teachers in class.
If you want your students to practice /r/ sounds, please go to the following links:
http://www.pronunciationworkshop.com/americanpronunciationdemo.htm
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1351365841?bctid=1457734532
137
If ESL teachers request the American English Pronunciation Training CD in this website,
they can acquire it to use it with their students.
If you want your students to practice the difference between /r/ and /l/, please
refer to the following websites:
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/sounds.htm
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/rl.html
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/minpair3.html
http://www.sayitright.org/R_Phonetic_Consistency.html
If you want your students to watch videos on the pronunciation of /l/, please go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG0GwIDm2qA&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNusRjkRD6k&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsn7diFVUJY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd9_ygTggtE&feature=channel
If you want your students to watch videos on the pronunciation of /r/, please go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AfpZgmc0VY&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lct-s0uXv0s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MVdyggqnus&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-HDqVSK0LE&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PJ2jZlVf-M&feature=channel
If you want your students to listen to the difference of pronunciation in minimal
pairs such as in
lot – rot, law – raw, climb – crime and to practice an /r/ - /l/ dictation, please go to
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/dict03.html
138
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/eslp025unit03.pdf
In order to listen to a dialogue and record your students while practicing /l/ and /r/
go to the following link
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/dialog03.htm
To exercise tongue twisters with /l/ and /r/ go to
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/twisters03.htm
Another useful website to practice the difference between /r/ and /l/ is:
http://www.manythings.org/mp/m11.html
If you want your students to practice Special Cases in the Use of the Definite
Article and its exceptions, please refer to
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/l2the.html
If you want your students to practice the definite article the, please refer to
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/nouns_articles/article_the2.htm
To exercise diagraph /th/, teachers can go to the following site
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/th.html
http://www.usingenglish.com/weblog/archives/000341.html
If you want your students to practice the sounds in ship and measure, they can use
the following link http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/shzh.html
To practice the minimal pairs /s/, /sh/, /ch/, such as
sip - ship, watched – washed, least – leashed teachers can go to
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/minpair5.html
To practice the sounds /s/, /sh/ and /ch/ teachers can use the following article
found on http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/eslp025unit05.pdf
139
To practice /Sh/ Sound in the Final Position, teachers can refer to
http://www.speechtx.com/articulation/sh_final.htm
http://www.quia.com/mc/335147.html
Even though English has been simplified through time, it still has a large number
of derivational and inflectional morphemes. In 2007, Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams
illustrated in a chart the following verbal inflectional morphemes
Verbal Inflectional Morphemes
-s
third-person singular present
Examples
He cook-s deliciously
-ed past tense
She work-ed hard to win the award
-ing progressive
They are play-ing in the garden now
(p. 99)
Exercise: Simple Present Tense
Add –s where it is necessary
1. The children ……………….. (study) Math in the mornings.
2. Paul………………………….(google) for data in the Internet.
3. Mary and Tom…………………………….(jog) daily five miles.
4. The engine………………………….(run) perfectly.
Circle the Correct Verbal Inflection
1. Karen brush_________ her hair before going to bed
-ing
-s
-ed
2. Mary is cook_______ spaghetti now
-ing
- -s
- -ed
3. John watch_________ a good movie last night
140
-ing
-s
-ed
4. The cat nap_________ on the cushion at siesta time
-ing
-s
-ed
If you want your students to practice verbal inflections in English, please go to the
following links
http://www.eclecticenglish.com/grammar/PresentContinuous1G.html
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentcontinuous.html
http://www.englishtenseswithcartoons.com/page/tenses/present_simple
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simple-present/use/exercises?05
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/tenses/simple_past_statements.htm
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/pasted1.htm
141
Students from African Countries
ESL teachers reported in the survey that students from Africa have difficulties in:
a. Liberian students  verb tenses
Subject/verb agreement
b. Democratic Republic of Congo (French speakers and others)  initial [h] sound.
They pronounce /hear/ like [ear]
c. Liberian students, who speak British English, use some words and meanings
differently than American English does, and some of these students speak with a
bit of a French dialect.
Somalis and other refugees have problems in every area due to lack of prior
education
Based on the feedback from the survey, the following websites with exercises and
grammatical explanations have been suggested in this guide, to assist ESL teachers with
students from African countries,
a. To assist students with verbal tenses, please go to the following links
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseintro.html
http://www.eslcafe.com/quiz/vtr.html
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs11.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs14.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs18.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs24.htm
If you want your students to practice verbal tenses, please refer to
http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseexercises.html
142
http://home.elp.rr.com/miguelcontreras/Verb%20Tense%20Practice%20Exercises.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_tensecEX1.html
http://www.englishtenseswithcartoons.com/
http://www.eslbee.com/verb_tenses.htm
If you want your students to practice subject verb agreement exercises, please
refer to the following websites
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAR/cgi-shl/quiz.pl/sv_agr_quiz.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslsubverbEX1.html
To practice more subject verb-agreement exercises your students can go to:
http://isu.indstate.edu/writing/esl/setvi/prints/SETVI3BP.html
http://wwwnew.towson.edu/ows/exercisesub-verb.htm
http://isu.indstate.edu/writing/esl/setvi/prints/SETVI3BP.html
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/elc/quiz/subverb1.htm
http://grammar.about.com/lr/exercises_in_subject_and_verb_agreement/131052/1/
b. If you want to practice the /h/ sound with your students, please refer to the
following websites
http://www.phonicsworld.com/letterh.html
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/pronunciation/eslp025unit13.pdf
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/h.html
c. If you want to practice American and British lexicon and grammar, please use the
following links to practice differences in the vocabulary between both American and
British English
143
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/languages/be_ae.htm
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/languages/be_ae2.htm
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/languages/be_ae3.htm
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/british_american/index.php
144
Students from Spanish-Speaking Countries
Based on my survey, most Spanish speaking students have the following
difficulties while acquiring English as a second language.
a. Mexico  Irregular verbs
b. Use of false cognates
c. Placement of adjectives before nouns
d. Subject verb agreement
e. Tense formation
f. Grammatical rules
g. Pronunciation of consonants /g/, /j/
h. Pronunciation of /h/
i. Pronunciation of /s/ and /z/
j. Pronunciation of vowel sounds, especially /i/ and /e/
k. Pronunciation of // /ð /sounds
l. Pronunciation of final /-ed/ sound (whether to add an extra syllable, as in
“planted,” or not as in “loved”
m. Adding /es/ in front of words beginning with /s/, such as school, when speaking
One teacher reported that Spanish speaker students have the easiest time of all
foreign students because of the similarities of some of the words with English. However,
the Germanic sounds and spellings of some English words are difficult for them, as well
as pronouns and the use of -s as plural.
a. If you wish to practice irregular verbs with your Spanish speaker students, please
refer to the following websites
145
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/irregular_verbs/crossword_6_7.htm
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/verbs.htm
b. If you wish to practice to false cognates, please go to the following websites
http://www.jccm.es/edu/eoi/almansa/martin_web/ex_ff.html)
http://www.autoenglish.org/gr.false.p.htm
In addition, if you wish to practice cognates in English with other languages, go to
the following web site
http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/englishcorner/vocabulary/vocabulary.html#cognatessite
Your students will be able to practice cognates with the following languages
English - German False Cognates
English – French False Cognates
English - Hungarian False Cognates
English - Italian False Cognates (List is about halfway down the page.)
English - Japanese False Cognates
English - Portuguese False Cognates
English - Portuguese, Portuguese - English Falsos Conhecidos
English - Russian False Cognates
English - Spanish False Cognates
Spanish - English Adjective False Cognates
c. If you wish to practice placement of adjectives in a sentence with your ELL
students, please go to the following links
http://www.world-english.org/adjectiveplacement.htm
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/adjectiv/ex5.htm
146
d. If you wish to practice subject verb agreement with your CLD students in class,
please, go to the following links
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/elc/quiz/subverb1.htm
http://isu.indstate.edu/writing/esl/setvi/prints/SETVI3BP.html
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAR/cgi-shl/quiz.pl/sv_agr_quiz.htm
e. If you wish to exercise tense formation with your Hispanic students, please go
to the following websites
http://www.smic.be/smic5022/tenseformation2.htm
http://www.ingilizceci.net/GrammarMaryAns/Yeni%20Klas%C3%B6r/gramch06.html
f. If you wish to practice grammatical rules in your ESL class, please refer
http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/englishcorner/grammar/grammar.html
http://www.itss.brockport.edu/~gsaxton/grammar.htm
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/index.html
g. If you wish to see teaching material to exercise the pronunciation of /g/ and /j/,
please refer to
http://esl.about.com/od/speakingintermediate/a/hardsoftcg.htm
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/gk.html
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/chdz.html
h. If you wish to practice the pronunciation of /h/, please go to the following
websites
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/h.html
http://www.phonicsworld.com/letterh.html
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/pronunciation/eslp025unit13.pdf
147
i. If you wish to practice the pronunciation of /s/ and /z/, please go to the
following websites
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/sz.html
http://www.english-zone.com/convo/pron-s1.html
http://eleaston.com/pr/s-z-Iz-pattern.html
http://englishland.or.id/03-conversation/012-english-pronunciation-of-s-and-z.htm
(video)
j. If you wish to practice the pronunciation of vowel sounds, especially /i/ and /e/,
please go to the following links
http://www.manythings.org/mp/m30.html
http://esl.about.com/od/speakingenglish/a/pr_shortv.htm
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/i.htm
k. If you wish to practice the pronunciation of // and /ð/ with your students,
please go to the following websites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxzieu-WXt4&feature=channel (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmSn3AyyVs0&feature=channel (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GOJ4eF5L94&feature=channel (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU_KK9_CPfM (video)
http://www.englishmeeting.com/esl_video_pronunciation_th.htm (video)
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/pronunciation8/index.php
http://www.usingenglish.com/handouts/365.html
l. If you want your students to practice the pronunciation of final /-ed/ in regular
verbs, please go to the following websites
148
http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/-ed.htm
http://www.englishmedialab.com/pronunciation/regular%20past%20pronunciation%20en
ding%20sounds.htm
m. Even though the Spanish language has words that begin with an “s” such as in
savia, sabia, sabia, sandía, sofá, sol, sandalía (salvia, wise, knew, watermelon, sofa, sun,
sandals), Spanish does not have words with /s/ in initial consonant blend words.
Consequently, Spanish students tend to mispronounce words such as school or state and
they pronounce [esku:l] or [esteIt] instead.
To help Spanish speaker students to improve their pronunciation of initial /s/, try
to practice initial consonant blend words that start with /s/, such as state, sports, scale,
slate, and so on. Please refer to
http://www.morewords.com/starts-with/st/
http://words-that-begin-with-sp.wordover.com/s/
http://www.webdictionary.co.uk/browse.php?browse=sc
http://wordnavigator.com/starts-with/sl/
If you wish to practice more initial /s/ sounds with your Spanish-speaking
students, please refer to
http://www.eslgold.com/pronunciation/consonant_clusters_s.html
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/pronunciation/sz.html
In addition, if you wish to read further more about common mistakes by Spanish
speaker students when acquiring English as a second language, please refer to
http://www.angelfire.com/fl/espanglishtips/
149
Students from European Countries
ESL teachers reported in their surveys that students from Europe have the
following difficulties when learning English as a second language
a. Germans  the pronunciation of /w/, /v/
If you want your students to practice the pronunciation of /w/ and /v/, please go to the
following links
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/eslp025unit06.pdf
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/eslp025unit06.pdf
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/minpair6.html
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/sayingwood.html (video)
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/twisters06.htm
b. The pronunciation of // and /ð/ is difficult by most speakers of European
languages, especially by Romance language speakers.
The following websites are suggested to assist ESL teachers with European students. If
you want your students to practice the pronunciation of // and /ð/ sounds, please refer to
http://www.usingenglish.com/weblog/archives/000341.html)
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/movie1.html (video)
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/twisters01.htm (video)
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/pron025Unit01.pdf
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/minpair2.html
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/twisters01.htm
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/dic02.html
150
Additional Websites to Be Used in an ESL Class
The purpose of this guide has been to provide useful, historical knowledge of the
English language to ESL teachers, to enable them to help to their students comprehend
the way this language functions. Furthermore, to create consciousness of the importance
of the English language has had in the world of today. Finally, this guide exemplifies
specific difficulties ESL students from particular nationalities have in their acquisition of
English as a Second Language.
During the cause of this guide I have created samples and exercises that might be
useful to ESL teachers and have listed specific websites in each area; however, below I
have listed many other links that will serve as excellent resources for ESL teachers with a
variety of students from different countries who may have different kinds of problems
with the English language. In these websites, ELL students can practice English in the
four domains (listening, reading, writing and speaking) in an interactive way while
having fun in class. In addition, the websites provide great ideas and tools (videos,
different kinds of games, flashcards, and so on) to make the acquisition of English as a
second language more colorful and appealing to students.
The following are useful websites ESL teachers can use to have a more effective
teaching class, to help instruction with effective drills.
http://en.yappr.com/welcome/Welcome.action
www.barryfunenglish.com
www.ello.org
http://www.soundsofenglish.org/
www.eslcafe.com
151
http://pbskids.org
www.englishclub.com
www.manythings.org
www.world-english.org
www.esl-lab.com
www.manythings.org
www.world-english.org
www.eslkidstuff.com
http://www.teachersfirst.com/getsource.cfm?id=9594
www.myefa.org
http://www.create-a-reader.com/basic/_english.html
www.englishenglish.com
http://eleaston.com/pr/home.html
www.english-world.com/foreign_lang/classroom
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
www.eslpartyland.com
www.miguelmllop.com
www.eslprintables.com
www.dave'seslcafe.com
www.edhelper.com
www.hbavenues.com
www.eslactivities.com
152
http://www.agendaweb.org/phonetic.html
www.1-language.com
www.everythingesl.net
www.listeningesl.com
http://www.angelfire.com/wi3/englishcorner/vocabulary/vocabulary.html
http://www.agendaweb.org/phonetic.html
http://fonetiks.org/engsou2am.html
http://fonetiks.org/index.html
http://club.telepolis.com/phonetics/
http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/l1spanish.html
http://www.fen.com/studentactivities/WallOfWords/wow19.html
http://www.phonicsworld.com/index.htm
http://www.humsam.hik.se/distans/existstud/a1/a1phonex.htm
http://www.esltower.com/pronunciation.html
http://www.englishmedialab.com/pronunciation.html
http://www.everythingesl.net/downloads/
http://documents.cms.k12.nc.us/dsweb/Get/Document-14029/helpfulWebsitesLinks.pdf
http://www.usalearns.org/index/welcome.cfm?CFID=415692&CFTOKEN=33379559&js
essionid=1a3043a07de8ec54606443423f7e361f4ca5
Useful Grammar Websites to Be Used in an ESL Class
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar
http://www.english-4u.de/grammar1.htm
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/verbs.htm
153
http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/exercises/main/grammar.html
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/
http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/eslprograms.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/
http://www.esltower.com/PRONUNCIATION/videos/consonant1.html
http://www.esltower.com/index.html
http://www.smic.be/smic5022/exercisesgrammar.htm
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/exlist/exlist.htm
http://www.yourdictionary.com/grammar-rules/english-grammar-online-exercises.html
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/Pronunciation/
154
Characteristics and Tips about Different Cultures
The website by Judie Haynes, www.everythingESL.net, has interesting articles
for ESL teachers to help them understand students and parents from different cultures
such as:
New Culture Questions
Source: http://www.everythingesl.net/downloads/newculture_responses.pdf
Culture Quiz
Source: http://www.everythingesl.net/downloads/cultural_quiz.pdf
The Culture Quiz
Source: http://www.everythingesl.net/downloads/culture_questions02.pdf
Fact or Fiction The Truth about U.S. Immigration
Source: http://www.everythingesl.net/downloads/us_immigration.pdf
The Truth About U.S. Immigration
True or False?
Source: http://www.everythingesl.net/downloads/us_immigration.pdf
Truth or Stereotype?
Source: http://www.everythingesl.net/downloads/truth_stereotype.pdf
Myths of Second Language Acquisition
Source: http://www.everythingesl.net/downloads/Myths_NJEA02.pdf
Responses to Myths of Second Language Acquisition
Source: http://www.everythingesl.net/downloads/Myths_NJEA02.pdf