Download The village where verbs…

Engaging Grammar: Practical Advice for Real Classrooms
Presented by Amy Benjamin
www.amybenjamin.com
“ I’ve never known a person
who wasn’t interested in language.”
-Steven Pinker, The Language
Instinct
I
teaching grammar.
I never learned it.
What if I’m wrong?
Shouldn’t they already
have had this in the
lower grades?
Do kids really have to learn
all these terms?
There’s no interesting
way to teach grammar.
It’s just drill and workbook.
M
I.
Cesar Chavez helped the farm workers.
He advocated for them. He did not
encourage violence. He led a boycott
instead of violence. The boycott was an
effective method of resistance. (30)
III.
Cesar Chavez, advocate for farm
workers, helped them not by
encouraging violence, but by leading
a boycott. The boycott was an effective
method of resistance.. (25)
II.
Cesar Chavez helped the farm workers,
and he advocated for them. He did not
encourage violence. He led a boycott
instead of violence, and the boycott
was an effective method of resistance.
(32)
IV.
Cesar Chavez, advocate for farm
workers, helped them not by
encouraging violence, but by leading
a boycott, which is an effective method
of resistance. (24)
Grammar is the most significant
determiner of sophisticated style.
M
Students struggle with going from speech
to writing, and then from informal
to formal style.
Human Folder Sentences
Can be used to teach:
What a complete sentence is: subject/predicate
Subject-verb agreement
Whether or not a noun needs a noun marker
(the, a/an, some)
How to use comma/conjunction to join the
clauses (signal clause boundaries in a
compound sentence)
Compound elements (subjects, predicates,
objects): when to use AND without the comma
Words to use:
trees
fly
bamboo
pandas
birds
fish
can climb
frogs
in the pond
a handsome prince appeared
monkeys mud
eat
sunflowers
bend
to face the sun
love
kissed
princess
waddle
penguins
the frog
as
swim
Joiners:
comma (alone)
comma and
comma but
comma so
because
period
Detachable S
1. Grammar is a system of making sentences out of parts.
The parts have to match (agree):
Number (singular or plural)
Gender (masculine, feminine, neutral)
Case (subjective, objective, possessive)
Tense (past, present, future)
2. Writers and speakers place the parts in a certain order
and that order affects the impact of the message.
3. The two main parts of language are nouns and verbs.
Everything else either modifies nouns or verbs or joins words,
phrases, and clauses.
M
How?
Learning Principles Based On:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Manipulatives
Visuals
Patterns
Intuition
Inductive reasoning
Authentic language
M
Grammar instruction to
create stylized sentences
Grammar instruction to
fix errors
Kinds of Information
Noun Phrases:
Who?
What?
Adjective Structures
Which one?
What kind?
How many?
Verb structures:
What is its action?
What is its nature?
Adverb structures:
Where?
When?
Why?
In what manner?
How often?
www.amybenjamin.com
Why Teach Verbs?
1. Strong verbs energize writing.
2. Writers must decide on a consistent
verb tense.
3. Writers must decide whether to use
active or passive voice.
4. Errors in verb usage are highly
stigmatized: Incorrect form of irregular verbs
(*I seen,
*brung, *brang, *have went, *have sang, etc.)
5. Whether we have an action verb or a BE verb
determines pronoun case use and adjective/adverb use.
Base form: walk, sing
Progressive form: walking, singing
Past form: walked, sang
Participial form: (have) walked, (have sung)
Hanout, 11
Verb Land, USA
Active Voice: I stole the cookie
from the cookie jar.
Passive Voice: The cookie was
stolen from the cookie jar by me.
(BE + Participial form= passive voice)
“Where We Find Out
the Action of Things”
ACTION TOWN
Verbals:
1. Participle: (acts as adjective)
ACTION verbs are modified by
adverbs:She sings happily.
the dancing bear;
the stolen cookie
2. Infinitive: (acts as noun)
Let us never fear to negotiate.
3. Gerund: (Acts as noun)
Teaching makes me happy.
ACTION verbs take objective case pronouns as objects:
We saw him steal the cookie from the cookie jar.
Auxiliaries:
Modal Auxiliaries:
Would Will
Have: creates
the perfect tenses Should Shall
Could
May
(has sung, etc.)
Can
Might
Be: creates the
Must
progressive tenses
(am singing, etc.)
Auxiliaries and
modal auxiliaries
combine with action
verbs to create various
tenses.
www.amybenjamin.com
TO BE:
I am,was We are,were
You are
;were
He, she, it is They are,were
Sense Verbs:
feel, look, sound
smell, taste
Also: seem,
become, appear
grow
BE TOWN
“Where We Find Out the
Nature of Things”
BE verbs are completed by
adjectives: He is happy.
BE verbs take subjective case
pronouns as complements:
It was I who stole the cookie from
the cookie jar.
Action verbs are modified by adverbs.
bouncy
shy
friendly
shyly
vivaciously
protectiveprotectively
Pepper is… recklessly
hungry
silly
Pepper behaves…
Pepper acts…cautiously
jovially
Pepper looks..l
Pepper seems…
Pepper became…
playfully playful
adventurously
curiously
Linking verbs are completed
by adjectives.
adventurous
curious
Linking verbs
tell the nature of
things.
Linking verbs: BE, + sense verbs: look, sound, smell, feel; seem verbs: seem appear,
become, grow
Village 5:
The village where verbs…
www.amybenjamin.com
Irregular Verb Villages
Village 1:
The village where verbs…
have, had, have had
send, sent, have sent
build, built, have built
Pop. approx 20 verbs
Village 2:
The village where verbs…
Village 3:
The village where verbs…
keep, kept, have kept
sleep, slept, have slept
sell, sold, have sold
bring, brought, have brought
catch, caught, have caught
Pop: approx 40 verbs
Village 4:
The village where verbs…
cut, cut, have cut
hit, hit, have hit
put, put, have put
quit, quit, have quit
Pop: approx 40 verbs
Village 6:
The village where verbs…
spin, spun, have spun
sit, sat, have sat
stand, stood, have stood
Pop: approx 70 verbs
Village 7:
The village where verbs…
mow, mowed, have mown
sew, sewed, have sewn
swell, swelled, have swollen
blow, blew, have blown
fly, flew, have flown
take, took, have taken
shake, shook, have shaken
see, saw, have seen
Pop. approx 10 verbs
Pop: approx 75 verbs
swim, swam, have swum
ring, rang, have rung
sing, sang, have sung
go, went, have gone
Pop: Approx 25 verbs
www.amybenjamin.com
1. Characterize the pattern of each of the irregular verb villages.
2. The following verbs are lost. Help them find their villages. So that
they don’t get lost again, explain to them the ways of their villages:
teach
wring
shrink
break
steal
drink
think
speak
cost
win
lie
lay
hurt
get
seek
make
choose
broadcast
bet
bid
freeze