Job Discussion Forums

[SunShan]

I had my 3-hour interview for a CELTA course last week and it went really well apart from the grammar test. I literally finished my undergraduate degree last week too - English and Linguistics - so I didn't have time to revise any grammar at all due to uni deadlines. I kind of thought my grammar was at a reasonable level but soon found that was a foolish notion.

Anyway, they have offered me a place as they understood my priority was my degree. However, I need to get up to scratch pretty quick as the course starts in less than two months. I've started studying but one question stood out and I can't seem to get my head around this:

John tried to open the window
John tried opening the window

Can anyone explain this to me?

And can anyone recommend a good way to study verb tenses? I need to put some hours in to feel confident at the start of the course. Thanks!

[princesss]

Can you please help me to understand the difference between try + to-infinitive and try + ing-form?

My book says that the former is used when we talk about making an attempt to do something. The latter, on the other hand, is used when we talk about doing something as an experiment/test. The second one might be one of various options tried. It is a subtle distinction.

eg. It was hot. I tried opening the window, then I tried turning the air-conditioning on- but nothing worked.

Similarly there is this offering from a grammar person online:

tried to open the window = I made an attempt, to see if I could open the window or not.
I tried opening the window = I opened the window to see what the result would be.

By the way. Be careful of TBI Bandung. Be careful of TBI generally. The number of stories doing the rounds about the guy in charge there is truly scary.

[fluffyhamster]

When one consults actual usage guides (such as Swan's Practical English Usage, or Chambers Essential English Grammar and Usage), one soon notices that the second verbs (i.e. the complements to/after 'try') and indeed the whole examples in each case are DIFFERENT (as there would be little use, or rather far too much debatable explanation involved, in having examples that differed only in the grammatical form of the complement, esp. in this particular instance):

Swan's "experiment" example: I tried sending her flowers, writing her letters, giving her presents, but she still wouldn't speak to me.

Swan's "making an effort to do something quite difficult" example: I tried to change/changing the wheel, but my hands were too cold.

Chambers: Peter tried brushing his teeth with soap.
I tried to carry her, but she was too heavy.

Then, note that Swan says that either to-v or -ing is possible with the "effort" usage, as his example shows. And it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility that one could perhaps just as easily use a to-v for or even in disregard of the "experiment" usage: Did you hear, Peter tried to brush his teeth with soap, just for a laugh!

This particular CELTA task would thus seem a bit too subtle, unrevealing, indeed unfair, to pose to trainees (let alone non-native students, possibly!). A RANGE of DIFFERING examples would've been better, rather than forcing the trainee to work out a supposed rule from a severely limited context/pair of "contrasting" examples. (How is one meant to know what potential degree of difficulty was involved e.g. was the window lock stubborn, for example? Or if other options, such as air-conditioning, were available for attempting to e.g. reduce the heat in the room). But this wouldn't be the first time that a CELTA-related task has been "less instructive and more difficult than it might otherwise have been": http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=1068220#1068220 . One wonders what goes through some trainers' apparently pea-sized brains sometimes. And did you hear the one about to-infinitives being held out as a part of speech/word class to identify? Bet that really helped the neophytes.

In a nutshell, there are any number of things one could burden a trainee with, but this isn't one of them. At the very least, a different verb than 'try' should've been chosen, so that any minimal context~pair of sentences would've been more amenable to meaningful analysis. It seems as if the purpose of some CELTA training is to be as "difficult" and uninformative as possible. One really could learn more from reading a book.

A more revealing range of verbs (revealing MORE OBVIOUS~CONTRASTIVE differences in the meaning of their complementation with -ing versus to-v) than 'try' might be: come, forget, go on, learn, regret, mean, remember, stop, teach. Then there are adjectives (plus potentially prepositions) such as afraid, certain/sure, interested, sorry. Note also 'used to-v' versus 'be used to -ing'. You can find appropriate examples in the aforementioned Swan or Chambers, or in the COBUILD English Grammar. If you don't have access to such books yet, try looking in the free online versions of learner dictionaries such as the Oxford Advanced Learner's, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the Macmillan English Dictionary, the Cambridge ALD, or the Merriam-Webster Learner's (Googling should soon unearth the current URLs), and identifying the differing meanings of each complementation pattern for the bolded verbs listed above. Or if you like, I can type up some good examples for you.

For discussion of the underlying semantics involved, maybe try books like Yule's Explaining English Grammar (chapter 8, esp. pp 216-217), or Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman's The Grammar Book. Yule is for the most part previewable on Google Books, but unfortunately at the time of typing the specific pages I mentioned aren't available! Another book, that I've only just dug back out, is Jacob's English Syntax, which talks among other things of 'forward-oriented' versus 'backward-looking' predicates e.g. I forgot to lock the door versus I forgot (about the fact of my previously) locking the door. See pg 292~, and pp 85-86. (If I find any other good leads, I'll post 'em ).

By the way, I am not sure that John tried opening the window necessarily means he succeeded in getting it open (all we really know tense/finite-wise is that he tried), but it is certainly implicitly more complete than John tried to open the window. This point is made in a number of similar ways in various grammar books.

[SunShan]

Thanks princess and fluffy! I think I just need to do as many different exercises as possible until it starts to click. Fluffy, your link to another thread was interesting. Luckily, I did a module on phonetics last year at uni, so the IPA is the only thing I'm ok on at the moment.

I'm considering refusing the offer of the CELTA place from this particular institution. I wasn't impressed with the pretentious attitude of the two tutors I met, not to mention poor e-mail responses and grammar typos on the letters they sent out - these were feelings shared by all the applicants after my interview.

There's another course local to me starting in September, which gives me more time to study grammar, so I'm hoping to get on that instead. I've spent 3 years at uni looking forward to getting on the CELTA and I never thought I would refuse a place. But instincts tell me it won't be what I was hoping for this July.

Once again, thank you for your responses.

[princesss]

To be honest with you, I have heard that the main trainer (initials JS) doesn't even have a degree. That institution had a good reputation a few years back but standards have fallen sharply of late. All the trainers from the good old days have moved on to greener pastures. There have even been school closures at some of their schools and immigration raids against teachers working illegally. It's an important decision and you can get jobs anywhere once you have your CELTA. Best of luck.

[Denim-Maniac]

[fluffyhamster]

Hi D-M. Presumably the question was to explain the possible difference in meaning between the two sentences, or (less likely) to mark one as less suitable according to such-and-such a given meaning. I doubt if the task was to identify forms rather than functions (one isn't then usually presented with "contrasting" pairs of sentences), and I'm not sure what the pronunciation problems would be. But at least we agree that 'try' is not as illuminating a verb for exploring the differences in meaning of (its) complementation with to-infinitives versus -ings LOL.

[Denim-Maniac]

We are only presuming though.

I personally agree, its seems almost pointless to ask the question to a trainee ... so I wonder if that was indeed the question at all. As far as form, I could see value in a newbie 'identify parts of speech' type task. For pronunciation issues, my recent Delta had many similar tasks as this. In natural, connected speech intrusion, linking, sentence stress and possibly elision might feature in each sentence.

/jɒntraɪtuːwoəʊpen�əwɪndəʊ/

/jɒntraɪdəʊpenin�əwɪndəʊ/

Thats my take on it anyway. The difference in meaning is such a silly question to me, and lacks much in the way of relevance so I wonder if that was actually the question at all.

[fluffyhamster]

[GuestBob]

Something just popped into my head here:

[Denim-Maniac]

[Denim-Maniac]

[quote="GuestBob"]Something just popped into my head here:

[fluffyhamster]

Hello again D-M. It probably doesn't matter anymore in terms of DELTA assignments, but my joke about "intrusive w" (or should that be "linking w" LOL) was meant to signal that /w/ (the transcription ~) does not occur at the ends of English words (i.e. the vowel symbols are sufficient). Obviously it doesn't occur at the start of the transcription for 'open', either. Your oəʊ also looks a bit dodgy (there isn't this tripthong, and o isn't a stand-alone phonemic symbol AFAIK). It's as if your to-v speaker is saying 'John try(-ied) to - whoa-AH! - pen the window'. Maybe these were just typos or copy n pasting errors though (what are you using to type up the IPA, by the way?). I'm not sure about the utility of the run-on transcription, but some indication of stresses would probably be helpful.

What I took from GuestBob's interesting musings and examples was again the usefulness of having at least somewhat differing contexts (differing beyond the to-v and -ing LOL) when trying to work out the supposed meanings or rules. Ultimately his two "good" examples were:

John seemed unable to get fit: he tried to jog everyday, but often couldn't summon the motivation.

John seemed unable to get fit: he tried jogging every day, but it made no difference to his waistline.

Maybe the problem with the second example is that John tried jogging only for a very limited period, e.g. of just several days.

I guess the main problem for the average student isn't so much not yet being able to convey such subtle distinctions as simply not using the correct complement patterns for certain verbs (i.e. not all verbs allow a choice of complement).

[Denim-Maniac]

LOL - You are right ... It was a typo or pasting error.

Id love some kind of IPA keyboard option ... I use ipa.typeit.org, but to be honest, I very rarely type anything using the IPA.

[SunShan]