Job Discussion Forums

[Robert100]

Hello all. Can anyone help?

I have a question that probably has been asked a hundred times, but I can�t seem to find an answer anywhere.

I have been accepted on a CELTA course which I start in five weeks. I am really starting to panic because no matter how much I study grammar, it doesn�t seem to be sinking in. I obviously have a basic grasp of grammar or I wouldn�t have been accepted on the course, but I feel my grammar is the main thing that is letting me down.

1. Can anyone give me an idea of what level of grammar is expected for a CELTA course? I know this may have an answer along the lines of �how long is a piece of string�, but there seems to be so many different things to learn and I don�t know what to concentrate on! I feel I may be stretching myself too thinly in my study.

2. Can anyone recommend any good grammar resources on the web? I am currently using http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/ . Has anyone used the Cactus TEFL Online English Language Awareness Course? (http://www.cactustefl.com/ela/) It is expensive, but if it is recommended�

Any help would be most appreciated.

Many thanks in Advance!

[fluffyhamster]

Hi Robert! You could do worse than skim through the grammar entries in the TKT Glossary:
http://courses.britishcouncil.org/pub/tkt/mod/glossary/view.php?id=368&mode=cat&hook=17

(The TKT is basically a paper-based exam to test familiarity with the communicative ELT terms and concepts as espoused by Cambridge at least; whilst it is more meant for those who don't want or need to do a lengthy taught course with observed teaching practice like the CELTA e.g. ostensibly qualified and experienced non-native English teachers, obviously the terminology used in the TKT will be much the same as that on a CELTA, what with them both being UCLES ELT qualifications).

I would really advise however that you buy a sizeable grammar reference that includes its own, likely more comprehensive glossary ASAP, such as Swan's Practical English Usage (which had a 'Language terminology' section in its Second edition at least - although I would imagine that the newer Third has retained this feature), or, if you would prefer such a glossary in more a grammar proper (i.e. something with more than a Swan-like A-Z list of entries as its means of organization), then try books such as John Eastwood's The Oxford Guide to English Grammar, or the Collins COBUILD English Grammar, rather than rely too much on free net-based resources (which might not always be quite up to scratch, or can sometimes be a bit selective, eccentric, misleading, or plain wrong etc). And don't forget that exercise books designed for students (non-native learners) rather than teachers, such as Murphy's Grammar in Use series (or similar books from COBUILD, or Swan & Walter, etc) can be a swift means of learning the rudiments of grammar (but not perhaps quite how best to teach it); then, you can also find out a fair bit about grammar from learner dictionaries too (the COBUILDs again usually have a grammar glossary, the Oxford Advanced Learner's has very clear grammar codes, whilst the Cambridge International Dictionary of English had one of the most elegant and succinct introductions to the "grammar of the parts of speech" I've ever seen - just six pages! - with further detail supplied in the form of useful 'Language Portraits' later in the dictionary itself). A thread on 'Recommended advanced learner dictionaries': http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=65876

EDIT: Hang on, the following site contains an excellent glossary that will flesh out the TKT stuff into book-like length and depth, so you might not need to decide on and buy a grammar book quite just yet!
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/tta/index.htm

I must say that I quite like the "Quirk-grammar"-derived courses available, such as Leech et al's English Grammar for Today, or Graeme Kennedy's Structure and Meaning in English (latter is a swift solid crash course in things relevant to ELT, from the phoneme to discourse level, and obviously with plenty of grammar in between, that's previewable on GBS): http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wE5XyoCYpbsC&printsec=frontcover

The following is a somewhat more "linguistics-ally-respectable"* but still relatively clear glossary that might come in handy (especially as your studies progress): http://folk.uio.no/hhasselg/terms.html

Lastly, you might like to try searching here on Dave's for 'grammar' with me fluffyhamster as author, and selecting a few of the more relevant-looking resulting threads (e.g. those with 'CELTA' in their titles). (I say search for posts with me as author not because I think they are necessarily that good, but simply as a means of cutting down on the number of possible results!). One thing to bear in mind is that a lot of what UCLES would prefer to save/hold back, and flog you at DELTA level instead, could actually be pretty beneficial at the start of your career (but is left out due to the time constraints operating with cert-level qualifications - one month "full-time" - and/or the grammar-phobia of some cert trainees etc) - for example, books by Michael Lewis (e.g. The English Verb), or Scott Thornbury (e.g. About Language, and Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy). http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=764843#764843

Sorry if any of that sounds a tad ambitious, but I sense that the force is strong in you...

*Then there are overviews of 'syntax' by the likes of Huddleston - way beyond what is required at CELTA level, but at least he is thorough and, more importantly, available for free! (Plus I would argue that it is difficult to ever get anything approaching a truly comprehensive view of "grammar" without looking at somewhat more theoretical, than simply just "applied", linguistics).
http://ling.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/grammar/otherstuff.html
> http://ling.ed.ac.uk/grammar/overview.doc / http://ling.ed.ac.uk/grammar/overview.html
-Less daunting would be something like chapter 5 in this: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yX5mkM2_u-sC&printsec=frontcover , but the preview will probably be limited at any one point in time.
-You will at some point become aware of ostensibly more functional (i.e. practical, for language teaching purposes) approaches to "theoretical" (i.e. the more linguistics-flavoured) grammar, such as Halliday's Systemic-functional linguistics (which appears to have influenced COBUILD terminology somewhat), but many English teachers are content to depend on the findings of Corpus Linguistics (i.e. just use corpus tools to establish facts), and frameworks from Discourse Analysis, in gaining an appreciation of texts, sylistics etc (i.e. "grammar beyond the sentence"); furthermore, functions (and their 'exponents'/exemplars) in a less technical sense have been around since the Council of Europe and Wilkins etc began formulating 'notional-functional', more communicative syllabuses. (BTW, Lewis' The Lexical Approach would be worth reading at some point, maybe a year or two into your career, if you want an interesting account of the development - not yet quite complete and full, according to Lewis - of the currently predominant approach and methodology of Communicative Language Teaching).

[nickpellatt]

Im a fairly recent course graduate ... and Im also nervous and apprehensive when someone says the dreaded word 'grammar', so I know exactly where you are coming from. Dont worry too much about how your perceived lack of knowledge will harm your chances of passing the course, and doing well on it.

They will expect you to have some grammatical knowledge, but they wont be expecting it to be complete. In fairness, and I think most people will agree with this ... its normally expected that the only time you really learn and get to grips with grammar is when you actually teach it. If you are fortunate enough to get a job after where grammar needs teaching, you will hopefully have textbooks and teachers books that illustrate some exercises and tasks that show the grammar point in action. In following these and noting how your students cope, and the difficulties they find will serve to teach you and enchance your grammatical knowledge.

Anyway....that will come later....the initial problem is now. Well, based on my course performance and that of my peers, my advice is this. Learn the English tense system....what each tense is called...how its constructed (subject+modal verb+main verb etcetc) and what its actually used for.

Tenses were encountered often on my course...and no one really knew the tense system very well.

Another thing to familiar yourself with, is the IPA system. This was also used a lot during the course, both in tutor group lessons and the teaching practice. Again, few of us were familiar with this prior to the course.

If you can learn just these two things, and be moderately confident in using them...you will be ahead 90% of people who take the course I reckon.

I have posted numerous times here because I still suffer from a lack of grammatical knowledge (as some members know!) and I still find it hard to pick up grammatical knowledge now. If you have the funds to try the books suggested, Fluffy does know his stuff!!! If you already have books of this nature and still find it hard going, you are in the same boat as me! Just concentrate initially on learning the tenses and IPA...and be careful in the job you choose in the future. Make sure you choose the right school and DOS who can give you the support you will need as a new teacher to develop your skills and knowledge.

and lastly...enjoy the course!

[fluffyhamster]

Apologies for the apparently large number of edits - I was trying to add a few more points and links, but the site went on the blink when I went to post the edit, and I then made the mistake of hitting the submit button repeatedly!

[Robert100]

Hi 'fluffyhamster'.

Many thanks for your quick response.

[fluffyhamster]

Thanks for the reply, Robert - glad to hear that some of the stuff looks promising!

I was tempted to tell you how long my particular piece of string would be, but I held off because a) I didn't particularly want to start spinning too tangled a yarn ball before you'd had a chance to look at the reasonably brisk surveys and stuff I was posting links to and b) maybe I really don't need to, now that I've recalled a few books that seem to have something to say about what grammar is most important (especially when teaching non-native learners, obviously):

You can see what George Yule considers essential but 'problematic areas' by consulting the chapter headings in the contents pages of his Explaining English Grammar, previewable on GBS:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=71EjNnLd3dkC&lpg=PP1&pg=PR7

I doubt however if his book features on any certificate-level suggested reading lists (so don't rush out and buy it much less wade through it just yet!).

The authors of The Grammar Book (one of the most comprehensive teacher courses around - the entire book could only really be covered at e.g. MA level!) meanwhile feel that a 'minimal core' for TESL/TEFL trainees should include knowing something about the following stuff at least:

(Ch1 - Learning implicitly/acquiring whilst simply using a language versus more conscious and explicit study with focus on form, analysis etc; obviously teachers still need to know explicit facts, by studying! Reasons/genuine understanding is preferable to rules, and is best achieved by seeking to make generalizations at the highest level i.e. at discourse rather than sentential or sub-sentential level (unless we are talking about e.g. basic facts of the language's collocational preferences). Form, meaning and use (I prefer form versus meaning-use i.e. form versus discourse function). Students must acquire skills as well as knowledge - 'grammaring'/to grammar versus grammar (noun) as dead object of academic study; knowing/competently speaking the language (all of it, or as much as possible) versus "just" knowing "about it" (but that's a bit chicken and egg!); habit formation versus creativity, hypothesis-testing etc. General approaches and methods, and possibilities therein).

(Ch2) The parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, determiners, prepositions, conjunctions), their subtypes, and the functions that these play; Sentential terminology: clauses and simple, compound (co-ordinated) and complex (involving subordination, and embedding) sentences, functions of clauses; sentence moods (declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory, subjunctive); theme versus rheme; markedness versus non-markedness; voice (active versus passive); Suprasentential/discourse terminology: backgrounding and foregrounding; cohesion; register; genre; given versus new.

(Ch3) Lexicon: derivational affixation (more lexical - prefixes, suffixes (very few infixes in English!) that change meaning or word class); inflectional affixation - usually regular inflections in suffix/ending of verbs (for making tenses etc), nouns (plural, possessive/genitive) and adjectives (for gradability and comparison), but there are also irregular plural nouns, and irregular verb and adjective forms; lexical constraints with syntactic consequences (resulting in grammar/rules) e.g. *much book, ?a water, *these man, ?divergent policy, *the John, *Sue is fond, *the cleaners disappeared the stain, *the child lay, *the boy headed, *I handed the note; certain prepositions as fixed collocates of particular verbs or adjectives; Productive lexical processes: compounding, conversion, homonomy, polysemy, metaphor; denotation, connotation, cultural associations; lexical aspect of verbs (i.e. Vendler's aktionsart - see Ch7 etc); argument structure of verbs (valency); semantic fields and features (basically checklists, more detailed means of distinguishing similar lexical items) - excerpt of table from Gairn & Redman's Working with Words; prototypicality; collocations; prefabricated and/or fixed phrases ("gambits").

(Ch4) The Copula and Subject-Verb Agreement.

(Chs5 & 6 - Phrase Structure rules, tree diagrams etc. Not essential IMHO, and most books do fine without such stuff).

(Ch7) The Tense and Aspect System (the 'tense-aspect system').

(Ch8) Modal Auxiliaries and Related Phrasal Forms.

(Ch10) Negation (incl. 'scope of negation', some versus any, not versus no, negative equatives and other polite uses of negation).

(Ch11) Yes/No questions, including: inversion, do-support, intonation, short answers to Y/N Qs, meaning of negative questions, (meaning of) uninverted questions, ellipsis in questions, Aren't I?, "remote" and thus more polite/indirect modals.

(Ch12) Imperatives, incl. as invitations, reminders etc; Let's... (=the 'inclusive imperative' in this book's parlance - re. the inclusion, in any such utterance, of the speaker with the addressee).

(Ch13) Wh- Questions - subject versus predicate/object Wh- Qs; choosing the right question word.

(Ch15) Articles - including lots on the classification of nouns! Generic meaning/reference. Uses of articles in discourse. Topic-specific uses (e.g. body parts - the heart, the ears, the teeth).

(Ch21) Prepositions - as collocates of verbs (rely on; outdo, overeat, downplay etc), adjectives (be dependent on) and nouns (in my opinion, on the basis of, the underdog); basic and more extended meanings (He is in the room; The room is in a mess; She is in trouble); nonspatial prepositions (a story about a princess; the President of the United States; a man of courage, a mother of two); prepositions used to assign case (=mark roles that relate sentence constituents - see Fillmore's Case Grammar) e.g. by-agentive: composed by Beethoven, by-means: we went by bus, with-instrument: write with a quill, with-comitative: I went with Jack.

(Ch22) Phrasal Verbs - separability (i.e. with transitive PVs, can the particle be separated from the verb by the direct object?) etc etc.

Obviously, if you are asked, especially on your CELTA, to demonstrate how you'd teach anything not in the above selections and/or really tricky (e.g. tag questions - Ch14 in The Grammar Book, IIRC), then you either refuse, or take a running jump out the window. But seriously, I still don't think you can beat reading/browsing the contents of a glossary, survey or basic solid course (or all three!) of the type I mentioned in my first post above, especially when you consider that the likes of Yule and The Grammar Book aren't exactly easy or quite cutting things down (which is the price one pays for wanting "the" grammar to be highlighted in ways and parts maximally-relevant to teaching); that is, a "plain", more purely linguistic grammar may in fact be easier to absorb than a pedagogical one, because the pedagogical starts to encumber the mind with "practical" considerations and demands before one is really equipped to even countenance let alone deal with them. Obviously, an at all compelling and useful grammar will still be functional, and ones such as the COBUILD do contain and suggest realistic and exploitable co-texts if not contexts aplenty, but their "mass" of details might be the more assimilable due to being free(r) of flashing neon pointers coralling you into sometimes slightly overcrowded and somewhat constrictive lanes. (Something that I'm fond of saying is that there is often a natural pedagogy to be found in the language itself, provided we let it speak for itself enough ~ but note that this does involve "studying" grammars somewhat, and the better, more lexicogrammary ones really can be quite helpful in painlessly linking structure and meaning via lexis: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=765460#765460 > http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=754883#754883 ; and a lot of supposedly "communicative" suggested language practice is actually anything but, and may be quite inimical to natural interaction and conversation developing in one's classroom...or it could at least be bettered, by a not-too-fettered/encumbered (brainwashed?) mind!).

Sincerely,
Long-winded FluffyVadar

[Robert100]

Thanks Nick for the advice and reply!

[Robert100]

Hello again 'fluffyhamster'. It's 'the pain in the backside' again...

[fluffyhamster]

Hi again Robert, no worries about being a bit puzzled (I probably shouldn't've posted my second long post above, at least not without being a bit more explicit with it). But luckily and as you've correctly surmised (the force is indeed strong in this one!), the 'English in Use', Advanced Learners dictionary, concentrating like Nick has suggested on 'tenses' and phonetics, the TKT glossary, your pre-course task, your copy of Harmer's 'How to Teach English' (which has a brisk grammar bit, by the way), and let's not forget your Swan's glossary if not its general contents too (in which you can look up things in more detail) PHEW, are all more than enough to keep you busy, and at exactly the right sort of level for preparing very satisfactorily for the CELTA course. All the other things - the other glossaries, overviews, surveys, courses, grammars proper, and Yule and Grammar Book "wishlists" - are of course worthwhile, but given the limited time you have available (and your relative unfamiliarity with the subject matter) it is understandable that you will be reluctant to invest too much time (especially just on somebody else's say-so!) with any one resource and/or go into "too much" depth in any one area (that being said, bear in mind that once you are actually employed and working, you will probably have even less time for studying further! ). Obviously there is (somewhat unfortunately, IMHO, but there you go) a fair gap between what is possible to learn for and certainly on just a one-month course, and what one will eventually (if one is a conscientious teacher) feel one should later study "in addition". Anyway, I only provided the Yule GBS link and Grammar Book breakdown so you could get some indication of the potential detail (depth?) that this probably post-course/in-career study might go into (me, I can take or leave and usually leave a lot of the theoretical stuff like Vendler or Fillmore - I just acknowledge and make a mental note of it without getting bogged down in it - and I am sometimes not too enamoured of even the more "practical" discussion and suggested activities in these more "pedagogically-oriented" grammars; like I was trying to say previously, I prefer to depend right from the start and then all along just on good empirical well-organized pedagogically quite "bare" grammars like the COBUILD to provide a bird's eye view of and get me knowledgeable about the language, and therefore confident, resourceful and thinking up my own stuff for the classroom...stuff which may well not really be explicitly about grammar much at all!).

By the way, there were quite a few tricky teaching practice assignments on my CTEFLA (forerunner of the CELTA/what it used to be called) - articles, present perfect, questions tags, conditionals (particularly the "third"), to name a few (but by no means all!). Anyone got any more? I think it is actually a bit silly to expect a trainee (or even an experienced teacher) to be able to do these things much justice in just one short lesson, and some may be resistant even to a series of very well-planned lessons!
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=721052#721052
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=713801#713801

[nickpellatt]

No worries ... I know exactly where you are coming from ... and I also bought grammar reference books and couldnt understand them. This is the problem that I argue or debate on here from time to time LOL

A reference book on its own isnt of much use to me ... and it sounds like it isnt for you either! I did make a post recently seeking a book that actually covers things from a perspective that includes more in terms of context and activities ... and it appears there isnt such a thing really. I dont think a comprehensive reference book would be of any use for a lower intermediate language student ... and they would tend to be more familiar with grammar than you or I! I find these books arent much help ... and I sold mine on ebay after the course! They often define things and terms, with other words and terms that I also dont understand!

I really think there is a gap in the market for the type of book we need... and I almost cant believe no one produces one!

Anyway ... tense (and grammar in general) isnt taught on your course ... but it will be encountered often, especially the tense system. Being familiar with it will be a great help. Dont panic though ... there will still be things you dont know ... and wont know for some time!

In the future you will encounter teachers at work that still dont know grammar that well ...or sometimes they know it, but cant teach it so well. Ill keep looking for the 'magic' book. if I can find one ... Ill let you know!

As Fluffy mentions. You may be asked to do a language awareness assignment. Mine was third conditionals, and explaining the difference between 2 and 3rd. This assignment covers explaining the function and form of them. How they work and are constructed basically.

Marker sentences that could be used to illustrate them. Contexts that can be used to teach them ... and questions that could be used to elicit them from students.

The assignment also asked me to come up with the kind of problems students may have, grammatical errors that may make.

This is the type of thing I would like to see in a book. A single book preferably, and if I ever learn enough grammar I may write one myself.

PS - 3rd conditional is this.

'If I had learned grammar, I would have passed my course with an A grade'.

Its something that refers to an past action ... and it didnt happen. I didnt learn grammar, so I didnt get an A grade'. Its impossible for that to happen as I have finished the course and have a B grade.

A second conditional is (I think) something that could still happen ... however unlikely. 'If I learn grammar, I will be a great teacher'. This is still possible (although unlikely LOL).

My issue is whilst a reference book may tell you that....in long winded hard to understand language. It probably wont tell you how to relate this to a 45 min EFL class and how to use it in the scenarios we encounter.

[Robert100]

Thanks again Nick and �fluffyhamster� for your replies.

I am actually finding Murphy's 'English Grammar in Use' 3rd edition a lot more beneficial and digestible than any of the books I looked at before.

Don't know what to make of me finding a book aimed at the student more beneficial than the book aimed at the teacher!

Now that I am �armed� with what I need, all that is left is for me do is the graft. I also now have some knowledge of direction regarding study after my CELTA as well.

Thanks to you both for your time.