Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crsandus]

I'm planning on giving a quick introduction to adjective order in my English camp but I'm stuck on adjectives I can't categorize properly. From most grammar websites the order of adjectives is as follows.

1. determiner/article
2. opinion
3. size
4. shape
5. age
6. color
7. origin
8. religion
9. material
10. purpose/noun

I can't figure out where to put state or status adjectives. For example the adjectives 'dry' and 'divorced'. I'm assuming it somehow goes into the 'shape' category but I'm not certain. Am I checking out the wrong websites or resources?

[lifeinkorea]

That's too much ground to cover, and it's all about adjectives.

Which is better, red plaid shirt or plaid red shirt? I see both.

www.uk-abercrombieandfitch.net/abercrombie-fitch-large-plaid-red-shirt

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Plaid-Shirt-Diane-Schoemperlen/dp/0142003204

I think sometimes you need to go with what sounds better. Scale back and categorize your adjectives into smaller groups and see how many your students are really interested in. Adjectives is a very boring lesson without something like clothes or animals to make it interesting.

Maybe this will help http://englishlessons.wikispaces.com/adjectives

[crsandus]

The purpose of my lesson is to basically expose my students to the fact that there is an order to adjectives and some new vocabulary. I basically want them to know that "The old blue car" is better than "The blue old car".

My question concerning 'dry' and 'divorced' is half for my own curiosity and half for possible questions from my smarter students. I have no expectations of the students truly learning adjective order until high school (if ever).

I was just hoping for a person with grammar knowledge to know the answer to the question.

[bobbybigfoot]

*groan

Don't spend too much time on this please.

(A) you'll bore the kids to death
(B) alot of this is subjective and/or based on old rules
(C) Unless these kids are TOP level students, there are better things to spend your time on

[bbud656]

For most adjectives I would say a person's writing style will dictate how they place them. There may be a right or wrong way, but no one is ever going to bat an eye if they place them in any order they want. Unless this is a college level class, I don't think they need to know this. Besides, is there even an agreed upon, ordered list? English has all sorts of wishy washy deviations.

[lifeinkorea]

For "dry" try this site, http://www.esolcourses.com/content/exercises/grammar/adjectives/adjectiveorder/adjectiveorder.html

For "divorced" check this one, http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=151311

[winterfall]

It's possible to structure it into your lessons. It's incredibly boring but, gives students who can't otherwise write a chance to apply vocabulary words they just learned. And there's also a very serious risk that they're just write 1 word from the noun list and 1 word from the adjective list without having any comprehension as to what the finished sentences means.

Include a small sample of words from each category and stick it in one big list. Screen the list so that any word you choose can easily replace a blank in a very, very simple model sentence. And hope they learn the grammar rules by inference.

For example:

Vocab words = big, bad, old,

_____ (Noun) is _____ (Adjective)

[ReeseDog]

[Universalis]

I would put state or status adjectives closer to the article. The way I learned this material is that the more "permanent" the quality is to the head noun, the closer it is to the noun. Both "dry" and "divorced" can be temporary states, and thus way up in front of the noun phrase.

Brian

[HapKi]

I've just written a paper on this topic for my grad work.
Many researchers have come up with different prenominal adjective order preferences. For example, Bache, C and Davidsen-Nielsen, N. (1997). Also you can look at the literature review of Kemmerer, D. (2000). Selective impairment of knowledge underlying prenominal adjective order: evidence for the autonomy of grammatical semantics. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 13, 57-82.

Here is a little cut and paste magic from my paper-

Bache (1978) provides a comprehensive analysis of English prenominal adjective order, of which there are two main levels of organization. The first level will be of primary concern for the current investigation. This level consists of three functionally defined �modification zones� in which adjectives can be slotted; preceding these zones is a syntactical slot for determiners and following these zones is a slot for the head noun of the noun phrase (Bache and Davidsen-Nielsen, 1997). The zone farthest away from the referent of the noun head (Zone 1) is for �specifying� adjectives, which help to single out or quantify the referent of the noun head. Examples would be earliest, next, many, and same. The middle zone (Zone 2) is for �descriptive� adjectives, which work to characterize the referent of a head noun among a variety of semantic parameters such as value, size, dimension, and color. Examples would be beautiful, important, interesting, big, and blue. The zone closest to the referent of the noun head (Zone 3) is for �classifying� adjectives, and serve to sub-classify precisely the category of the noun head it modifies. Examples would be French, jazz, Victorian, national, and church.

[lifeinkorea]

Cool, now we can have "linguistic superheroes" sporting particular adjective orders. Good research, you used your time "whysely"?

[different]

OK, here's a funny, relevant video that I stumbled on once:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySnT_5IcWGg

The guy's rule has a mistake, but it's probably not a problem because the kids won't remember the rule anyway. Maybe teaching this topic could be useful just to let the kids know that adjective order can matter sometimes.

Show this video and then MOVE ON TO SOMETHING ELSE!! This must be one of the LAST things second language learners would ever acquire (be able to do naturally). Why? Because the rule is not important for accurate communication, the rule doesn't occur frequently, the rule has no intuitive logic behind it, and the rule is difficult.

Unless the students are really advanced, their long-term writing and speaking will probably not improve at all by being taught this stuff now.

Focus on basics and mix in some fluency practice. Maybe go to Kyobo Book Store and buy a book or two by Penny Ur (she writes activity books, but her books would be in the section where the ESL theory books are). Also, if you're looking to teach grammar, a series called Grammar Dimensions also has some activities.

Please don't choose material that's over the kids' heads. The fact that Korean teachers and hagwons usually do that is why most Korean students don't ever become very fluent.

[HapKi]

For the OP, probably one of the most useful things to expose your students to (especially at the low or intermediate level)
is that 'classifying' adjectives are stongly fixed in Zone 3 (or closest to the noun).
As such, they are the 'nouniest' of the adjectives, and also could be argued as being compound nouns, strong collocations, etc.
Think of phrases like old, grizzly bear...tall, Christmas tree...children's board game..

lifeinkorea--"linguistic superhero"...thanks, I like that. Hope you learned something.