Module 1: Language and Background to Language Learning and Teaching

Part 1: Describing language and language skills

Unit 1: Grammar

( 1 ) What is grammar?

Grammar describes how we combine, organise and change words and parts of words to make meaning. We use rules for description.

( 2 ) Key Concepts:

We can use grammar to describe parts of speech, grammatical structures and how words are formed.

1.Nine Parts of speech:nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions and exclamations.

Nouns:countable and uncountable; Verbs: transitive and intransitive; Determiners: possessive adjectives ( my) , articles ( the ) , demonstrative adjectives ( this ) , quantifiers ( both ) ; Pronouns: personal ( she ) , possessive ( mine ) , relative ( she ), reflexive ( myself ).

2.Grammatical structures: past continuous tense ( was/ were doing )、passive voice ( be done )、 comparative of 'long' adjectives ( more interesting )

3.How words are formed:

Prefixes ( a group of letters added at the beginning of a word ): un-/il-/pre-/dis-

Suffixes ( a group of letters added at the end of a word ):-tion/-est/-ly/-able

The Prefixes and Suffixes are added to base words (e.g. stop, book ) to make new grammatical units such as tenses, parts of verbs, the plural of nouns, possessives, e.g. talked, goes, going, books, girl's.

( 3 ) Key concepts and the language teaching classroom

1.Grammar rules are not fixed. They change. Unfortunately, grammar rules and grammar books are not always up to date.

2.Grammar rules traditionally dscribe written langage rather than spoken language, e.g. repetition, exclamations and conractions ( don't from do not ).

3.Just learning grammatical rules and structures doesn't give learners enough help with learnig how to communicate, which is the main purpose of language.

( 4 ) Discovery activities

active/passive voice, clause（从句）, modal verb（情态动词）, phrase, question tag（反义疑问句）, tense

Unit 2: Lexis

( 1 ) What is lexis?

Lexis is individual words or sets of words, i.e.vocabulary items, that have a specific meaning, for example: tree, get up, first of all.

( 2 ) Key Concepts:

e.g. clear(adjective)

Denotations:1.easy to understand, 2.not covered or blocked, 3. having no doubt

Synonyms: simple( for meaning 1), certain(for meaning 3)

Antonyms/Opposites:

confusing( for meaning1), untidy,covered( for meaning2),unsure(for meaning 3)

Lexical sets:(none)

Prefixes+base word: unclear

Base word+suffixes:clearly

Compounds:clear-headed

Collocations:slear skin, a clear day

Figurative meanings: a clear head

( 3 ) Key concepts and the language teaching classroom

Knowing a word also involves understanding its form, i.e. what pat of speech it is, how it works grammatically, and how it is pronounced and spelt.

( 4 ) Discovery activities

affix（词缀）, homophone（同音异形字）, idiom, phrasal verb（动词短语）, register（语域）

Unit 3: Phonology

( 1 ) What is phonology?

Phonology is the study of the sound features used in a language to communicate meaning. In English these features include phonemes, word stress, sentence stress and intonation.

( 2 ) Key Concepts:

1.Phonemes: the smallest unit of sound; The phonemes of a language can be represented by phonemic symbols, such as /i:/. The symbols are often grouped into consonants and vowels, and the vowels are sometimes divided into monophthongs and diphthongs.(音节常被划分为辅音和元音，元音又分为单元音和双音节）

Phonemic scripts:sets of phonemic symbols which show how words are pronounced, e.g. beautiful is written/bju:tifl/.

2.Word stress：the part of the word which we sa with greater energy, i.e. with more length and sound on its vowel sound. We pronounce the other syllables with less energy, especially the unstressed or weak syllables, whose vowels get shortened or sometimes even disappear.

3.Sentence stress: One word in the sentence has main stress. This is the word which the speaker thinks is most important to the meaning of the sentence. Other words can have secondary stress or unstressed.

Main and secondary stress are usually on content words such as nouns, verbs, adverbs or adjectives, i.e. words that give more information. Structural words are usually prepositons, articles pronouns or determiners, e.e. words we use to build the grammar of the setence.

Changing the stress of  sentence changes its meaning.

Sentence stress is a characteristic of connected speech, i.e. spoken language in which all the words join to make a connected stream of sounds. Some other characteristics of connected speech are contractions and vowels shortening in unstressed words and syllables. These characteristics help to keep the rhythm of speech regular.

4.Intonation: the movement of the level of the voice. We use intonation to express emotions and attitudes, to emphasise or make less important particular things we are saying, and to signal to others the function of what we are saying.

( 3 ) Key concepts and the language teaching classroom

Minimal pair: words distinguished by only one phoneme, e.g. ship and sheep, hut and hat, thing and think, chip and ship.

( 4 ) Discovery activities

consonant (辅音) , linking, syllable, voice/unvoiced sound (浊音/辅音), vowel (元音）

Unit 4: Functions

( 1 ) What is a function?

A function is a reason why we communicate such clarifying, apologising, disagreeing, refusing, interrupting, expressing obligation and expressing preferences ( we use the ing forms of verbs to name the functions ).

( 2 ) Key Concepts:

Exponent: the langage we use to express a function.

One exponent can express several different functions because its functions depend on the context. One function can also be expressed through different exponents.

The exponents can express different levels of formality: formal ( serious and careful ), informal ( relaxed ) and neutral ( between formal and informal ).

Appropriacy: use the level of formality that suits a situation. Inappropriate and appropriate.

( 3 ) Key concepts and the language teaching classroom

Combining functions and grammar helps to give grammar a meaning for learners and helps them to learn functions with grammatical sructures that they can then use in other contexts.

A functional approach to teaching language helps teachers find real-world contxts in which to present and practise grammar, and helps learners to see the real-world use of the grammar they learn.

( 4 ) Discovery activities

Four common functions: enquiring, negotiating, predicting, speculating（推测）.