Grammar for Language Teachers

Assessment One: Oral Presentation

Summary
Eric Lee, Jackie Lim, Joshua Chang

1. The feature chosen and the reasons for the choice

Our group has identified subject verb agreement as one of the issues with this learner’s text. There
are several incorrect uses of “has” and “was” throughout the text. This issue is exacerbated by the
learner’s struggles with the complexity of longer sentences. In summary, we would recommend
teaching her rules about subject verb agreement with a focus on constructing shorter, grammatically
correct sentences.

2. The current and target form, meaning and use of the grammatical feature
Form:
In English, the only key issue of subject-verb agreement outside irregular verbs lies in the inflected
third person singular. The most common errors are omitting the inflection “s” here and interpreting it
as a plural marker. This skill tends to pose more difficulty for learners from topic-prominent languages
than subject-prominent languages. It may also be influenced by phonological factors and habits.
Meaning:
The inflected s distinguishes between singular and plural in the third person. Reid (1991) proposes
that all English nouns have a number: ONE or MORE THAN ONE. This inflection then depends on the
intended number of the verb – eg “family” may be singular or plural depending on communicative
intent.
Use:
A descriptivist approach will unveil variations in use among native speakers. For example, when using
“none of” or “all of” or “each of” with a countable noun, native speakers will make divergent choices
about whether the verb following this noun phrase should be inflected.

3. Examples and justification of teaching activities to address the issue

Our first activity emphasises the core grammatical rules at the heart of subject-verb agreement, and
invites learners to first identify the subject, then its number, before associating it with the correct
rule, and finally choosing the correct verb form.

Justification: This activity establishes a foundational understanding of the basic rules for subject-verb
agreement before moving onto more complex cases, in order to minimise confusion and explicitly
teach a subject-prominent understanding of English grammar.

In our second activity, we use the ‘sentence builder technique’ to ensure the learner has a stronger
grasp on the subject-verb agreement rules. She’ll choose one random word from a box with cut-out
noun, verb and adjective words and incorporate it into a simple sentence.

Justification: This follow-up activity is a creative and fun way to encourage the learner to write and be
more accurate in her choice of verb form. The practice of writing simple sentences would help her to
acknowledge the fact that shorter sentences may provide more clarity.

For our third and final activity, we incorporate one-on-one teaching and learning, where the learner
will highlight sentences including the words “has”, “had”, and “was” on her writing task. Then, the
learner will rewrite the sentences in the correct form.

Justification: This activity would give the learner an opportunity to receive extra assistance, where
the teacher would be able to scaffold and provide feedback in order for her to understand her
mistakes and increase her understanding of subject-verb agreement through guided error correction.