Teach English in Tianliu Zhen - Weifang Shi

Learning grammar teaches one of the basic rules of constructing sentences. If people do not have the understanding of grammar, all they really know are words and some phrases and maybe some general basic questions. Those understandings are not enough to express thoughts and ideas effectively to other English speakers. While this could be sufficient for a tourist, it is detrimental to communication in both casual and formal (e.g., business) situations. Understanding grammar, however, makes it easy for one to naturally create their own proper sentences, which in turn allows for clear communication. There are at least three major components to understanding how sentences are constructed: Regular/irregular grammatical patterns for verbs, gender, and word order. Since the English language consists of more irregular verbs than some other languages, it is important to grasp the understanding of these types of verbs in order to succeed in learning English. For example, some irregular verbs such as ‘drank’ is the past tense for the present verb ‘to drink’. When it comes to regular verbs, they can change from different tenses - past to present - just with the addition of –ed. Therefore, understanding the different patterns of irregular and regular verbs is necessary for communicating clearly. English uses three different genders to figure out which pronouns to use. Improper use of pronouns can result in confusion at best with possibly serious misunderstandings. The following pronouns are related to the sex of the person that is referred to in a sentence. A few of these is as follows: he, she, it, etc. The following example sentence shows the role that gender reference plays: Mary is at the store buying groceries. She (is Mary) is at the store buying groceries. If referring to a female in a sentence, the gender appropriate pronoun is the word ‘she’. This shows why learning grammar is important so we can appropriately refer to someone with the correct terminology. One of the most crucial topics to learn, aside from pronunciation and vocabulary, is word order. Knowing how certain words are grouped together to form a sentence, is useful for people to be able to understand each other. Even if one does not know all the grammatical rules and structures, it is still possible to get by just fine with knowing the word order of a sentence. The basic structure of an English language sentence is Subject + Verb + Object. The subject in a sentence always comes before the verb. Authors (S) write (V) books (O). If this word order was rearranged, then it would not convey the same idea at all. Books (O) write (V) authors (S). The above sentence indicates that the books are writing authors which is impossible. To make sentences more expressive, adjectives, indirect objects, and adverbs are added. There are also word order requirements to each of these types of words. For example, an adjective is a word that describes nouns and is placed before the noun it is describing. Authors (S) write (V) funny (ADJ.) books (N). In the above sentence, the adjective is describing the noun ‘books’. It is saying the books that the authors write are funny books. Misplacement of adjectives and adverbs results in confusing sentences. Therefore, knowing the grammatical structure of the word order is important. In conclusion, understanding the rules of grammar will benefit an individual tremendously. Knowing the different parts of speech will help with daily conversation. Also, having a good comprehension of the difference between irregular and regular verb will help when trying to form sentences. I have talked about the essential components of the structure of grammar. However, keeping these basic rules in mind contributes to effective communication even for someone who is not a native English speaker.