A blog about English grammar for teachers

Originally posted on Stroppy Editor: A teacher running an interactive grammar exercise (still from Englicious in the Classroom video) A recent study, as you may or may not have heard, has found that teaching grammar to Year 2 children (age 6-7) does not improve their writing. But that’s not what it found. The study, by…

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For some years now, with the regularity of clockwork, opinion pieces appear in the press about grammar teaching. The dystopian language used in these articles might lead you to think that children are subjected to unspeakable suffering: a recent piece laments the “full horror of the primary grammar curriculum”, another talks about the “Kafkaesque grammar … C […]

Bas Aarts

English compounds of the type x-free usually mean ‘free of x’ or ‘without x’, as in trouble-free, tax-free, hassle-free, pain-free, trouble-free, smoke-free, and many other combinations. These days there are many new meat-free food products on the market. How do food sellers describe them? Using the description meat-free is often only partially informative: […]

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I have long been teaching a course called English Grammar for Teachers, initially face-to-face, and later online. This course is still available for booking here. This course is now also available on the FutureLearn platform. The course runs for six weeks, with a time commitment of approximately 90 minutes per week. It can be started … Continue reading New F […]

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It’s not unusual for a name to be preceded by an indefinite article in English, as in this example: These are troubling times, but a President Barack Obama could handle them. However, grammatically, the construction is odd because we combine the indefinite article a with the definite expression President Barack Obama, so you would expect … Continue reading ‘ […]

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Have a look at this headline in a newspaper: It took me several minutes – and the help of my wife – to understand this headline. Why? You may not see any problem with it. But I kept interpreting the noun pay as the object of the verb block, resulting in an imperative: block pay. … Continue reading Up the garden path

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Together with my colleague Tim Clist I produced a series of ‘Grammar Explainer’ mini podcasts. They come in two types. ‘Basic explainers’ are aimed at NQTs and teachers with very little grammar training, whereas the ‘Advanced explainers’ are aimed at more seasoned teachers. The podcasts will be posted on the Englicious Twitter feed (@EngliciousUCL), but … Co […]

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Have a look at this image of an announcement of an event, tweeted by Rob Drummond: Rob’s response – “Hmm, ok” – is to a particular interpretation of consider teaching fair, namely the reading in which it is an imperative clause, i.e. ‘you should consider teaching a fair thing (to do)’. I think most readers would probably read … Continue reading Consider Teac […]

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Have a look at the sentence below: I like chocolate, for it is yummy. Which word class do you think for belongs to? For many of you for is a coordinating conjunction, because it represents the ‘f’ in FANBOYS. If you don’t know what FANBOYS is, it’s acronym that acts as a mnemonic for remembering the list of coordinating … Continue reading FANBOYS […]

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Look around the room you are in right now. What do you see? Probably nothing out of the ordinary. You will see all kinds of objects, large and small with different shapes, sizes and colours. If you are in a bedroom you’ll see a bed, a wardrobe and perhaps one or more chairs. On the … Continue reading Taxing taxonomy: how easy is it to categorise words?

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