Grammar teaching: Little words, big grammar

Introduction

In his book Natural Grammar, Scott Thornbury took one hundred of the most common words of English and examined the patterns they form or take. As he says in his introduction, ‘words have grammar’. He goes on to quote Professor John Sinclair, who said, ‘Learners would do well to learn the common words of the language very thoroughly, because they carry the main patterns of the language.’

There are at least three things (and probably more) that are of interest from these statements and observations. The first is that grammar doesn’t exist on its own. In fact, grammar is, in its simplest form, patterns formed by the way in which words combine. Therefore, by looking at, and for, these patterns we (both teachers and students) may well learn more about language than by looking at ‘abstract’ rules.

The second conclusion we can draw is that since the top 200 English words make up approximately fifty percent of all written and spoken language, they must also make up approximately fifty percent of all written and spoken grammar.

The third thing that we often overlook these little words. These words are usually not ‘content’ words. In speech they are often unstressed and, quite frequently, contain a schwa sound. However, these little words, regardless of their size, are extremely important. It is a case of ‘little words, big grammar’.

About: quantity and time

With the increased availability of corpora and the development of sophisticated ‘tools’ with which to process data, we have a means to examine ‘real’ language and extrapolate ‘rules’ and patterns.

For example, if we look at the word ‘about’ we will find that the most frequent use is as an adverb used for showing that you are ...

Guessing an amount:

Giving an approximate time:

About: as a preposition + noun (or noun phrase)

Words preceding about

We will notice that ‘about’ can be preceded by a verb:

or a noun:

or a preposition:

and sometimes as part of a phrasal verb:

Of course, these are not all the features of the word ‘about’ but simply a selection. However, it is interesting to note that the structure ‘to be about to’ with future reference only appears in four examples from 2000 in the sample I obtained from the British National Corpus. If we consider the importance given to this structure and use in coursebooks, then this comes as a bit of a surprise.

Activities

It is quite easy, then, to create activities designed to practise the grammar of a particular word. Some possible activities with ‘about’ could be:

1. Inserting the word in the correct place in a sentence or text: 

In this text, eight examples of about have been removed. Can you put them back in?

2. Putting the words into the correct order:

1. 9 / at / it / starts / o’clock / about / think / I

2. about / a / for / ticket / costs / it / £100

3. good / no / about / things / worrying / is / it

4. in / you / see / four / about / I’ll / hours

5. a / story / dog / is / a / the / boy / and / about

6. him / ? / can / about / you / me / What / tell

7. 10 a.m. / about / at / by / discovered / escape / officers / prison / the / two /was

3. Matching each sentence to its meaning:

1. about a middle-aged

2. at about 10 a.m.

3. going on about

4. running about

 

a. approximately

b. continuing

c. concerning a particular subject

d. moving

Answer key

1.

2.

1. I think it starts at about 9 o’clock.
2. It costs about £100 for a ticket.
3. It is no good worrying about things.
4. I’ll see you in about four hours.
5. The story is about a boy and a dog.
6. What can you tell me about him?
7. The escape was discovered by two prison officers at about 10 a.m.

3. 1c; 2a; 3b; 4d

Conclusion

Instead of looking at grammar as a set of abstract rules and then examining how words fit into these patterns, we may well be better off starting from words and looking at the grammar they generate. By doing this we may well avoid the typical problem of only taking one meaning or use of a word and being guilty of oversimplification. Of course, it is still possible to overlook uses and meanings, and still worth being careful, but it may be less of an issue.

Another major benefit is that we will invariably be looking at the most frequently used patterns simply from the fact that we will be concentrating on both the ‘building blocks’ of the language and on the ‘core’ of the language. Again it is worth drawing attention to the fact that what we are faced with is ‘little words, big grammar’.

Sources and further reading

1. British National Corpus
2. Macmillan English Dictionary Online