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Learning GrammarLearning Grammar is like a law student learning the law of a country; every country has their own set of laws. And just like any language of any country, it comes with its own set of law. When I am learning english grammar, I noticed that it has a set of structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words. Surprisingly grammar is evolving even now when english language has since been around for centuries. The evolution may be due to the emergence of new technology, like a number common words such as cello, flu, and phone are actually abbreviations of the word violoncello, influenza, and telephone. However in present day it would be considered old-fashioned but instead these shortenings have become so accepted that to use the long form of the word would sound arrogant. I believe grammar is the system of a language and somehow through my own research, I gathered that it is grouped under the following categories: 1. Spelling and vocabulary 2. Parts of speech 3. Sentence structure 4. Punctuation 5. Some unspoken exceptional rules Spelling and vocabulary When it comes to spelling, I always remembered that there is an American version and a British version like the word color and colour respectively. However when checking the meaning of each words, all dictionaries from many brands or even countries generally have the same meaning. One good point to note though is that more than one-tenth of english words are not spelled the way they sound. Incidentally some words are spelled differently but have the same pronunciation. Example: Advice (Noun) Advise (Verb) Device (Noun) Devise (Verb) Of cause there are many more confusing rules like the prefixes and suffixes and when and when not to use capitalization etc to name a few. I strongly believe that doing this research on Learning Grammar helps me to further understand what I am learning in a TEFL course. The next part open up my understanding of english to a different level that I never thought of until now. Parts of speech Studying TEFL unit 2 thought me that every word in every language can be categorized further according to its grammatical function, this is what we mean by parts of speech. In english there are generally eight parts of speech: 1. Noun (a noun names people, animals, places, things, etc) 2. Pronoun (words that are used instead of more precise nouns or noun phrases.) 3. Adjective (words that describe nouns such as people and things.) 4. Verb (action word.) 5. Adverb (words that add meaning or information to the action or state denoted by a verb) 6. Preposition (words that show the relationship between a noun or pronoun and some other words in the sentence.) 7. Conjunction (words that join words / groups in a sentence.) Some other grammar books may have a different list, I feel that if I can break them up and learn them before I learn to form a simple sentence, and I will have a stronger grammar foundation. Sentence structure One important thing I learnt from TEFL course is the form structure of each tense. Below are some examples which I find so much easier to remember and learn, especially for a young learner. a) Present simple Positive form: Subject + verb in base form ( + s/es) Negative form: Subject + auxiliary verb ?do? + verb in base form Punctuation I believe no sentences can be completed with punctuations, or else we will not know when to stop, when to take a breather and the listener may not even know when to reply. Of cause the most important thing is to make the meaning of sentences and phrases clearer. Some unspoken exceptional rules In conclusion, we need not study grammar to learn a language, however if we do cultivate an interest to learning grammar, like I do, we can had discovered some other interesting rules that is not taught in class and it will certainly bring us to a whole new world of english language. A good example would be double negatives equals a positive and therefore negate each others. And what about double positive, will it make it negative? (Yeah, right.)
