Hello, welcome to our first commentary on teaching tricky grammar. >> How tricky could grammar possibly be? Nouns, I know nouns. >> Yeah, I mean, we tell our students it's a person,place, thing or idea and articles? >> Easy, a and the, and quantifiers? >> A lot of, some, much, many. Actually, I think a lot of works with almost any situation. It's not that hard, or is it? >> Yeah, actually they're not that easy, same goes for nouns and articles. >> Yes, in fact, I would have to say that even if we introduced some rules about them starting at the beginner level, you'll see students in the most advanced level making mistakes in these areas in their writing and and speaking. >> Well, that's exactly why we included them in our series on tricky grammar points. Advanced speakers make mistakes with count, noncount nouns, articles and quantifiers all the time. We want to address these problems at the intermediate level if possible. >> I agree, these points seem simple but there are a lot of rules for each of them, as well as exceptions to the rules, which can be tricky for the learners as well as the teachers to explain. >> Right, and when mistakes are made they are often overlooked and never addressed because they don't typically impede meaning. Usually the context is enough to make up for these types of mistakes. >> Yeah, for instance I've heard a lot of my students say, teacher, I have lot of homeworks. >> Yeah, just in that sentence alone there are already two mistakes. The student forgot to say a lot of, and they made a noncount noun, homework, plural. >> Yes, but I still understood what they were saying. >> Yep, and one thing that I should mention is that teaching all the rules and exceptions is not necessary at the beginner level. Teachers can keep the rules simple at this stage and revisit nouns, articles, and quantifiers at the intermediate level with more complex rules and exceptions. >> Good point. >> Before we go into each topic, do you think that going from nouns to articles to quantifiers is the best way to sequence these grammar points? >> I honestly don't know how else it can be done. They build on top of each other, count nouns and noncount nouns are introduced in the first set of videos about nouns. Then, both topics of articles and quantifiers constantly refer back to count nouns and noncount nouns. >> True, putting them in any other order would just confuse students >> Okay, well, let's look at each topic in a little more detail starting with count nouns and noncount nouns. The most confusing part for me is looking at words like pants and use, why is that pants is treated as plural noun? And, you would always need to use it with a plural verb? Like, a pants are on the bed But when it comes to a noun like news it counts as a singular noun. The news is interesting. >> I know, pants is one of those special nouns that is kind of in the same group as binoculars, scissors, eyeglasses. Pants have two pant legs, scissors have two parts, there is some kind of reasoning. >> That makes sense. With news, it's a general term. The instructor covers examples of irregular nouns like this in her video. >> Yeah, she covers pretty much all the various types of count and noncount nouns, most of which are quite tricky. >> Okay, what's your opinion about teaching something like, can we have three waters? It's not typically in textbooks. Do you think it's acceptable to teach students to say water with an s? I mean, I use it at restaurants all the time. >> Well, I see waters too. It's perfectly acceptable to say, can we have three waters? It just means, can we have three glasses of water. >> Glasses makes water countable. I think students need to know that waters is okay as long as it's in the context of using glasses or cups. On the other hand, it would never be acceptable to say something like, the river has a lot of waters. >> So I think teachers should make an effort to teach grammar the way it's used in real life. As English evolves, teachers should adapt and teach English the way it's really used. >> Okay, next, lets go over articles a, and, and the. >> Well, you made all those videos, how did you decide which article to cover first? >> I thought that a and and were already introduced at the beginner level. So, reviewing when to use them seemed most appropriate. >> I was really glad to see that you did not teach that a comes before nouns that start with a consonant letter and that an comes before nouns that start with the vowel letter because it's actually incorrect. Teachers sometimes teach this because it's simple but the fact is, students need to pay attention to the vowel sound and consonant sound that follow the articles, not the letters. >> Yep, that's why I provided examples of words that start with vowels, but actually have a consonant sound like university. And words that start with consonants but have a vowels sound like hour. >> Yes, beautifully done. You also show students how adjectives or adverbs can come between the articles and nouns, changing the article that should be used. For instance, when adding the adjective eager to a student, the article would have to change. We'd say, an eager student. You show more examples of this in your video. I'd like to ask you, Emily, what do you think makes articles so hard to master?
