How to teach English

Sun Linhui

How to teach English has been a hot topic in recent years and much research has been done in this field. Many studies on it have been conducted in the past years. However many problems still exits. First, many teachers throw the students into the sea of grammatical exercises. Second, the students only focus on the grammatical rules, but don’t care for vocabulary and phrases. Results from my experience are the following:

Vocabulary and phrases are the most important basic knowledge. The students must remember them well. Based on this, the students can understand and grasp the grammatical rules and use them easily.

Wilkins (1972) states “While without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary , nothing can be conveyed”. That is , vocabulary is a vital component of any language and the learning of its vocabulary. For most students the main difficulty encountered in learning English is the learning of vocabulary. How to teach vocabulary

We teachers should teach the students some rules to remember words according to the word roots. Such as: care careful carefully careless Use useful usefully useless

Wonder wonderful wonderfully Interest interested interesting Excite excited exciting Bore bored boring Important unimportant Lucky unlucky Possible impossible Polite impolite Evitable inevitable Able disable Appear disappear

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Convenient inconvenient Sun sunny Cloud cloudy Snow snowy

Nation national nationality Propose proposal Decide Conclude Invent Connect Art Science Science Electric Electric Person Believe Relieve Child Neighbor Friend War Receive Conceive Wave Phone Skirt Dialogue Gram phone

decision conclusion

invention inventor connection connector artist scientist scientific electronic

electrical electricity personal personality belief relief childhood neighborhood friendship warship reception conception microwave microphone miniskirt mini-dialogue telegram telephone

２meter kilometer gram kilogram

All the above is not enough, it can show the students some rules in memorizing words.

How to teach grammar.

In my opinion , the best way to teach students English is to teach them the typical signal words. For the Simple Present Tense, the signal words are: every, usually, sometimes, always, etc. For the Simple Past Tense, the signal words are: last, ago, yesterday, in+ past time, etc. For the Future Tense , the signals words are: soon, next, in+ some time, etc. For the Present Progressive Tense, the signal words are: now, look, listen. For the Present Perfect Tense, the signal words are: recently, in recent years, lately, since, for, already, yet, ever, never, etc. For the Past Perfect Tense, the signal words are: by+ past time, by the end of + past tense. If the students remember all these signals, they surely can easily grasp these tenses. It is not necessary to do a lot of exercises. Don’t throw the students into the sea of exercises, it is no use.

How to teach Passive Voice

We should teach students Passive Voice according to Active Voice, because there are some relations between these two voices. The first thing we should make the students know that the origin form of Passive Voice is “be+ done “. And we’d better pay much attention to the different changes of “be”. In every tense, there is different “be” form. The Simple Present Tense Active Voice : Subject+ do

Passive Voice : Subject+ am(is, are) + done The Simple Past Tense Active Voice : Subject + did

Passive Voice : Subject +was (were)+ done The Present Progressive Tense Active Voice : Subject+ am(is, are) +doing

Passive Voice : Subject+ am(is, are) +being+ done

The Past Progressive Tense Active Voice : Subject+ was(were) + doing Passive Voice : Subject +was(were) + being+ done The Present Future Tense Active Voice : Subject + will+ do

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Passive Voice: Subject +will +be +done

The Past Future Tense Active Voice : Subject+ would + do Passive Voice: Subject+ would+ be +done The Present Perfect Tense Active Voice : Subject+ has (have) + done Passive Voice: Subject+ has (have) + been+ done The Past Perfect Tense Active Voice : Subject+ had+ done Passive Voice: Subject+ had+ been+ done In this way, the students can learn the tenses quickly and well.

To the end, I have suggested that vocabulary learning is more important than grammatical learning. Because vocabulary is the foundation of English. Based on this, grammar can show its usage. It should be emphasize, however, this way of teaching English may be not suitable for every student. So it will also be necessary to find out a much happier and easier was of teaching.

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