Crash Course in Grammar
I developed this crash course in grammar when a class of students asked me to teach them grammar (a surprising request for sure). They admitted they didn’t understand grammar rules – where to put commas, how to analyze correct wording, etc. Watching my own young children playing video games made me realize that they were seeing the entire screen at once. On the other hand, I tended to look at parts of the screen.
It dawned on me that for years we had taught the parts of speech separately, and then at the end of studying all eight, we expected students to understand and assimilate them into appropriate usage. What if, I thought, the students could learn all eight simultaneously? Would that work?
I tried it with the class, and it was a huge success. Watching the lightbulbs come on in the students’ eyes and hearing them say they finally understood grammar was exciting.
So, please use this as a guide in your own teaching.
I welcome any questions you may have.
I am willing to arrange a zoom meeting with you and others if there is an interest.
The unit below is written as an instruction guide to teach grammar, the how to as well as exact wording to say to students.
INTRODUCTION
Start by showing students a dictionary – abridged or unabridged. Yes, today words can be looked up on the internet, but having students see the number of words in our language helps them understand how large it is. Ask them to consider how many words there are in that dictionary and how many they actually know. Some people become expert at using many different words, in various combinations, in unique ways – like the authors of the world. Other people never go beyond a limited repertoire of words.
But, no matter how savvy one is in using words, all words in a dictionary fall into 8 categories, known as parts of speech.
For years, students have studied the parts of speech and become confused by the many rules and exceptions to rules that pepper our language.
There ARE many exceptions to rules, and these will be learned as we go through the lessons. But, we will start with the basics and not get bogged down with exceptions until later.
The problem that students have faced is trying to learn the 8 parts of speech separately, (a process that must be done somewhat), but they often struggle to integrate the 8 parts into an understandable whole.
That is what this unit attempts to do – to give a better understanding of WHY rules mean what they do, of how the parts of speech fit with the parts of the sentence, etc.
The unit uses sports analogies to help with the understanding.
Learning grammar also requires some memorization, some problem solving, and constant logical thinking.
Why memorize? Because a simple memorization of some key points (such as the 23 helping verbs) will ensure that students know them forever.
Some things in life don’t need to be memorized – like a telephone number on one’s phone.
Some things in life, though, require memorization. Consider when you are driving. If you do not memorize what a stop sign looks like vs. what a yield sign looks like, you will be in trouble. And, you can’t stop the car, get out the driver’s manual and look it up in the middle of driving a car down a street. Doing some memorization at the beginning is crucial for becoming a driver who knows that a red, octagonal sign means it is time to stop!
In grammar, memorization saves time later, makes writing a sentence (just like driving a car) easier, and helps students pass college-entrance exams.
USING THE SPORT ANALOGY.
Students grasp the unit by thinking about sports.
Our players are the parts of speech. They play positions called the parts of the sentence. And the sentence is our field or court where they play.
Ask students to volunteer. Then assign each volunteer a role – vary them so that you name some players in one sport and a few in different sports. Example: you – be the goalie, next person, be the batter, next the third baseman, next the quarterback. Now please stand up and go to your spot in the field.
Students will look at each other as they grasp that the players/ positions are from different sports.
That leads into explaining that obviously you can’t put a player from one sport into a game of another sport.
The same is true in our language. Some words can’t be used in a certain position.
To the students:
Think of yourself as a new member of a sports team. Let’s say you have just signed up for a soccer team. You have a name, your own name. But, you will also take on another name – that of the position you will play. Goalie? Forward?
Or if it’s football, will you be quarterback? Linebacker? Running back?
Basketball – center?
Baseball – catcher? Pitcher? First baseman?
Your personal name is what the coach calls you, but the position you play is what drives how you must behave in the game or on the field/court.
Now, if you already know these games, you would understand what these players do and be ready to enter the game. But, let’s say you have never played soccer, and the coach said, “John, go be the goalie.” Would you have a clue where to go on the field or what to do? No. That is why it is crucial that you know the players, the positions, and then the rules that govern each.
That is the same in our language. The parts of speech are the names (the players), and the positions are called the parts of the sentence. Rules govern how the parts of speech (the players) act and what the positions can and cannot do.
THE 8 PARTS OF SPEECH
Teach all parts of speech together, first by having students understand the definitions of each, memorizing some lists (explained below), and keeping their lists handy so they can refer to it as they determine the part of speech.
The unit teaches all parts of speech at once using a process of elimination and asking key questions about a word.
Every word in our language is one of 8 parts of speech. These are the building blocks of our language. Think of them as your players on a team. Each one has a name, and each one has a function.
- noun
- verb
- adjective
- adverb
———————-
- pronoun
- preposition
- conjunction
- interjection
Draw a line between the first four and the last four because the last four – pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection can be memorized. Memorizing them means you will know them forever (with some exceptions – that’s for later.) These parts of speech are ones that you rarely need to look up. But, the first four – noun, verb, adjective, adverb – are the ones that need more explanation to be understood. These are the words that will require looking up their definitions when encountering them for the first time. These are the words that have different functions. Figuring out a word’s part of speech is a simple exercise in a process of elimination.
Let’s first get the correct definition of each of our players, the 8 parts of speech:
NOUN – a word that names a person, place, thing or idea
(a person = Jane, girl; a place = Boston, city; a thing = dog, block, or an idea = joy, emotion, etc. When determining whether a word is a noun, ask yourself at first, can you see this, touch it, or is it a thought in your head? A feeling?)
VERB – a word that shows action OR a state of being word OR a helping verb
Action is easy – can you do that now, in the past, or in the future like run/ran, jump/jumped, write/wrote?
Helping verb
There are 23 helping verbs – they HELP another verb. Memorizing these 23 words will ensure you know verbs. They include the forms of the verb “to be” plus 15 others that can be learned in sets (3 sets of 3, 3 sets of 2)
Am have, had, has
Is do , does, did
Are should, could, would
Was can, may
Were might, must
Be shall, will
Being
Been
Determining whether these are used as a state of being or as a helping verb is quite easy. Just follow this: If any of these verbs are alone in the sentence, they are called state of being.
If any of these verbs are WITH another verb in the sentence, they are called helping verbs.
They are all verbs!
So we can have a sentence with one, two, three, or more of combinations that make up a verb
Sue ran. (one action verb)
Sue has run (a helping verb with an action verb)
Sue has been running marathons for many years. (two helping verbs with an action verb)
To determine whether a word is a verb, ask yourself
– is it on the list?
– is it an action?
If not, it probably isn’t a verb!
ADJECTIVE – a word that describes a noun or pronoun
An adjective will answer the questions: Which one? What kind? How many?
The blue dress – blue describes a thing, the dress, and tells which one
The brick building – brick describes a thing, the building, and tells what kind
The two girls – two describes a person, the girls, and tells how many
ADVERB – a word that describes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb
If you don’t know these, then determining an adverb is a problem.
But, it is made easier if you ask what the word’s function is. An adverb will answer the questions How? When? Where? To what extent?
The girl ran home (home tells where she ran so it describes an action verb ran)
The girl ran yesterday ( yesterday tells when she ran)
The girl ran fast (fast tells how she ran)
The girl ran too fast (too tells to what extent and fast tells how)
PRONOUN – a word that replaces a noun. (pro means “for” so “pro” noun means it stands “for” a noun. Any place a noun can be used, a pronoun can be used.)
We would sound silly saying, Jill drove Jill’s car to Jill’s work and parked the car in Jill’s parking space. Instead, we use pronouns to replace Jill or Jill’s and say, Jill drove her car to her work and parked in her parking space.
There are different kinds of pronouns. They can be memorized.
Personal –Nominative ( I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they) Objective ( me, him, her, us, them)
Reflexive – ones that end in self or selves – himself, themselves, oneself, etc.
Demonstrative – there are only four – they demonstrate – or point to- something
this, that, these, those
Interrogative – 5 words used to ask a question – how plus 4 “wh” words = who, what, when where
Relative – who, whom, whose, which, that – used to start clauses (explained later)
PREPOSITION – a word that shows relationship between two things
A pencil and a desk. Using prepositions we can determine the relationship between them.
The pencil is above the desk
Under the desk, over the desk, near the desk, in the desk
Many times prepositions are followed by a noun; that noun is called the object of the preposition and the entire group of words is called a prepositional phrase. Don’t be scared by the term, phrase. It merely means a group of words.
So a prepositional phrase merely means a group of words starting with the preposition and ending with the noun or pronoun after it.
under the desk
by the window
after the game
CONJUNCTION – a word that joins (like a junction of two streets must come together). These can be single words such as:
and, or, nor, but
Or as pairs:
either…or
neither…nor
not only…but also
INTERJECTION – a word that shows emotion or any word that you probably would use in a moment of anger that would get you kicked out of class for using!
Wow!
Ouch!
*&%^*!
You get the drift. This part of speech never has to be looked up and is often followed by an exclamation point!
EXCEPTION
Now it is time to raise an exception – a word can be used as different parts of speech. But, if you always remember that a word has a function and can serve as one of the 8 parts of speech, and you learn what these 8 parts of speech do, this exception becomes much more understandable.
Think of the sports team again. Sometimes you have a player who is so good that he can play various positions – maybe in one game, the coach sends him in as a goalie, and the next game as a forward. That is how words are, too. Some can be used in various ways. Some can only be used in one way.
For instance, let’s take the word “dog.”
Most people would immediately think of the animal, a noun. The dog ate his bone.
But dog could be used as an adjective.
The dog collar was made of leather. (Here dog describes a thing, collar, which is a noun, and tells us what kind of collar so it is an adjective.)
And, if you used “dog” meaning one of its definitions – to follow in pursuit – you could use it as a verb.
The detective will dog the suspect until he is caught. (Here, dog is the action so it is a verb.
A WORD CAN BE USED AS DIFFERENT PARTS OF SPEECH – ALWAYS CONSIDER THE FUNCTION OF THE WORD TO DETERMINE HOW IT IS BEING USED
Taking students through exercises to determine a part of speech.
Figuring out how a word is being used is simply a process of elimination. Guide students by asking them about a word in a sentence, having them refer to their chart of parts of speech and memorized lists, and asking them questions.
Let’s see how.
Find a sentence in a book.
or,
You may use this sentence for the exercise.
Determine each word’s part of speech
You – pronoun
may – helping verb
use – verb
this – adjective
sentence – noun
for – preposition
the – adjective
exercise – noun
Students can be guided through different sentences. They quickly understand that the lists they memorized help them easily identify a certain part of speech and that others have to be figured out. At first, it takes a bit of time to figure out each word.
Using their chart of the 8 parts of speech, students catch on!
Start with “you.” If you have memorized the pronouns, you will know immediately that this is a pronoun. If not, you could get out your list, look at it every time you are figuring out a word and find it on the list to know what part of speech the word is. But, you don’t have time to do that on a test, or in life. So, take the time to memorize the words. They will be yours forever.
Now, go on to “may.” Again, it is on the list of helping verbs so you know it is a verb.
“use” – is it on one of the lists? no.
So, now start at the top with noun. Can you bring me a “use?” no, Can you touch it like a thing? no. Is it an idea? no. Then it can’t be a noun.
Go to verb – is it on the state of being/helping verb list. No.
Can you do it – can you “use” something? Yes, then it is an action and you know it is a verb.
Adjectives and adverbs are at the bottom of the list because if you have eliminated all the other parts of speech, the word has to be either an adjective or an adverb.
Just pay attention to the functions.
Adjectives answer which one, what kind, how many.
Adverbs answer how, when, where, to what extent.
Those are the 8 parts of speech. Now, I can hear some say why know these? Who will ever ask me to identify the 8 parts of speech? The answer is no one. You won’t get an exercise from your boss asking you to do that; even tests don’t ask you to identify the 8 parts of speech.
But, knowing these are essential for EVERYTHING ELSE in grammar. These are the expected pieces of knowledge. Just like when you go to a football game. No one will tell you who is the quarterback, the running back, etc. No one will give you a lesson in what these positions are. You must know them, identify them on your own. The dumb fan who has to ask questions like – what is a quarterback? totally frustrates the fan who knows that already and knows every rule the quarterback must follow.
People who don’t know their parts of speech are just as dumb as the fan who doesn’t know what a quarterback is.
And, for those who can learn every rule in a sport, know every play in and out, or call the game like one of the refs, learning grammar is no different. You are the ref calling the rules on your own use of words!
When a student identifies a word incorrectly, how to guide them>>>>
“The girl is a friend of mine.”
What part of speech is “is?”
is – noun – WRONG! Can you bring me an “is”? touch an “is”? No. Then it is NOT a noun.
Verb – is it on the helping verb list? Yes, and it is the only verb in the sentence so it is a verb – a state of being verb!
Does identifying a part of speech just mean looking at a list? NO. It means knowing your lists but also ALWAYS remembering that a word, part of speech, has a function and that function is often necessary to know what part of speech it is in a particular sentence. Take the word “mine” in the above sentence. The girl is a friend of mine.
What part of speech is “mine”? Now this is tricky because this is a word that could be used as a pronoun, a noun, or a verb. You need to consider what the word itself means in the sentence.
The place to dig ore would be a mine = noun
To dig the ore would be to mine = verb
But, saying something is mine is using it as a pronoun – on the list of personal pronouns.
Learning parts of speech is a matter of part memorization and part figuring out function. With practice, you will be able to take any sentence in any book and figure out each word’s part of speech within a matter of seconds. But, even the most adept at grammar must take time to do some thinking about the use of a word. It gets easier. And, without knowing there are 8 parts of speech and knowing what they are and what they do, you can NEVER get to the next stage. That would be like trying to put the second floor on a house before you build the foundation. The foundation of grammar is the 8 parts of speech.
THE SENTENCE VS. A PHRASE OR A CLAUSE
The sentence is our communication structure. Sentences build paragraphs and paragraphs fill books and magazines. It is crucial to know the definition of a sentence.
A sentence is a group of words that express a complete thought.
To understand a sentence, it is important to distinguish it from groups of words that DO NOT express a complete thought. These are fragments, and just as a fragment in math is a piece of something, not the whole, a fragment in English is a piece of a sentence, not the whole.
phrase – a group of words that do not express a complete thought (in the twilight, to run around, after the winning game) are examples because the words do not have a complete thought. in the twilight what? there is no subject or verb telling us much.
and
clause – a group of words that includes a subject and a verb but do not express a complete thought (after we won the game, while we were on vacation, etc.) are clauses even though there is a subject (we) and a verb (won) but there isn’t a complete thought. – what happened after we won? The thought needs completion.
PARTS OF THE SENTENCE
To make a sentence, you need to know the Parts of the Sentence and the rules about creating a sentence. Just like a sports team, you have a group of players – your team – but you can’t use all of them at the same time. In baseball, there might be 30 guys on the team but only 9 are allowed on the field at one time. Those nine players go out to play a certain position. In our language the players are the parts of speech, and they go out to play a certain position.
These positions are called the parts of the sentence.
Students should now know the 8 parts of speech and should be able to identify them in a sentence. Like a player on a team, that player must play a position and that position on the field/court is an essential piece in knowing what rules to follow.
Some parts of speech can play several positions. Some can play only one position.
Here are the parts of the sentence
Subject, Predicate, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Predicate Nominative, Predicate Adjective.
Subject Predicate Direct Object Indirect Obj PA PN
(noun) (verb) (noun or pro) (noun or pro) (adj) (n or pro)
Tip: notice how versatile the noun (or pronoun) is, – just like the great player on a team who can play many positions. The noun can be a subject, direct object, indirect object or a predicate nominative. In addition, remember, the noun after a preposition (on the bus). So, a noun can be used in 5 locations!
Sentences could have a combination of these. And, knowing some simple ways to determine what is what will be key to knowing these.
To make a sentence, you MUST have two of these – a subject and a predicate (most of the time just called a verb which we will do for clarification). If both are not in a sentence, you do NOT have a sentence but rather a fragment (a piece of something that is not complete).
Let’s break the parts of the sentence down into more simplified understanding. You will see why knowing your parts of speech helps in this next section.
Subject – must be a noun or pronoun; this is what the sentence is about.
Predicate – a verb – either action, helping, or state of being
A sentence can be made with just a subject and a verb.
Jane ran. (noun and action verb)
I am. (pronoun and state of being verb)
You can use two of each
Jane and Bob ran.
Jane ran and jumped.
Or even, three (Jane ran, jumped, and skipped), four (Jane ran, jumped, skipped, and hopped.)
So this is our simple sentence – a subject and a verb.
But it would be very boring to read a book of all simple sentences so there are other parts of the sentence.
Direct Object – a noun or pronoun that is directly affected by the verb
Jane hit the ball. Jane is our subject since the sentence is talking about her.
hit is our verb since that is the action
ball is a noun that shows what is being hit – the object directly affected by the verb.
A direct object can be determined by saying the subject, the verb who or what?
Jane hit who or what? answer ball and ball IS a noun– so ball is the direct object
Here is tip.
A direct object will come after an action verb. And, hit is an action verb
Jane hit the ball.
The boy clobbered his friend (friend is a noun, answers who the boy clobbered and comes after the action verb clobbered so it is the direct object.
Indirect Object – now, here is a tip – there can only be an indirect object if there is a direct object in the sentence, but there doesn’t have to be any indirect object. And the second tip – it will be placed between the verb and the direct object – not after it!.
An indirect object – a noun or pronoun that indirectly is affected by the verb. It will tell to whom or what.
Jane hit me the ball. We already determined that the ball is being hit so “ball” is the direct object. But, the sentence is telling us the ball was hit to me. So, indirectly “me” is getting the ball. “Me” is a pronoun that comes between the verb and the direct object and tells us to whom the ball was hit.
I gave my mom flowers. (I is the subject; gave is an action verb. After an action verb, a sentence could have a direct object – I gave what? answer: flowers. Flowers is a noun so it is the direct object. Since there is a direct object, we now look for an indirect object. Is there a word between the verb and the direct object? Yes. Is it a noun or pronoun? Yes, a noun. Does it answer to whom the flowers were given? yes, to mom. So “mom” is the indirect object.
So, let’s recap. There must be a subject and a verb.
If the verb is an action verb, there might be a direct object
If there is a direct object, there might be an indirect object.
If there is an indirect object, it can only be between the verb and the direct object.
As you can see, one thing depends on the other. Again, think of sports. IF there is a touchdown in football, then there could be an extra point kicked.
Now, let’s move on to two other parts of the sentence
Predicate Adjective or Predicate Nominative
Tips: these will only be in sentences with state of being verbs
they will follow the verb
The predicate adjective is an adjective that comes after the state of being verb and describes the subject.
The predicate nominative is a noun or pronoun (nominative is just a fancy name for noun or pronoun). The predicate nominative renames the subject.
That girl is pretty (girl is the subject, is = state of being verb and pretty is an adjective that comes after the verb and describes girl, the subject, so it is a predicate adjective.
That girl is my sister (girl is the subject; is= state of being verb and sister is a noun and renames the girl so it is a predicate nominative.
Tip: turn the sentence around and if it still makes sense, this shows there is a predicate nominative. That girl is my sister. My sister is that girl.
So, after a state of being verb you could have EITHER a predicate adjective OR a predicate nominative. Not both.
All of this sounds complicated. Just go back to the chart.
Everything depends on what kind of verb is in the sentence. Now, you see why learning your verbs is key to the parts of the sentence.
Those are our building blocks in our language – the players are the parts of speech. They play a position in the parts of the sentence.
Everything else in grammar builds on this knowledge. All the rules are ones that are particular to a certain part of the sentence or a way to use a certain part of speech.
The rules are what get tested. No one, on a test or in a job, will ask you to identify the parts of speech or the parts of a sentence. But, you will be expected to know all the rules for them and follow these rules. Frrom where to put a comma, to when to use who or whom, to the correct form of a verb, everything is dependent on knowing your parts of speech and parts of the sentence.
SPECIAL NAMES FOR SPECIAL TYPES OF WORDS
Think of a batter in baseball. One special type of batter is called a pinch hitter. This is still a batter but this batter has a special function. We have the same thing in our language –special types of adjectives and special types of nouns called verbals.
VERBALS
These words are called verbals because they look like verbs but THEY ARE NOT! Don’t be fooled – just remember to always look at a word’s function in the sentence.
There are three types of verbals:
Participle – an adjective that ends in “ing” or “ed” The frightened child cried at the noise. Frightened is an adjective since is describes the noun, child, and tells which child. And because it ends in “ed” it has a special name, a participle.
The babbling brook ran through the woods. Babbling describes brook and so it is an adjective. Since it ends in “ing” it is called a participle, merely a special name for an adjective that ends in “ing” or “ed.”
The participle could be placed elsewhere in the sentence.
Frightened, the child cried. Placed in the beginning, frightened still describes the child.
Or the participle could be a part of a phrase (a group of words) called a participial phrase. The phrase starts with a participle and includes other words to help make it meaningful.
Frightened by the noise, the child cried.
Frightened silly, the child cried.
The word frightened still describes child. By the way notice the comma in each sentence. Starting a sentence with a participle or a participial phrase requires a comma after it.
Gerund – a noun that ends in “ing” It will be used in the places a noun can be used – subject, direct object, indirect object, predicate nominative or object of a preposition.
Gerund as a subject: Running is her afternoon routine.
Gerund as a direct object: Jill loves running.
Gerund as an indirect object: The bookie loves running numbers.
Gerund as predicate nominative: Her afternoon routine is running.
Gerund as object of preposition: The politician is in the running for a state office.
Let’s be sure of one thing. Do NOT confuse gerunds with verbs. They look like verbs, don’t they? But, they aren’t USED as verbs. Take the sentence above: Her afternoon routine is running. The subject is routine; the verb is “is”, a state of being verb. Many people at first glance say the verb is “is running,” but stop and analyze this. The subject routine cannot actually run! Running is naming the other name for her routine. It is a predicate nominative. Remember, to check a predicate nominative just turn your sentence around. Her routine is running. Running is her routine.
Infinitive: the word “to” followed by a verb. Examples: to run, to see. Infinitives could be used as a subject (To read is my pastime), a predicate nominative (My pastime is to read.)
Caution: do not confuse an infinitive with a prepositional phrase. “To” can be a preposition. A preposition is followed by a noun or pronoun.
When in doubt, go back and review the parts of speech, the use of words, etc. Eventually, this becomes automatic. But, even the most expert grammarian often must stop and analyze a word’s function, think about the memorized lists, and figure out the use of a word. It is one big puzzle – or a big game.
Comma tips
Knowing phrases, clauses, participles, participial phrases, and gerunds will help in understanding the correct place to put commas.
If a sentence begins with a phrase, clause, a participle or participial phrase, put a comma after the clause.
Sentence that begins with a phrase: Before the test, I studied very hard.
Sentence the begins with a clause: After we won the game, we held a celebration.
Sentence that begins with a participle: Scared, the child hid under the table.
Sentence that begins with a participial phrase: Scared by the thunder, the child hid.
Do NOT use a comma if the sentence ends with a clause.
We held a celebration after we won the game.
Grammar isn’t hard, and it can be fun. At first, just like any game, it might be confusing, but as you learn the players, the positions and the rules, you get good at it.
Enjoy the sport of grammar!