ETAP 550
SPRING 2021
ENGLISH GRAMMAR (3 credits)
Welcome to
the class
The goal of this course is to provide prospective ESL teachers with awareness of those aspects of the grammar of the English language that are fundamental for their students, who bring special grammatical challenges to the learning process. ESL teachers can become effective teachers only if they are able to identify and then clarify those challenging aspects of English grammar.
Student Activities - The presentations
Each student is expected to make a 25-30 minute presentation on one of the topics listed in the syllabus. These topics focus on different aspects of the English language that teachers need to be familiar with. Students should organize the presentation as they think is appropriate for the topic, decide what to include (topics are broad), prepare the slides and make the presentation as informative as possible. After the presentation there will be a Q&A session.
Each student needs to submit the final version of the presentation after the class, so it will be available here.
Student Activities - Compare and Explain the Difference (CED)
English Language Learners often struggle with grammatical phenomena when there are similarities in the use of particular structures, and it is difficult to decide which one to use when. Teachers should be ready to explain and clarify the differences in those cases.
In these sessions, students will need to select an item from the list and make a 10-15-minute explanation session based on rules and examples collected from the literature and other sources. Each student needs to submit the final version of the presentation after the class, so it will be uploaded on the website.
Topics:
1) Past Tense versus Present Perfect. When are they used?
2) When to use “have to” and “must”?
3) “After” as a preposition and conjunction
4) When to use “active voice” and “passive voice”?
5) Difference between “gerund” and “participle”
6) When to use “will” or “going to” referring to the future?
7) Multiple functions of the pronoun “that”
8) Participle or adjective or both?
9) What is the difference between “if” and “unless”?
10) Differences between “do” and “make”.
Each student has the right to select a comparative topic of their own preference instead of the topics listed above.
©2021 by Hanh Dinh