See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/265682721

1991-Interesting Intermediate Students in Grammar (IATEFL)

Conference Paper · January 1991

DOI: 10.13140/2.1.3297.9205

CITATIONS READS

0 648

1 author:

Ramesh Krishnamurthy

160 PUBLICATIONS   663 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

cobuild View project

corpus linguistics View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Ramesh Krishnamurthy on 16 September 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Interesting Intermediate Students in Grammar

Ramesh Krishnamurthy, IATEFL, 1991

ABSTRACT

Most students find grammar difficult to understand and grammar exercises boring to do. This
talk discusses some specific problems that grammar poses for students, and suggests more
user-friendly forms of presentation for grammatical statements and more stimulating types of
exercise, based on ideas used in the Collins COBUILD Student's Grammar.

1. COBUILD

1.1 Cobuild is a research project that was set up 10 years ago by Birmingham University and
Collins the Publishers (now HarperCollins). Cobuild's main aims were to collect a large
corpus of modern English, feed it into a computer, and use the computer to help us to begin a
fresh analysis of the language. By 1986, our corpus had grown to 20 million words. That
corpus has been the basis for all our publications to date.

1.2 As some of you will have heard, we have just begun the process of building a new
Corpus, the Bank of English, which will be over 200 million words, so future Cobuild
publications should have the benefit of substantially more information about many more
words.

1.3 The first Cobuild Dictionary was published in 1987, and we have since published four
more dictionaries, workbooks to encourage dictionary skills, and an account of our ideas and
methods in a book entitled Looking Up.

1.4 We have also published The Cobuild English Course by Dave and Jane Willis, and Dave
Willis's book on Lexical Syllabus.

1.5 Last year we published the first Cobuild Grammar. This year, we are introducing the
Student's Grammar.

2. COBUILD AND GRAMMAR

2.1 Cobuild's early investigations of grammar were recorded in the first Dictionary. Among
our discoveries was the importance in English of delexical and ergative verbs. Three more
years of research were conducted before the Cobuild Grammar was published. That described
the main structures of English and the functions expressed by those structures.

2.2 At Cobuild, we can determine the relative importance of a word or structure with
considerable authority, because the computer can provide us with statistics about their
frequency. The computer also provides us with an abundance of example sentences, so we
have no need to invent them.

2.3 And very importantly, the computer can find all the words that occur in a particular
structure, and enables us to generate accurate lists.
2.4 In the Cobuild Student's Grammar, we have tried to go a step further in user-friendliness,
and group items in lists under semantic headings wherever possible.

3. COLLINS COBUILD STUDENT'S GRAMMAR (CCSG)

3.1 Why do students find grammar difficult to understand?

3.1.1 Intermediate students may not have a sound grasp of the grammar of their own
language.

3.1.2 Teachers may have problems because of the variable ability of students in their class.

3.1.3 The organization of material in Intermediate grammars often lacks a coherent or logical
structure.

3.1.4 There may be problems of terminology - especially if students don't know the grammar
of their L1.

3.1.5 Grammars often contain complicated explanations, partial information, or even wrong
information.

3.1.6 Grammar is often explained at the lexical level, but grammar is by definition about
groups or classes of words that behave similarly (e.g. in Murphy "chance & opportunity + of
+ -ing / to-infinitive”: why are only those two words selected?)

3.2 CCSG addresses these problems in several ways:

3.2.1 The CONTENTS LIST is deliberately designed to fit on one two-page spread.

3.2.2 Each Unit also occupies a two-page spread, with the information on the left-hand page,
and the exercises on the right-hand page.

3.2.3 Students may refer to the units in any order, but whenever they consult the contents list,
they will see how a particular topic fits into the overall grammar. The order of units is
carefully designed. It is not just an arbitrary sequence of topics, but follows a logical and
coherent structure.

3.3 CCSG has three PRELIMINARY UNITS, introducing and explaining the main concepts:
clause and sentence structure, the noun group, and the verb group.

3.4 The rest of the units are grouped under FOUR MAJOR HEADINGS, based on word
classes and important grammatical functions:

3.4.1 noun group - nouns, pronouns, determiners, adjectives, comparison, possession, adding
to the noun group

3.4.2 adverbials - adverbials, prepositions

3.4.3 verb group - tenses, mood, modals, transitivity, verb complementation, passive,
reporting

3.4.4 sentence structure - (subordinate clauses) time, conditional, purpose, reason, result,
contrast, manner, relative; focus, and cohesion

3.5 Each unit has a summary of "Main points" at the top of the left-hand page. When students
want to find a more detailed point of grammar, but are not sure which unit deals with it, they
can use the comprehensive INDEX and find items such as:
nouns followed by `for'
nouns followed by `to'
reporting verbs followed by `that'-clauses

3.6 We tried hard to use as few TECHNICAL TERMS as possible: e.g. instead of
ditransitive, we use “verbs with two objects”, and instead of delexical, “common verbs with
nouns for actions”.

3.7 But some terms were difficult to simplify or became very verbose: e.g. ergative =
transitive verbs whose objects can also be the subjects of the same verb used intransitively
determiners – without this term, we would be forced to employ clumsy lists in headings and
statements, such as `the/this/that/these/those/my/your/his etc' (Murphy 82c) or
`it/us/you/them' (Murphy 82d)

3.8 If students do not understand any of the terms, there is a full GLOSSARY, with
explanations in simple terms and with examples.

3.9 Let us now look in more detail at the main procedures involved in producing the Collins
Cobuild Student's Grammar, and the features that resulted in the product.

4. THE SELECTION OF INFORMATION

4.1 Should the grammar be comprehensive or selective? For example, Hill omits Reported
Speech.

4.2 Teachers know their intermediate students' main problems: e.g. determiners, verb tenses.

4.3 But if we use problems as the sole criteria for inclusion, we end up with precisely with an
unconnected sequence of topics - which teachers criticised.

4.4 Many grammar books are also unbalanced (e.g. 9 units on the present perfect!).

4.5 To what extent are these problems the result of the materials themselves or the method of
their selection? Our selection was based on teacher informants, our own grammar research,
the larger Collins Cobuild English Grammar (1990), and of course the Cobuild Dictionary
(1987), in which we had recorded (by analysing our 20-million-word corpus) the grammar of
the most frequent 30,000 headwords in English.

5. THE ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION

5.1 Dictionaries focus on the description of lexis. the main system of organisation is therefore
predetermined and simple to implement: the order of the letters in the English alphabet.

5.2 The only requirement for users (albeit an important issue for learners of English whose
L1 uses a different alphabet or writing system) to find a word is that they need to know how
to spell it.

5.3 For Grammars, there is no obvious conventional sequence for the description of
structures. Alphabetical order is of no relevance. However, we still need to find a systematic
way of presenting structures, a sensible way of arranging the materials, a logical structure that
will be easy to navigate, all of which will of course reflect and demonstrate the underlying
model of grammar being used.

5.4 Are teachers' intuitions and experience a good basis for organizing a grammar?

5.5 Do all students necessarily encounter the same problems in the same sequence?

5.6 As mentioned earlier, intermediate students may not know much about the grammar
of their L1, and teachers may find a large range of ability within the students in their classes.

5.7 Which terms can we use that will make sense to the largest number of students and
teachers? Which terms can we expect them to know already, and which terms can we
introduce to them without unduly challenging them or confusing them?

6. THE LEVEL OF INFORMATION

The problem of describing grammar from a lexical standpoint, as mentioned earlier, is that
we will never manage to arrive at the appropriate level of generalization required in a
grammar, e.g. the Murphy unit on "at/in/on for place" never mentions other important words
such as point, line, surface, or container; the unit on "reported speech" refers only to "say"
and "tell", whereas there are many other verbs used to introduce reported speech - which are
used with the "say" patterns and which with the "tell" structures?

7. THE ACCURACY OF INFORMATION

Not only does the grammatical information have to be presented at the appropriate level of
detail, but of course it has to be accurate. This is why we rely on information from our
corpus. The 20-million-word corpus contains the consistent and typical grammatical usage of
a wide range of writers and speakers, in a variety of authentic communicative discourse
contexts. By analysing the corpus with the aid of computers, we can get a reliable and
statistically accurate overview of the grammatical features of the language in use.

8. THE PRESENTATION OF INFORMATION

8.1 We have tried always to make grammatical statements in language that is as simple as
possible. Just because the grammatical feature is complicated does not mean that the
explanation has to be. Whenever we have given lists of words that follow a particular pattern,
we have grouped the items semantically where possible, because this is above all a grammar
of meanings.

8.2 Wherever teachers have alerted us to frequently encountered problems in their students'
work, we have added "warnings" to help the students to avoid some common errors.

9. THE EXERCISES

9.1 There are 325 exercises on the right-hand pages of each unit, representing an average of
over 3 exercises per unit. In addition, there is a Bank of Exercises at the end of the book, with
86 further exercises.

9.2 These exercises represent a wide range of exercise types, including:

9.2.1 "rewrite" exercises - these help students to understand the semantic differences caused
by selecting different structures

9.2.2 "compose" exercises - the elements of the structure are given, but in a jumbled order.
Students therefore have to understand the compositional features of English sentences in
order to put the elements into the most suitable sequence.

9.2.3 "identify order" exercises - these are intended to enable students to understand at a
metalinguistic level some of the choices they made linguistically in the "compose" exercises.
"transform" exercises - by practising routine transformations, such as turning negative
statements into questions, students will be able to re-use frequently encountered words,
chunks of language, and expressions encountered in one common sentence pattern, in another
often required pattern.

10. SUMMARY and CONCLUSION

As stated on the Bookmark which you have all been given to celebrate the launch of the
Collins Cobuild Student's Grammar, we are offering you:

10.1 an "Authoritative new grammar" - because it is based on the analysis of hundreds and
thousands of examples in our corpus

10.2 incorporating "Reference and practice in one volume" - this grammar can be used both
to inform students of the main features of English grammar, and to give them practice in
using these features in communicative activities

10.3 in a form that is "Clear and easy to use" - information is always on the left-hand-page
and exercises on the right-hand-page in each unit; the units are listed in the Contents, there is
also an Index to individual grammatical features

10.4 Containing "Simple explanations of key grammar points" - main points are highlighted
in a box on the left-hand page

10.5 Including "Thousands of real English examples" - real because they are taken directly
from the corpus

10.6 With "Helpful lists of common words" - these unique wordlists area a rich source of
information for students and teachers, and can be used to refresh the exercises every time the
teacher uses them
10.7 And "Extensive practice material / Bank of further exercises" - over 400 exercises in
total, on the right-hand pages of the units and in the Bank of Exercises at the end of the book

10.8 Containing a "Glossary of grammatical terms" - in case students or teachers are unsure
about exactly how a grammatical term is used in this particular grammar book, or in a few
cases, where we are introducing useful terms that the users may be unfamiliar with

10.9 incorporating "Illustrations" - cartoons and line drawings add humour and situational
contexts that will stimulate students, and which can be further exploited in classroom
discussions, role plays, or creative writing activities

10.10 Featuring an "Answer key" - whether the exercises are used in class or set as
homework, students and teachers can check the suggested answers to the exercises

10.11 The Introduction in the first few pages of the Collins Cobuild Student's Grammar
gives informative insights into the motivation behind this book, the principles, policies, and
grammatical model on which it is based, and the reasons why we think that the topics
presented and the manner of presentation will be useful to students and teachers, and the
features included will help intermediate students to benefit from the range of structural
patterning available to them in the English language.

APPENDICES

1: SOME STATISTICS

GLOSSARY:
163 entries

100 UNITS:
326 MAIN POINTS
624 Numbered paragraphs
2464 EXAMPLES
236 LISTS
64 Cross-references
325 EXERCISES
2788 Numbered exercise lines

BANK OF FURTHER EXERCISES:

98 Exercises
800 Numbered exercise lines

INDEX:
281 main entries
648 sub-entries
707 structures/functions
222 lexical items

2: CONCORDANCE LINES

There are 31 examples of wouldn't mind in a 10-million-word corpus of Written English:

 ed his appreciation. " Now, sir, if you wouldn't mind giving me the gun . . . A
inter or summer. If I lived in Moscow I wouldn't mind what the weather was like
he'd be sure to kill Tinker Bell." " I wouldn't mind that." <P 296> She went r
bring the heavies when you come back. I wouldn't mind seeing what Messrs Powell
n today," Barbara said, "- murder." "We wouldn't mind a decent theatre sometime
a true statement here, so I take it you wouldn't mind swearing on oath that it
her. I told her that this was one day I wouldn't mind being in San Quentin's Ad
lowered her voice and leaned forward "I wouldn't mind playing footsie with that
, but I'll bet Russo could find one who wouldn't mind exchanging a little integ
ould you mind?" Not at all, of course I wouldn't mind. How very nice of you." S
ge back into the boy and ask, "Hey, you wouldn't mind walking me across the cre
ce to hobble tne camels, and told me he wouldn't mind if I later camped by the
enting on the cold, and hinting that he wouldn't mind camping here. I most cert
her had killed the mother, she probably wouldn't mind as much," said Mrs Oliver
who could blind people with science and wouldn't mind going on television in th
atin name inspired no confidence and he wouldn't mind betting that an ultra-vio
. He merely said, "All right. So if you wouldn't mind apologising for me. Expla
u banged," said the Mars Bar. "I bet he wouldn't mind having a go." Wilt applie
r Flint nodded. "What I mean is this. I wouldn't mind betting that when we do g
affront. One man uttered the words, "I wouldn't mind arriving at the right tim
a sentence beginning with the words, "I wouldn't mind arriving at the right tim
ove to put my tent up somewhere, if you wouldn't mind." "Sure, be our guest." S
Like steak sandwiches? That is, if you wouldn't mind." "Mind what?" "Eatin" wi
tride the streets.' Nancy Ryan said she wouldn't mind striding the streets, and
back suddenly and found me here?' "They wouldn't mind. But I'd rather they didn
ill be glad to bet because naturally he wouldn't mind owning the horse back too
Stanley, helping himself to a drink. "I wouldn't mind buying it." The Count res
... I don't know. I mean, obviously, I wouldn't mind that, in itself ..." "You
ike Lady Chatterley's lover ... well, I wouldn't mind that, either, necessarily
at, either, necessarily, but ... " "You wouldn't mind anything on principle. Bu
"People might not want to be alone." "I wouldn't mind." His certainties alarmed

There are 11 examples of wouldn't mind in a 1-million-word corpus of Spoken English:

RIGHT {C} REALLY I REALLY MEAN THAT. I WOULDN'T MIND ONE OF THESE STUDENT BED
the utility thing are ... they go - I wouldn't mind a corsair myself. I don#t
t can be properly installed - Well I wouldn't mind because I don#t want to b
nd say that I want a job in London. I wouldn't mind being a manager of a stor
red a month directly to me {B} Well, I wouldn't mind, I suppose {C} I'd be al
work {C} Yeah {B} Longer hours {C} I wouldn't mind... {B} Plus you get....
they are going to get out of 4%. They wouldn't mind having 4% if they were
have to watch the food {c} yes yeah i wouldn't mind corfu yes we we have bee
d having 4% if they were judges, they wouldn't mind if they were senior civil
ere's mmm a couple of other hotels we wouldn't mind staying at but that didn#
t for you? {A} (LAUGHS) Well, if you wouldn't mind! {B} K-H-U-L-A-I-F-I.

View publication stats