The English Department Website

Grammar teaching at IST

We do not teach students grammar in English. They already know it or could not communicate. We help them understand the rules they unconsciously follow and give them the terminology to describe and discuss language.

We do not believe there is any direct link between understanding grammatical terminology and writing well, any more than studying the digestive process in Biology helps students digest their own food more effectively. 

We do believe that grammar is a fascinating area of study, both in terms of sociolinguistics, looking, for example, at language, power and identity or as an applied form of analysis of spoken and written texts. 

Having access to the correct metalanguage allows for a finer and more accurate description of texts and also allows the opportunity for teachers to give students specific feedback on their own use of language.

We take a descriptive approach to language change preferring to see Standard English e.g. as a more prestigious and often more appropriate dialect rather than as intrinsically better.

Terminology Used

Word Classes

Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives

Adverbs

Pronouns

Conjunctions

Basic Units

Phoneme

Morpheme

Word

Phrase

Clause

Sentence

Clause Elements

Subject

Verb

Object

Complement

Adverbial

Verb Elements

Infinitive & Base Form

Inflections

Present & Past Participles

Modals

Transitive & Intransitive

Main & Auxiliary

1st, 2nd & 3rd Person

Singular & Plural

Active & Passive Voice

Declarative, Imperative & Interrogative Mood

Tense - Present, Future, Past, Present & Past Perfect