In celebration of my recently having welcomed my 850,000th visitor to this site, I decided to share one of my favourite ready-made lessons. It’s one I’ve done dozens of times and it’s always worked really well. It encourages students to think carefully about the grammatical features of English and how it compares to their own language(s). In the process they have in-depth and important discussions about what the function of a particular form (eg. continuous aspects) actually is.
It’s designed for multilingual classes but it could easily be adapted for monolingual groups by simply asking each group to discuss their opinions as to whether or not their main language has such features. It could end with the students presenting their ‘ideal’ language to the whole class, followed by further discussion of why plurals are necessary in English, what the function of countable nouns is, etc. They could then write a short essay for homework reflecting on what they like and don’t like about English and why.
Features of a language
1. Does your partner’s language have all these features? Find out!
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Language feature |
Partner 1 |
Partner 2 |
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Subject-Verb-Object eg: I love you |
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Articles eg: The weather is terrible! I’d like a coffee |
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A perfect aspect eg: I have been to China |
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A continuous aspect eg: I am learning English |
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Cases: eg: He loves her; She loves him |
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Prepositions eg: We are at the airport; I am going to Swansea |
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Auxiliary verbs eg: Does he like coffee? I didn’t go out last night |
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Tenses eg: I speak Spanish; We spoke Spanish when we were on holiday |
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Verb conjugation eg: She likes cheese |
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The passive eg: My bag was stolen |
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Countable nouns eg: I am looking for some informations |
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Irregular verbs eg: I am, you are, she is |
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Modal verbs eg: must, should, can |
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Capital letters in nationalities and languages eg: Austria, Chinese |
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Plurals: eg: dogs; cats; people |
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Fixed word order eg: I like very much chocolate very much |
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Reversed order in questions eg: You are South American; are you Brazilian? |
2. Now, imagine that we were going to invent an entirely new language which was easy to learn. Which features would you need to include and which could you do without?
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Language feature |
An ideal language (yes/no) |
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Subject-Verb-Object eg: I love you |
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Articles eg: The weather is terrible! I’d like a coffee |
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A perfect aspect eg: I have been to China |
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A continuous aspect eg: I am learning English |
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Cases: eg: He loves her; She loves him |
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Prepositions eg: We are at the airport; I am going to Swansea |
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Auxiliary verbs eg: Does he like coffee? I didn’t go out last night? |
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Tenses eg: I speak Spanish; We spoke Spanish when we were on holiday |
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Verb conjugation eg: She likes cheese |
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The passive eg: My bag was stolen |
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Countable nouns eg: I am looking for some informations |
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Irregular verbs eg: I am, you are, she is |
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Modal verbs eg: must, should, can |
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Capital letters in nationalities and languages eg: Austria, Chinese |
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Plurals: eg: dogs; cats; people |
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Fixed word order eg: I like very much chocolate very much |
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Reversed order in questions eg: You are South American; Are you Brazilian? |
Infinite Coincidence 