Teaching Grammar

A word may have many potential meanings, but its actual meaning in any authentic written or spoken text is determined by its context: its collocations, structural patterns, and pragmatic functions.

Some people talk more accurately about words having potential meanings. Their actual meaning in any authentic written or spoken text is determined by their context: their collocations, structural patterns, and pragmatic functions

learners will need contexts in order to learn the language. Where can we get these contexts from? We can make them up (as most lexicographers, linguists and teachers did in the past) but, because our memories and intuitions are often inaccurate and incomplete, we usually make up contexts that are inaccurate and incomplete.

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n the first year teachers were using multimodal texts to teach how meaning is conveyed and then transferring the reading into writing rather than teaching multimodality.  Teachers in KS1 have always used picture books but now the focus was on use of colour, common themes, the effect of the picture as well as text and conscious reading gesture.  Teachers were allowing pictures to aid comprehension and consequent writing rather than overlooking them. 

iving them the confidence to explicitly teach it, along with how it is effective in conveying meaning and this helped the project to keep up momentum.  This worked well with the teachers who had been with us during the first year and some teachers who were new to the project but were able to catch up through sharing in their experience

Year 2 Children were talking about links between modes – ‘If we didn’t have the pictures we wouldn’t know how they’re feeling’ ‘The words and pictures try to trick each other’ ‘It’s like the pictures and text are having an argument’ Supported work at KS5 with ‘aspects of narrative’ where the word multimodal is used all the time

To get an idea of how metaphorical expressions in everyday language icon give us insight into the metaphorical nature of the concepts that structure our everyday activities, let us consider the metaphorical concept TIME IS Money as it is reflected in contemporary English.

We are adopting the practice of using the most specific metaphorical concept, in this case TIME IS MONEY to characterize the entire system. Of the expressions listed under the TIME IS MONEY metaphor, some refer specifically to money (spend, invest, budget, probably cost), others to limited resources (use, use up, have enough of, run out of), and still others to valuable commodities (have, give, lose, thank you for). This is an example of the way in which metaphorical entailments can characterize a coherent system of metaphorical concepts and a corresponding coherent system of metaphorical expressions for those concepts.

Swan writes that the tense does not need to be changed when the present, future, and present perfect reporting verbs are used (because there is normally no important change in time). (7) In addition to this, the past simple and continuous tenses in spoken English are often left unchanged, provided there is no confusion relating to the relevant times and actions. (8) Finally, in regard to modals, must changes to had to; past modals remain unchanged: would in the above example remains as would in reported speech.