Transcript KNOWLEDGE ABOUT Language – Key Stage 2

KNOWLEDGE ABOUT
Language – Key Stage 2
KS2, “ It’s the sentence, stupid!
With apologies to Bill Clinton - but not many
The hard bits
• This is about what teachers need to know
- and then only they can determine how
much of this the pupils in front of them
need to know at any point in their learning
journeys
• This is intended to help subject leaders
help other teachers who may need it
The Music of Language
• Words, phrases, sentences and
paragraphs all have tunes
• This should have major implications for
the way we teach language
• We must help pupils hear these tunes, as
well as understand the rules of grammar
A word about punctuation
• Is largely an attempt to represent these
tunes in written form – so we can hear
them – they try to do the same job as the
dots do for musicians – but consider the
difference between reading the score to
Beethoven’s 5th and actually hearing it
The nature of language
• Speech (oracy) is natural – as old as our
modern species – 70,000 years minimum
• Reading and writing (literacy) is a human
invention and just a few thousand years
old – probably started in ancient Sumeria
• All writing systems are, more or less rulebound systems (codes)
• To write is to encode (thought/speech), to
read and listen is to decode (written
speech)
Understanding grammar
• We all know grammar, or we couldn’t
speak – we know it by the age of two
• If you can write, then you know some
written grammar too, but
• The conventions (rules) of written
grammar are more formal than for talk –
they have to be – they are standardised
The Nature of English
• Each word is made up of one or more
syllables (beats)
• Words combine to make sentences (units
of complete meaning)
• The English writing system is alphabetic –
as opposed to, say, pictographic or
hieroglyphic
• This means it is combinatorial – using 26
letters to represent 44 sounds (phonemes)
in an almost limitless number of
combinations to make graphemes,
morphemes, and words
Sentences
• Are transactional, they convey meaning
• Each word in any sentence is doing a
particular job in that sentence on that
occasion
• There is a fundamental misunderstanding
about this, often perpetuated in our
teaching - when we say a word is an
adjective we are
mis-teaching, and will rue the day…..
Words are defined by their
functions
• In the phrase, “the black cat”, black is
indeed functioning adjectivally or being an
adjective on this occasion – but the word
“black” is not in itself an adjective – what
about the colour black, is that an
adjective? What about, “Back to Black?”
• This becomes a source of endless later
confusion for pupils – try “charge”
The structure of sentences
• Subject-verb-object (SVO) is our grammar
DNA and can be expressed/arranged in
one of 2 main ways
• SVO = the active voice
• OVS = the passive voice
Active
• The Queen (S) launched (V) the ship (O)
This sentence is about a queen who did
something to something or someone
Passive
• The ship (O is now S) was launched (V) by
the Queen (S is now the passive agent)
This is a sentence about a ship that had
something done to it by something or
someone (p. agent)
Agent-less passive
• The ship was launched.
This is a sentence about a ship that had
something done to it but we are not told
by whom or by what – if we go back to
where we started, our original subject (the
Queen) has now completely disappeared –
non-attribution - this is massively useful,
important and powerful into pupils’ futures
– and hardly ever taught
Phrases (subjects and objects)
• A phrase is a group of words that makes some sense –
all the words combine together – they relate:
The cat
The black cat
The big, black cat
The big, black, curious cat
Are all phrases, each one extending the meanings around
the head word, ‘cat’ – the last is an extended noun
phrase ( but not yet a sentence)
Phrases (verbs)
• The cat ran into the house
The cat ran hopping and skipping into the
house
This is is an extended verb phrase – all the
words in it tell you about the manner of
the running (the verb)
3 types of sentence (from phrase to
clause)
• Simple – one phrase with a main verb in it
(clause)
• Compound – 2 or more of the above
joined together by conjunctions
• Complex - 2 or more clauses one of which
is main, one of which is subordinate
Transformations
• Compound – It is raining but I have a
coat.
• Complex – Although it is raining, I have a
coat.
The conjunction (clause joiner) has gone
and a connective has replaced it, moving
to the head of the sentence. The first
clause is subordinate to the second clause
which is the main clause – Word alert!
• there is a further transformative option
involving colons and semi-colons
Advanced punctuation
• The guns have stopped. The war is over.
simple
• The guns have stopped and the war is
over. compound
• Because the war is over, the guns have
stopped. complex
• The war is over; the guns have stopped.
Semi/Colon as clause joiner (replaces
conjunction)
Old chestnuts
• Most of us tell children that verbs are
‘doing’ words. This is right but not right
enough. They are also ‘being’ words
(states), eg: where is the ‘doing’ word in I
am happy?
• Nouns are not just things in the sense of
objects; teach the distinction between
concrete and abstract nouns, eg: table,
happiness
Two sides of the same coin
• Is it any coincidence that the weakest
aspect of writing is at sentence level
construction, whilst with reading it is in
composition and effect, which requires
that learners can deconstruct the way
writers use grammar to position and
manipulate the reader?
What works
• An expressive read aloud curriculum – but
pupils have be able to see the text as well
as hear it – it’s the same principle as when
teaching sight/sound correspondence in
KS1 phonics: when it looks like that, it
sounds like that (and vice versa)
• Meta-cognitive modelling – writing in real
time in front of the pupils, thinking out
loud as you do so, explaining your choices
• Mapping the tunes of grammar with your
hands – effective use of voice
• Card sorts at sentence level (and/or IWB)
• Sounding out the punctuation
• Exposing the grammar frame of a
sentence/paragraph in a book and then
re-populating it – during shared and
guided reading (analysing the frame) and
guided writing (re-populating) – revealing
how writers create their effects
• Periods of talking like a book in class
Like the air you breathe
• Teach the grammar in context
• After that, help pupils notice it in the
world of texts – little and often, 5/10
minutes a day, mainly oral – skills soon go
cold unless we keep them on a constant
low heat
•Stop it!
(Imperative)
Me, not you