Teaching Packages: English Grammar: An Introduction

This program takes the university student of English Language from identifying parts of speech in context through the more complex processes involved in parsing phrases and clauses. There is an accompanying coursebook, English Grammar: An Introduction (CJ Kay, Glasgow, 1997).

The package is now available and costs £100.

Multi-user and Site Licence Details

The computer package, English Grammar: An Introduction is based on our level one and two course on Modern English Grammar. The course is taken by first and second year university students who generally have very little knowledge of grammatical structures. Course units are sequenced to take the student from the (relatively) simple task of identifying parts of speech in context through the more complex processes involved in parsing phrases and clauses. Given that many of the students are also studying literature, the most relevant outcome is to be able to compare styles in terms of grammatical structure. The grammatical model is Hallidayan, but the primary reference is to the students' own coursebook. (C. J. Kay, English Grammar: An Introduction Glasgow, 1998).

The central feature of the teaching package is the exercise. There are five types of exercise, from naming parts of speech in context through to parsing phrases and clauses. Students compare their answers with the correct ones by clicking on the symbol below each sentence to be parsed. The author's preferred version of the parsed sentence is displayed with explanations of the more predictable errors where necessary. Within the correctly parsed version of the sentence there are hypertext links to the relevant parts of the coursebook. The navigation bar at the bottom of the screen is always present for access to instructions, backtracking to a previous page and exiting from the package. The coursebook can be consulted on-screen, and explanations of the more predictable errors are given. There is a pre-examination revision session, cloning examples from the coursebook.

The coursebook can be bought on its own for £5. The computer package English Grammar: an Introduction costs £100.00, £10 for GU students.

Contents

Unit 1 BASIC CONCEPTS
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Word, phrase, sentence
1.3 Grammar
1.4 Literary deviance

Unit 2 PARTS OF SPEECH
2.1 Word-classes
2.2 Open and closed classes
2.3 Semantics
2.4 More about nouns
2.5 More about adjectives
2.6 More about adverbs
2.7 More about verbs

Unit 3 WORDS AND PHRASES
3.1 Phrases
3.2 Headwords
3.3 Modifiers
3.4 Types of phrases
3.5 Adverbs and prepositions
3.6 Participles
3.7 Adjectives and nouns

Unit 4 WORD FORMATION
4.1 What is a word?
4.2 Morphology
4.3 Affixes
4.4 Compounds

Unit 5 FUNCTION LABELS
5.1 Form and function
5.2 Position
5.3 SPOCA
5.4 Sentence and clause
5.5 Function and Order
5.6 Slots and fillers
5.7 Object and Complement
5.8 Adverbials
5.9 Clause Patterns
5.10 Ambiguity

Unit 6 MAINLY ABOUT VERBS
6.1 Linguistic systems
6.2 The verb phrase
6.3 Verb systems
6.4 Auxiliary "do"

Unit 7 THE STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES
7.1 Prose style
7.2 Clauses and sentences
7.3 Closed class words
7.4 Technical problems
7.5 Phrasal and prepositional verbs
7.6 Cohesion

Unit 8 MORE ABOUT PHRASES
8.1 Subordination
8.2 Clauses
8.3 Words and phrases
8.4 Apposition
8.5 Genitive phrases
8.6 Tree Diagrams

Unit 9 MORE ABOUT CLAUSES
9.1 Subordinate clauses
9.2 Adverbial clauses
9.3 Noun clauses
9.4 Direct subordination
9.5 Indirect subordination
9.6 Relative clauses
9.7 Comparative clauses
9.8 Prepositional clauses