The teaching of Grammar skills is presently making a comeback in the classrooms of the developed world. Educators have realized that the ability to form properly-constructed sentences is necessary if the adults of the future are to communicate effectively in both oral and written language. Knowledge of Grammar is also an invaluable tool when learning to speak or write in a foreign tongue.
Every correct sentence needs to have a subject and a verb. ( A verb is also known as a predicate.) These are the first parts of a sentence to be taught. A subject tells what the sentence is about; the verb or predicate completes the subject and is often an action word.
Example 1: The dog ran across the street.
The subject of the sentence is "The dog". The verb is, "ran across the street". This is a perfectly correct sentence because it has a subject and a verb. The next step is to isolate the bare (often one word) subject and verb.
With a little practice, even primary-grade students will soon be able to recognize "dog" as the bare subject of the sentence and "ran" as the bare predicate or verb. Now we add adjectives and adverbs to make the sentence clearer and more interesting.
Adverbs will answer the questions: how? when? why? or where? after the verb. Consider how the following sentence is more informative and interesting than the previous example.
Example 2: The frisky, brown dog soon ran quickly across the deserted street.
The adverbs are "soon" and "quickly". "Soon" answers the question "when?" after the verb "ran", and "quickly" tells "how?" the dog ran.
The adjectives, : "frisky", "brown" and "deserted" describe the nouns "dog" and "street". Both adjectives and adverbs are called modifiers and their purpose is to add interest and clarity to the sentence.
Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, but they will always answer the questions: how?, when?, why? where? after the words they modify. These further refinements on the use of adverbs would not be taught until the senior grades of elementary school or the early years of high school.
Another useful hint in recognizing adverbs is to watch for words ending in "-ly". Suddenly, really, perfectly, poorly, happily, are adverbs often found in sentences.
Grammar is an invaluable skill which should be taught to students under the general umbrella of lessons known as "Language Arts". Knowledge of how to construct a correct sentence will be necessary whether their later education leads them to perfect their English expression or whether they attempt to master another language. In the global village we now inhabit, both possibilities are likely.
