Functional skills There is a requirement to teach Functional Skills, and for many teachers this means having to find ways to teach sentence structure, and the structure of texts. Our simple grammar of English, as indicated above, can support teachers whose subject specialism isn't English. It looks at three levels: words, sentences, and texts. We divide words into lexical and grammatical, and explore the structure of word phrases or groups. We look at the structure of sentences, which linguists call syntax. Sentences can be simple, complex or compound. That refers to whether there is one or more clauses in the sentence, and whether those clauses are linked together or bound together. We look at the way that texts are made to hold together. That is called cohesion. There are particular grammatical words, and other devices (such as elision) that connect sentences. These aspects of language form a good introduction that makes it possible to cover the basic functional skills of English. Of course, if you know more you can convey more to your students. We see our simple grammar as a jumping off point for discovering the beauty of language.
We find it useful to demonstrate these points by playing the card games, so that learners can discover for themselves how they work. We have found that both learners and teachers of adult literacy are unsure that they have any useful knowledge of grammar and they feel this is a barrier to progressing, or even to starting to explore this aspect of language. By playing our game people can discover that they know a great deal about grammar simply because they can communicate with one another. The game allows this knowledge to be revealed to themselves and to one another. This builds confidence and a desire to learn more. So even if the immediate outcome is not a formal knowledge of sentence structure, what they gain is confidence to use sentence structure in flexible ways which improves their writing skills. It also means that the tutor does not have to take on the burden of providing the sentences used in the lesson as these come from the group and belong to them.
We want learners to make explicit their implicit knowledge of the structure of language; this will help them when reading and writing. By creating their own communications, the players produce writing they can understand and read. In the course of playing these games, learners gain an understanding of clauses and linking conjunctions. At a later stage, they come to understand and use verb and noun groups and their components. This leads to an understanding of some of the principles of grammar and communication of meaning, as required by the Functional Skills standards. Therefore teachers can feel confident that they can teach these functional skills for writing and reading.
We are happy to give workshops to groups of teachers about this approach. In our workshops the participants have an opportunity to play the games with one another and explore the way language works in a non- threatening environment, where as well as having fun, they can discuss what is happening using their own understanding and their own words.
References DfEE (2000) National Literacy Strategy Grammar for Writing. London: DfEE Farnham, G. L. (1887) The Sentence Method of Teaching Reading, Writing and Spelling. A Manual for Teachers
Available online at
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