1. Basic english Grammar
Material from British Council/yale writing center/esl
sentence structure

2. Part of speech
•Each word has a part of speech
• Noun - summary, proposal
• Pronoun - it, he, she
• Verb - summarize, propose, agree

3. Part of speech
•Adjective - suitable, proper
• Adverb - thoroughly, appropriately
• Preposition - over, on, under
• Conjunction- and, or, nor
• Interjection - well, oh

4. phrase
• Group of words
• student committee
Noun phrase - both of my friends, the
• Verb phrase - is watching, have
decided
• Prepositional phrase - in the light
• Adverbial phrase - as soon as possible

5. clause
• Is a group of words with a subject & a
predicate
• Actors perform on a stage.
• A subject can be noun phrase
• A group of people
• A verb can be verb phrase
• is standing at a bus stop

6. Clause structure
Noun [phrase] Verb [phrase]
A group of is standing at a bus
people stop
Jane and her
Are watching TV
family
People in
There Are
the room
It Is raining heavily
This dish Tastes delicious

7. Noun phrase
• Some words come after a noun
• With a prepositional phrase
• The shop around the corner
• With -ing phrase
• A student talking to a teacher
• With a relative clause
• The woman who discovered radium

8. • With “that” clause
• We disagreeshouldthe organized.
fundraiser
with
be
idea that a
• With to infinitives
• Do you need a place to stay?

9. sentence
• Simple sentence
• Compound sentence
• Complex sentence

10. Simple sentence
•Subject + Verb
• Must have a subject & a verb
• School / start / at / 8 a.m.
• Verb must agree with subject
• School starts
• Begin. with CAPITAL LETTER and end
with [full stop]
• School starts at 8 a.m.

11. • Can use adjective, adverb, preposition
to add information
• My school starts at 8 a.m. on the dot.
• The purpose of this proposal is to
summarize.

12. Compound sentence
• Two [2] simple sentences are combined
together by a conjunction with comma
• and/or/nor/but/so/for/yet
• The cupcakes are delicious, but
they are expensive.
• The machine breaks down time to
constantly, and takes a lot
get repaired.

13. Complex sentence
• Main clause + dependent clause
• clauses
Use subordinating conjunctions to join
• although, if, because, when
• I would advise against it because it’s
not really what we are looking for.

14. • Use relative clause to modify a noun
preceded
• which, who, whom, where, --
• with this idea, decided to make some
The student committee, who came up
changes.

15. Grammatical error

16. Noun vs. pronoun
• Do not repeat a noun with a pronoun in
the same clause
• My mother she told me to do the
dishes.
• My cellphone I lost it at a movie
theater.

17. conjunction
•Do not double-use the conjunction
• Although my classes aregood. but
my grades are not very
easy,
• Because thecome to class late.
therefore I
traffic is congested,

18. adverb
• Do not put an adverb BETWEEN a verb
and its direct object
• Our term papers. assigned already
the
professor has
• Our term papers. already assigned
the
professor has

19. Run-on sentence
• Incorrect use of punctuation
• study every day.
The students want to pass the test they
• The studentsday. to pass the test. They
study every
want
• Incorrect use of linking words
[conjunction]
• It was a beautiful day we wanted to go
the beach.
• It was a beautiful day, and/so we
wanted to go the beach.

20. fragment
• A sentence is missing a subject or a
verb
• Visit an orphanage.
• A gerund is used incorrectly
• We planning to have BBQ buffet.
• A dependent clause is written as a
complete sentence
• Because we can raise much money.

21. What’s wrong?
• Studying on weekends very hard
• My family is from Australia they
moved to Canada
• The experiment failed no one paid
attention to it
• The committee they organized the
fundraiser
• I disagree with the idea. Because it
doesn’t sound promising.

22. • Studying on weekends is very hard.
• My family is from Australia, then they
moved to Canada.
• The experiment failed because no one
paid attention to it.
• The committee organized the
fundraiser. [remove it]
• I disagree with the idea because it
doesn’t sound promising.