Comparative GRAmmar
UNIT 1
Material developed by Teachers and Members
belonging to the project
Marina Mihai and Ioana Popescu Openclipart (1)
1.- Communicative competences.
Dear students, In order to communicate with other people, especially with foreign people and students you need to acquire a set of competences that will help
you manage in various situations. According to The
Common European Framework,
the target language level for this course is A2 – basic user – waystage. What does this mean? It means you must
acquire some communicative competences that can be grouped
under the following categories:
A. General competences – from which we can mention: knowledge of the world,
sociocultural knowledge, intercultural awareness, skills and know-how, etc
B. Communicative language categories – that can be divided into 3 categories:
linguistic competences,
sociolinguistic competences pragmatic competences
But what should an A2 user be able to do from the sociolinguistic point of view? Here is an extract from the Common European Framework:
“Can perform and respond to basic language functions, such as information exchange and requests and express opinions and attitudes in a simple way.
Can socialise simply but
effectively using the simplest common expressions and following basic routines .
Can handle very short social
exchanges, using everyday polite forms of greeting and address. Can make and respond to invitations, suggestions, apologies, etc”
Of course that before becoming an A2, we should not forget the skills needed for A1 as quoted:
“Users can establish basic social contact by using the simplest everyday polite forms of: greetings and farewells; introductions; saying please, thank you, sorry”
The focus of this first unit is SOCIOLINGUISTIC
COMPETENCES. But what are sociolinguistic competences? These
competences refer to the knowledge and skills needed to face the social dimension of language use. The social dimension refers to
linguistic markers used in social relations, politeness conventions,
expressions, dialect and accent.
The linguistic markers of social relations are of course
different in each country because of its culture and language and usually depend on factors like relative status, closeness of relation, register, etc.
1.1.- Greetings.
Greetings are very important linguistic markers and their use and choice can be divided under the following 3
occasions:
1. on arrival. 2. introductions. 3. leave – taking.
Openclipart (4)
Activity: Now, Can you name at least 1 greeting in English for
each of the three occasions?
Use the platform activity 1.1 to answer it here
Activity: Read the following statements:
a. Communicative competences can be grouped under 3 categories.
b. Sociolinguistic competences are part of general competences.
c. Greetings are not linguistic markers.
d. The use and choice of greetings can be grouped under 3 occasions.
How important is to meet new people for you? Especially when you are involved in international projects, or maybe you want to work in another country, travel or move forever, communication with foreign people is essential.
When we meet new people, the first thing we have to know are greetings. Greetings are very important in every country and in many cases they may be associated with special gesture
1.2.- Expression of emotions
Pixabay (5)
Pixabay (6) Activity: Answer the following question in order to see how
motivated you are to start this course.
How important is to meet new people for you?
Use the platform activity 1.3 to answer it here
Activity: Do you have specific gestures when meeting people?
Give an example.
Use the platform activity 1.4 forum to share it with your
1.1.1.- The structure of greetings in English from the grammatical point of view.
Before actually learning new Greetings
in all the projects’ languages, let us make a short revision of greetings in English:
- Good morning! - Good afternoon! - Good evening! - Good night!
If we look at all these greetings from a grammatical point of view, we can see they are formed by an adjective (good) + a noun corresponding to different moments of the day: morning, afternoon, evening, night.
These are the most common formal greetings, but of course we also have informal ones like Hi! Or Hello! when we meet with friends or bye!, see you soon! when we leave.
1.1.2.- Greetings in all the projects’ languages.
Pixabay (7)
Activity: Now, Write the greetings in your language by
Now, that you have completed the previous task, let’s compare the greetings in all the project’s
countries from a grammatical point of view and see what similarities and differences we can find.
To see how many things we have in common, let’s try a simple game. Think if you know any common
words in the languages of the project and write them with their English translation, just like in the example.
Tranway in English is tranvai in Romanian and tranvai in Turkish
Pixabay (8)
Pixabay (9) Activity: Write T (true) or F (false) in the following chart
to see if the greetings in your country are formed in the same way as in English by an adjective+ a noun. If the greeting in your country is formed in another way, please specify how in the column other. filling-in the chart in the Activity 1.6 forum
here.
Activity: Write as many examples as possible in the
1.2.- Numbers
One of the most important social functions in order to communicate efficiently is asking for
different things. Numbers play an essential role in every language as we use them not only to express quantity, but also to express the cost of different items, dates or addresses.
According to the Common European Framework A2 users
should have competences and skills in transactions to obtain goods and services as follows:
”Can deal with common aspects of everyday living such as travel, lodgings, eating and shopping. Can get all the information needed from a tourist office, as long as it is of a straightforward, nonspecialised nature. Can ask for and provide everyday goods and services. Can get simple information about travel, use public transport: buses, trains, and taxis, ask and give directions, and buy tickets. Can ask about things and make simple transactions in shops, post offices or banks. Can give and receive information about quantities, numbers, prices, etc. Can make simple purchases by stating what is wanted and asking the price. Can order a meal.”
Pixabay (10)
Activity: Write the numbers from 1 to 10 in your language
Now that we have seen the numbers from 1 to 10, let us have a look at the ones from 11 to 20 in English: 11 eleven 16 sixteen 12 twelve 17 seventeen 13 thirteen, 18 eighteen 14 fourteen 19 nineteen 15 fifteen 20 twenty
As you can notice, all the numbers from 13 – thirteen to 19
nineteen end in the suffix –teen.
Does your language have any common suffix for the numbers from 11 to 20?
But our life does not end in numbers from 1 to 20, so let’s have a brief revision of multipliers of 10 in English:
20 twenty 70 seventy 30 thirty 80 eighty 40 forty 90 ninety 50 fifty 100 hundred 60 sixty Pixabay (11) Pixabay (12)
As you can see all the numbers except for 100 have the
common suffix -ty. Complete the following table to see if this is the
case in your own language.
Activity: Complete with the numbers from 20-100 in your
own language. Fill-in the last column if there is any common
References
Common European Framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessment. Available on the Internet: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_EN.pdf Pictures 01->https://openclipart.org/detail/2185/writing. 02→https://pixabay.com/ro/bord-formare-afla%C5%A3i-educa%C5%A3ie-creta-784365/ 03→https://pixabay.com/ro/scoala-bord-limbi-tabla-profesor-1063556/ 04->https://openclipart.org/detail/186814/shaking-hands-business-people-who-checkmark 05→https://pixabay.com/ro/siluete-persoan%C4%83-districtul-1186996/ 06→https://pixabay.com/ro/z%C3%A2mbet-pumn-deget-thums-thumbs-up-1188654/ 07->https://pixabay.com/es/taza-caf%C3%A9-espuma-caf%C3%A9-au-lait-1009230/ 08→https://pixabay.com/ro/litere-afla%C5%A3i-abilit%C4%83%C5%A3i-cariera-804540/ 09→https://pixabay.com/ro/echipa-siluete-personal-965093/ 10→https://pixabay.com/ro/banner-num%C4%83rul-cifr%C4%83-matematic%C4%83-1183445/ 11→https://pixabay.com/ro/numerele-educa%C5%A3ie-gr%C4%83dini%C5%A3a-%C5%9Fcoal%C4%83-738068/ 12→https://pixabay.com/ro/om-notebook-uri-continente-binar-1071773/
