C1 Beginning of Course



C1 Language Awareness Checklist

to use along with the List of Mistakes at home and in class

INTRODUCTION

In Spring we’ll go through this list together in class, to see what we need to address. Remember that this does not include techniques and strategies for speaking, writing or dealing with reading and listening activities, but as my approach is Functional Grammar, you’ll find some apparent connections. Use it along with your List of Mistakes and bring it to Working Groups in class. I can prepare activities and notes at your request. Here is an example: Common Mistakes based on your List of Mistakes.

← Use of Linking Expressions in Writings (1)

← The Anti-“You Must” for Obligation Page for Advanced Students

← Adverbial Clauses for Advanced students + Slips of paper for Grammar Teams (oral practice)

← Verbs for Essays 1 & 2 (+ collocations)

← Avoiding silly mistakes: Use of Tenses: notes cf. simple/perfect/continuous tenses

← Inversion after negative adverbials (oral practice)

← Misc: causative have, passives, pres.perf.cont., fut.perf.cont.

← Reviewing Relative Clauses and related topics

← Some tips on Subjunctive vs Indicative, Suggest and Using suggest instead of propose

←

Morphosyntactic matters

← The importance of the subject in English

← The importance of word order (syntax): the hierarchies – S + V, S + V + O, placing modifiers (e.g. adjectives) and adverbials (e.g. time phrases, adverbs of different kinds, or comment adverbials), compound modifiers & hyphenation-singularity

← Negatives of non-personal forms

← I aren’t, You two/all, There’s + plural, Unexisting “it”

← Impersonal sentences: You, One, They, It, passives

← Wordformation and Lexical creativity (relevant for modifiers, too)

← Inversion:

o Should you require more information, please do not hesitate to contact us (Formal letter-writing, conditionals)

o Negative adverbials (inversion S-aux): Not only did/could we find the… Hadn’t it been for… (Complaint letters), At no point should this be forgotten. Seldom will you find such occurrences outside the lab. Rarely can we find…, If ever do we meet…

o Sequencing (inversion S-V): Next off he went, Then came the voices…

o Short answers (S-aux): So will I, Nor has she, Neither did we.

o Story-telling: Off you go! Off they went. Down came the rain!

o So + adv (S-aux): So badly were they injured that nothing could be done.

o Too + adv/adj (S-aux): Too bitterly had she struggled. Too confusing had that been.

Present tenses, “frozen”, present & future time

← The LF of the Present simple

← Present simple for future scheduled events (C)

← Present continuous for future arrangements and with verbs of movement

← Present perfect: uses in US American English and UK English (see Past tenses, too)

← Present perfect continuous

Past tenses, true pasts & unreal pasts

← Past simple versus Present perfect: questions for Spanish speakers (see Present tenses, too)

← Using the past continuous in narratives: They were doing this when…

← Past perfect & past perfect continuous

← Unreal pasts: “Could” for requests, “Should” for advice, perfect modals (never actually happened); would rather (you stopped doing sth), it’s (high) time (you stopped doing sth)

Modals and Language Functions

← How modals express meanings

← Expressing advice: should. What about “ought to”?

← Expressing ability in the present and in the past: can, be able to, could (+ language change)

← The risks of using “you must”

← Expressing obligation and strong advice: with have to, must, should

← Expressing unfulfilled obligation: should have

← Expressing permission and prohibition with be allowed/permitted to, can/can’t

← Expressing deduction & possibility: can’t have, must have, can have, could have, may have, might have,

← Expressing hypothetical conditional: would have

← Expressing past habits: used to, would (comparing that to expressing present habits)

← Ending verbs / modals (ellipsis): But I don’t want to. I wouldn’t want to. Yes, I would like to. Yes, I would’ve. No, I certainly wouldn’t have.

Expressing future time

← Why English has no future tenses or Why it’s not about the future but about the likelihood of occurrence

← Present continuous

← Present simple

← Will future

← Going to future

← Future in the past

← Be about to future

← Be to future

← Future continuous: I’ll be wearing

← Future perfect and Future perfect continuous with various time phrases

Work for Gathering Useful Language for Language Working Groups

Automatizing/Automatising Production for fluency & accuracy

← There be. Gathering sentences in all the tenses of this verb, including the passive and quantifiers: There has been a storm, There’ll be spells of rain, There would’ve been time if we…

← Agreement: gender & number. Using non-sexist language, collective nouns, irregular plurals.

← Prepositions: listing prepositional phrases you want to learn (LoM) and Oral Drilling in Working Groups.

← The Passive. Awareness of when we use it, and what for. Useful Language with sentences in all the tenses in the passive.

← Questions & Exclamations. Gathering all kinds of interrogative and exclamative structures with different tenses including modals

← Have/Get something done versus reflexive pronouns: I’m getting my car fixed, We had our house painted, He’s going to have his hair dyed blue… Oral drill in all the relevant tenses

← Indirect Speech

o Consecutive Interpretation: re-telling direct speech by a classmate

o Mastering indirect questions and commands

o Onomatopoeias and other in indirect speech: “Ouch!” > He cried in pain. “You brute!” > She called me names / a brute. “Fuck!” > He swore. “Hahaha” > They laughed (their heads off).

← Relative Clauses. Oral Drilling (with all kinds, including ending prepositions) + focus: avoiding doubling the subject: the movie we watched, the book you bought, the people we met, the taxi we took (cf. the taxi that took us), the key I lost… Special uses of “that”

Communicative Strategies & Useful Language

← Hedging/Distancing & Sitting-on-the-fence:

← Scenarios where Useful Language for Solving Communication Problems is needed:

← Mitigators and Intensifiers: not nearly/quite as clear as, nothing like as easy as, nowhere near as fast as, a great deal fater, quite a bit earlier, far more interesting, by far the most expensive, my very best mark ever, kind of/sort of, a bit/little, little, might,

← Expressing emphasis: the use of stress in auxiliaries (italics), “will” in refusals: I won’t. No way. Modifiers of extreme adjectives: utterly filthy, extremely disorderly, totally inhumanely. Just here. Just got back.

← Tag questions: will you?, don’t you think? / right?

← Textual structure & Useful Language. Gathering U.L. for sequencing the text, and creating logical progression: In the first place, On the other hand, Consequently, As a result, However/Yet, By contrast, In contrast, On the contrary, Moreover, Also, (not “also” = “too”), that is to say, All things considered, Similarly/Likewise, To begin with, My next point is, so as to move on, Moving on, Going back to what I was pointing out, Having said that, Well, Anyway, So, Incidentally/By the way, better said, Since = As, Take X (for instance), Suppose, Imagine/Picture…

List of Mistakes (some hightlights)

← Use and Omission of “the”

← The Saxon genitive & “of” modifiers

← Verbs of likes & dislikes followed by verbs: meanings, language change

← Time clauses: When you finish that you’ll be ready (LoM: you’ll finish)

← Not using “would” for hypothetical scenarios, and Hypothetical language: As long as/Provided/What if/(Just) suppose/supposing/Imagine/Picture.

← Would be able to versus Could

← I wish / If only and I hope with which tenses and modals

← Oral drilling with –(e)d and –(e)s ending for perfect pronunciation

← Verbs followed by infinitives and gerunds: your LoM

← Parallel structures

← -ing verb forms after prepositions!!

Complex clauses

← Revision (Writing Workshop):

o Noun clauses (esp. Cleft sentences)

o Relative or adjectival clauses

o Adverbial clauses: time, place, cause, reason, purpose, concession, result, conditional…

← Mixed conditional sentences (adverbial cl.)

Cleft sentences

← Wh- clefting: That was the reason why I left. Here is where Mary Wollstonecraft set up her school.

← It clefting: It was her voice that made me think of my mother. It was only for the money that they did it.

Non-personal verb forms

← A trick about whether to use infinitive or gerund

← My forgetting something, Me forgetting something

← Verbs followed by –ing or infinitive with a change of meaning

← Non-personal clauses: Torn apart, they…, Leaving the room, Mary…, Having finished, the students (Reviews)

← -ing nouns

← -ing and –ed adjectives

← Verbs of the senses + -ing or infinitive

← Let me know vs Allow me to introduce you to…

← Adjectives + full infinitives: glad to know, happy to be of help

← Wh- + full infinitive: where to go, what to do (see indirect questions for contrast)

Pronunciation

← Oral Drilling & List of Mistakes (LoM, see LoM too)

← Phonemic Transcription (also for Listening exercises)

← Listen-n-repeat, for fluency and accuracy (e.g. Podcasts, textbook audios)

Vocabulary & Spelling

← Academic words

← Partitives: a lump of sugar, a taste of (drink/meal), a sip of (a drink), a bite of (something to eat), a pinch/dash of salt, a pack of wolves, a swarn of bees, a blob of ink,

← The –ever words: whatever you do, wherever you go, just remember… whatsoever

← Suggest & propose

← Premises, facilities, amenities, commodities

← Hope, wait, expect

← We were lying on the beach, we lay on the couch, I usually lie in bed versus Don’t lie to me, They were lying, I was lied to

← Academic words and Verbs for essays

← Common Phrasals & the issue of transparency.

← Common Phrasals in everyday language: with verbs of movement (drove past, walked away, ran back home). With “up”: Completely: I used up all the ink. Eat up! Physical: He walked up to us and said.

← Avoiding unfair language, or Being more accurate: sexist language, racist, religious vs democratic…

Please, feel free to help me improve this checklist! Thanks! ................
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