When an error is difficult to categorise

It might help you to understand some of the terms I use in my feedback if you consider one or two examples which I find difficult to categorise:

1: Is the problem here related to SENTENCE STRUCTURE or PUNCTUATION?

The first two authors teach at Essex Business school, University of Essex, UK, while the third works for Pantheon Ventures–Russell Private Equity, They have written several articles about the analysis of UK IPO underpricing and venture capitalists.

We could certainly classify this as a SENTENCE STRUCTURE problem.  Some teachers and writers will call this a RUN-ON SENTENCE.  To fix it, though, we just need to pay attention to PUNCTUATION:

The first two authors teach at Essex Business school, University of Essex, UK, while the third works for Pantheon Ventures–Russell Private Equity; they have written several articles about the analysis of UK IPO underpricing and venture capitalists.

Where possible, I like to use the term that will enable the easiest correction of the problem, so in this case I’d probably bring the student’s attention to PUNCTUATION.

2: Is the problem here WORD CLASS or PATTERN GRAMMAR?

They have written several articles about analysis  UK IPO underpricing and venture capitalists.

Again, it could be either of these issues.  With attention to WORD CLASS, our correction becomes:

They have written several articles about analysing UK IPO underpricing and venture capitalists.

PATTERN GRAMMAR might lead us to:

They have written several articles about the analysis of UK IPO underpricing and venture capitalists.

3: Is this an example of a WORD CLASS or COLLOCATION problem?

an abundant of knowledge

What’s more important?  The fact that “abundant” is an adjective and so should be corrected to the noun “abundance” or the fact that “an abundance of knowledge” is a strange combination of nouns that a reader might not understand.  In this case, I think we can arrive at a better correction via attention to COLLOCATION (I would suggest “considerable knowledge”, an option listed in the Oxford Collocations Dictionary).

4: Are these examples of COLLOCATION or PATTERN GRAMMAR problems?

The results describe that…

The results present that…

Perhaps it's easiest just to say "both".  Results don't "describe" or "present" anything, so the writer should find another combination.  At the same time, DESCRIBE and PRESENT should be followed by a NOUN PHRASE, not THAT and then a Subject + Verb.  The whole phrase needs to be rewritten!

How to resolve problems of pattern grammar

International students often come to the UK after years of studying English in their home country, and are surprised to be told that they are not using words properly, especially when this relates to “easy” words that they learned a long time ago.  I suspect that this is because they’ve learned words through translation or as items on vocabulary lists.  As a result, there’s never been any emphasis on how to use words correctly.  Given how common words like MAKE, MOST, and ALMOST are, I am sometimes shocked at how few of my students can actually use them in a sentence, despite the fact that they are just a month or two away from starting postgraduate courses. 

I use the term PATTERN GRAMMAR in my feedback to highlight exactly this phenomenon.  A student has probably chosen an appropriate vocabulary item, but hasn’t used it correctly.  I like the term PATTERN GRAMMAR because I think it encourages us to think of strings of words, and not just words as individual items.  If I want to use the word AFRAID, for example, I need to know that I can either write “I am afraid of heights”, “I am afraid of old men with big moustaches” (be + afraid + of + NOUN PHRASE) or “I am afraid to go there alone” (Be + afraid + to + verb).  I can even go with “I am afraid that I cannot come to class today” (be + afraid + that + Subject + Verb).

If you have an error highlighted as a problem of PATTERN GRAMMAR (which may just be highlighted in yellow, for you to work out by yourself), you can try to fix it by following this process:

1.       Go to a good dictionary, like The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of English

2.       Look at the listed patterns of use for your key word.  Can you find the example that best reflects your meaning?

3.       Compare YOUR pattern with the dictionary example.

4.       Adapt your pattern so that it reflects what the dictionary tells you.

There are some complications that might get in your way, so it’s worth considering the following questions:

a)      Are you checking the right form of your key word? 

-      sometimes errors occur because the pattern for a noun, says, is not applicable to its corresponding verb.  We say HAVE AN INFLUENCE ON, and HAVE AN EFFECT ONN (both nouns, and both followed by noun phrases), but not *the USA influences on the UK, or *tiredness affects on exam performance (no preposition follows the verb: it should just be THE USE INFLUENCES THE UK, and TIREDNESS AFFECTS EXAM PERFORMANCE)

b)      If your key word is a verb, is it TRANSITIVE or INTRANSITIVE?

-          again, a good dictionary will tell you this (often with an I or T next to the entry for a verb).  A TRANSITIVE verb needs to be followed by an object; an INTRANSITIVE does not take an object (which will also mean that it can’t be used in the passive voice).  This should explain why *the researchers measured and *the crash was occurred 

Recording and Learning Vocabulary

Some important considerations when recording and learning new vocabulary:

1. Is it useful? Consider field and register - the Academic Word List Highlighter may help you here.

2. What does it mean? A good dictionary will help you. Try Cambridge's free online dictionaries. There's no problem with using translation to understand basic meaning, but you will still need to consider all the other points here.

3. How can you remember it? This article by Scott Thornbury may be useful.

4. What type of word is it? (adjective, verb, noun, adverb - context and a dictionary will help.  If it's a noun, is it countable or uncountable, singular of plural?).

5. How can you use it? Look at the context in which you found it, think about collocation (search The Oxford Collocations Dictionary for help) , and the patterns that it may be used in. Cambridge's free online dictionaries list possible patterns of use under each definition.

6. Does it belong to a FAMILY of words? Finding the word "unilaterally", for example, can open your eyes to "lateral" and "unilateral".

7. Is there anything IRREGULAR about this word / phrase? What do you need to remember about it? Is it a noun with an irregular plural form (e.g. children, people), is it an intransitive verb (if you don't know what "intransitive" mean, check the glossary of the Internet Grammar of English).

8. Can you pronounce it? Again, a good dictionary will give you a phonemic transcription of a word's pronunciation, and online dictionary sites like Cambridge's have sound clips of how to pronounce each word (with British and American variations provided).

Pattern Grammar

I often find myself using the term PATTERN GRAMMAR when trying to diagnose problems with students' writing, but I wonder if they always understand what I mean by this...I certainly don't think that many other teachers are likely to use the term with them. As far as I can remember, I think that I first heard the term used during a talk by Dave Willis, who wrote a book called Rules, Patters and Words : Grammar and Lexis in English Language Teaching. There's actually a sequence of slides from one of Dave's talks available online here, but I'll try to give my own perspective on things...

My students tend to already know hundreds of patterns without ever having stopped to think about them. When someone learns English, they'll probably realise quite early on that when they use the verb LIKE, they're going to use a noun of some kind straight afterwards (e.g. I like sleeping, I don't like this blog). They'll find the same can apply when they use WOULD LIKE (I'd like a banana sandwich), but when they start talking about plans or aspirations, they need to employ a more complex pattern of words. After all, "I would like a train driver when I'm older" doesn't reflect the ambition "I would like to be a train driver when I'm older". So this is pattern grammar...when you use a particular word, you'll need to know what pattern of prepositions and word forms follows it. The verb GIVE, for instance, can be followed by"me all your money!" and "all your money to me!" but not "for me all your money".

Quite understandably, when a student writes in English, there are going to be some patterns that they need but have not yet learned, and there may be some patterns that they've seen before, but which get forgotten or confused because of the influence of the student's first language. It used to frustrate me that students would produce patterns that they had clearly never seen before in English (and give ME more work to do in correcting their work), but I eventually came to realise that incorrect patterns may be the result of guesswork (perhaps applying a pattern they know for a similar word) or translation. I recently learned, for instance, that in Arabic, the pattern used with CONSIDER is CONSIDER + SOMEONE + AS + SOMETHING, which explains why so many of my Arabic-speaking students insert an unnecessary "as" into expressions with CONSIDER.

So how can we avoid problems with pattern grammar? I would recommend three approaches:

1. Be patient and realistic. Nobody is going to learn the pattern for every English word overnight. Any learner of English will encounter new patterns throughout their life. I know people who are extremely proficient in speaking and writing in English but who still make occasional slips with patterns.

2. Learn patterns when you learn vocabulary items. Any time you learn a new word, check the pattern that follows it. If you write new vocabulary down, write it in the pattern in which you first encountered it. Likewise, if you notice an unfamiliar or surprising pattern while reading, make a note of it and learn it. Do you really know a word until you know how to use it?

3. Use a good dictionary. The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary online is free and with every definition gives examples of the pattern in which a word may be used. When writing an essay, give yourself sufficient time to check patterns that you are unsure of before submitting your work. If feedback from a teacher indicates problems within particular expressions, identify the key word, look it up in a dictionary, and check the patterns which the word may be used within. A student of mine recently produced the expression "they seek for better opportunities". A quick look at the verb SEEK in the dictionary throws up the examples "seeking jobs", "seeking asylum", and "legal advice should be sought". No "for" anywhere...the pattern is simply SEEK + OBJECT. Easy!