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- What It Is: Grammar is the set of rules for a given language that describes the the use of words in terms of their form (the part of speech, which is also called a lexical category) and function (the role the word plays in relation to the phrase or sentence). Syntax is the systematic way in which words are combined to generate meaningful phrases, clauses and sentences, and the manner in which clauses and sentences can be combined to formulate complex sentences.
- Universal Grammar, a concept proposed by Noam Chomsky, is an explanation for why all languages have fundamental structures and how infants interpret and acquire the grammar of the language to which they are exposed. All humans have Universal Grammar and it is not specific to one language.
- While all languages have grammar, the specific grammatical and syntactic rules for generating meaningful utterances can greatly vary from language to language.
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- How it Relates to ELLs: The grammatical and syntactic rules are specific to each language. An ELL student's grammatical or syntactic "error" in English could actually be a reflection of using a rule that existed in their first language.
- Phrase structure rules describe how different types of phrases have specific allowable constituents (syntactic units). These differ in every language. Word order is one example. For instance, in English adjectives typically come before the noun they modify, but in other languages, such as Spanish, adjectives often follow the noun.
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- Tips for Teaching: All young children are still struggling with fully grasping grammatical and syntactic rules. Errors in noun-verb and adjective-noun will still be very common for all children.
- Learn about the grammatical rules of ELLs first language and create phrase structure trees for short sentences in both the child's first language and in English to help the child recognize the similarities and differences between the grammatical and syntactic rules of the two languages.
- Use flashcards with images and the word written in both languages to teach about concepts such as noun-verb agreement, possessive pronouns, lexical categories such as nouns and verbs, and the comparative -er.