English Word Order

WORD ORDER -- In English, word order is more important than it is in many other languages. Very often ESL students produce sentences that sound strange to the native 's ear because the order of the words in the sentences is wrong. The basic pattern for English statements is: SUBJECT-VERB-OBJECT(S)-PLACE-TIME. Sentences do not have to have all of these parts, but if all of the parts do occur, they most likely will occur in this order. If a sentence has both a PLACE and a TIME, one of these is frequently moved to the front of the sentence.

A change in basic sentence order can make an English sentence nonsensical or make it mean something completely different. For example, if part of the verb is moved so it comes before the subject, we have a

. . . those first two big yellow climbing roses of yours that you planted . . .

2. . . . big those two first climbing yellow roses that you planted of yours . . .

VERBS -- There are several problems that ESL speakers have with English verbs. Basically, however, the English verb system is fairly simple (more simple than most Western European languages but a little more complicated than most Oriental languages). Here are some of the problems students have:

Present tense: The present tense in most language refers to actions that are taking place in the present. In English, this is not really true. We use present tense to refer to actions that are habitual, repeated, or always true. (e.g., The sun rises in the East; I get up every day at 6:00 a.m.; We celebrate Thanksgiving in November). English uses present progressive (present continuous) to express actions that are taking place in the present (e.g., I 'm reading a teacher training manual; I 'm teaching an ESL class; You 're preparing to take your GED).

Future tense: The most common future tense in English does not use WILL as you may have been taught. The most common future tense is produced with the expression GOING TO (e.g., I 'm going to eat . . .; he 's going to show us how . . .; we 're going to study . . .). You should remember also that in everyday speech this GOING TO expression is pronounced "gonna" and that it is not incorrect to say it that way as long as it is

The action is not expressed by the verb alone. For example, GET means 'to obtain, to acquire, to receive, etc. ' while GET OVER means 'to recover from an illness, ' and GET UP means 'to arise from a reclining position. ' There are hundreds of such phrases in English. They are a problem for ESL students because they are often not listed in the dictionary in a separate form and their meaning is hard to find. A good textbook will probably teach many of these two-word verbs, but if yours does not, you should teach them to your students as they arise naturally in the classroom (for example, HAND IN your papers).

Besides not appearing as separate entries in the dictionary, these two-word verbs present one other problem. Some of them must have their two parts together in a sentence while others may have their parts separated by other things in the