It is very hard to get a corpus of elementary student texts to work with. We have collected all the level 2 writing texts from PELIC into one file and C7 tagged it. Then put it through the ‘complexity checker’ here at EnglishGrammar.Pro. Surprisingly, the predicted level suggested for the entire corpus as a whole is […]
This post is another one where the English Grammar Profile has clashing proficiency levels associated with a point and in the examples. Here we are looking at the category of QUESTIONS. It is understandable that usage is what is different, but the examples could be better selected: B2 Point 29: ‘wh-‘words + the negative form […]
Point 52 at B2 in the category of PAST simple QUESTIONS is defined as: yes/no’, ‘wh-‘, tag and negative question forms with an increasing range of verbs. There is great confusion trying to differentiate this across levels from other points on the EGP. *Point 63 Past simple negative wide range of verbs and point 29 […]
There are two overlapping points at A2 for reporting verbs. Point 2 in the category of REPORTED SPEECH is defined as: reporting clause with ‘tell’ + direct object + ‘that-‘clause, with a pronoun shift where relevant. Point 12 in VERBS and patterns is defined as: Verbs, typically reporting verbs, followed by a noun or pronoun […]
There are two entries at A2 that catch the same question complexity. Point 2 in the category of QUESTIONS is defined as: AUXILIARY ‘BE’ to form ‘wh-‘questions. (present continuous / past continuous) *Notice that ‘past continuous’ is included in the ‘cando.’ However, it also points to B1 level for such a feature. Point 37 in […]
There are many points at A2 that are related to adverbs and overlap. Sadly there is some clash of information between the levels of A1 and A2 though. Point 7 in the category of PRESENT is defined as: present simple WITH ADVERBS OF INDEFINITE FREQUENCY In the example sentences, we find ‘usually’ and ‘always’ used. […]
“The church was built in 1663.” is an example of A2 passive grammar. Point 1 in the category of PASSIVE is past simple affirmative after a singular subject. A search for was _vvn on iWeb corpus: 1 WAS BORN 459313 2 WAS MADE 320241 3 WAS FOUND 227491 4 WAS USED 220146 5 WAS TAKEN […]
There are three overlapping points in the category of FUTURE CONTINUOUS. Point 9 is A2 and defined as: AFFIRMATIVE WITH ‘WILL’ Which is elaborated with usage at the same level at point 21: FUTURE ARRANGEMENTS with ‘will’ to talk about an event or action in progress at a specified time in the future. However, point […]
“At the time, I had a girlfriend, so I didn’t talk to her.” This is an example of putting a prepositional phrase at the start of a sentence which is what pre-intermediate students can do.
Point 1 in the category of discourse markers, writing and ORGANISING is defined as: ‘as you know’ as a discourse marker of shared knowledge. 1 AS YOU KNOW , I AM A 130 2 AS YOU KNOW , I ‘M A 87 3 AS YOU KNOW , I ‘VE BEEN 86 4 AS YOU KNOW […]