December 2020

MORE + adjective

A2, ADJECTIVES, ADVERBS, comparatives, phrases

The main point is the use of ‘more’ as an adverb to form comparatives of adverbs and adjectives. This is seen at A2 level in the English Grammar Profile. Examples from the iWeb corpus include ‘more likely’, ‘more important’, and ‘more difficult’. The term ‘more’ can also be used with adverbs, which is considered B2 level. Additionally, the term ‘more’ is used with a range of vocabulary in the English Vocabulary Profile, such as ‘advanced’, ‘attractive’, ‘comfortable’, and others.

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degree adverb modifying preposition

ADVERBS, B1, degree, modify, PREPOSITIONS

In the English Grammar Profile, B1 point 9 in PREPOSITIONS is defined as: adverbs of degree to modify prepositions and prepositional phrases. (have to check each match that it’s actually modifying the preposition and not something else) A check on google for Adverbs of degree: Common adverbs of degree: Almost, nearly, quite, just, too, enough, hardly, scarcely, completely,

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SOME (pronoun)

A2, PRONOUNS, quantity

Point 11 in PRONOUNS / quantity is defined as:  ‘some’ as a subject and object to refer back to a plural or uncountable noun. In Iweb we can locate: some _V 1 SOME ARE 161614 2 SOME HAVE 89170 3 SOME MAY 61339 4 SOME WILL 48577 5 SOME SAY 42610 6 SOME WERE 38173

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some | any | no | more | a lot of | lots of + NOUN phrase

A1, A2, DETERMINERS, NOUNS, plural, quantity, uncountable

In this post, we give a detailed explanation of the use of certain determiners in English grammar, specifically ‘some’, ‘any’, ‘no’, ‘more’, ‘a lot of’, and ‘lots of’. These determiners are often used with both plural and uncountable nouns to indicate quantity or amount. We also discuss the English Grammar Profile (EGP) and its classification of these determiners at different proficiency levels (A1, A2). We provide examples of usage and notes on the application of these.

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NON-FINITE past participle CLAUSES

academic, C1, CLAUSES, FOCUS, formal, GSE, non-finite, subordinate

In the English Grammar Profile, C1 point 7 in the category of FOCUS is defined as: non-finite subordinate clause with an ‘-ed’ form, before a main clause, for focus, often in formal, academic or business contexts. Also see Pearson’s 76 GSE C1: add information using appended clauses with ‘being’ and/or passive participles. Given enough time, she‘ll do

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‘It is said that …’ (IT + passive)

belief, C1, GSE, opinion, PASSIVES, PRONOUNS, subject

Let’s take a look at an IELTS writing task 2 example with this grammar: It is argued that volunteering should be made a part of the school curriculum. In the above example, ‘is argued‘ forms the passive part.  The active form of this is probably: ‘People argue that…” In our example, ‘people’ is not important or maybe we don’t know who

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Finnish Spoken corpus

Complexity Checker

I am attracted to The FUSE (The Finnish Upper Secondary School Corpus of Spoken English) because it is rare to find CEFR level spoken corpus texts. What I instantly find from the B2 students below is that the complexity checker is not calibrated to spoken texts.  Firstly, sentences are broken up with various codes which

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noun phrase + prepositional phrase

B1, NOUNS, phrases, PREPOSITIONS

Here are student examples of using noun phrases + prepositional phrases: On the whole, I believe that it is a good choice for the development of our children. PELIC Arabic Male level 4 writing class I can take a picture at the top of the mountain but also draw a picture at the same place. PELIC Korean female level 4 writing class. *note, ‘at the top of the‘ is the third most frequent 5-word Ngram in English. iWeb 178,011 Here’s an expert example of a prepositional phrase

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Level 2 writing texts in PELIC

A1, A2, writing

The text discusses the process of analyzing the grammar and vocabulary of elementary English learners using a ‘complexity checker’. The checker struggles with inaccurate language and spelling errors. After manual corrections, over 90% of the structures were at the A levels. The author wishes to add a collocation marking element to the checker but acknowledges the limitations of programming capacity.

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