Subject-Verb Agreement Week 4, Wed. 9.14.15 Todd Windisch, Spring 2015
Announcements Computer lab on Wednesday: Building 26B, Room 1555
Today s Agenda Go over quiz / Collect pre-writing Subject-Verb Agreement Narrative topic sentences
Subject-Verb Agreement What is subject-verb agreement? The subject and verb do not match/agree One of the most common errors that ESL students make It s also one of the easiest to fix Examples: My friend Rhonda love traveling. The men from the corporation eats lunch. One of the women hate to shop.
Plural and Singular Clues one, each, every Plural both, several Prepositional Phrases The price (of NBA tickets) high. The fans (at the NBA game) noisy.
Plural or Singular? There + be or plural is determined by the object that follows! There three apples on my desk. There a dog barking outside. or Plural? some, a lot of, most or plural is determined by the noun that follows! Some of the excitement at an NBA game occurs off the court. Some of the fans look for movie stars at the game.
Golf is no longer just a favorite sport of wealthy middle-aged businessmen or senior citizens. Young people around the world is playing the game, and some of them has caused a lot of excitement. One of the young stars are Sergio Garcia, a fascinating golfer from Spain. Garcia was born in 1980 and started golfing at the age of three. He became a professional golfer in 1999 at the age of 19. Garcia caught the world s attention by hitting a golf shot at a target from behind a tree with his eye closed. Two other young golf stars are Michelle Wie and Ryo Ishikawa. Both of them is quite different from the traditional golfer. Wie, born in Hawaii in 1989, is Korean-American. She shocked everyone by competing against men and beating many of them at the age of fourteen. Today she is one of the world s best female golfers. Ishikawa is a professional Japanese golfer who was born in 1991. In 2007, he became the youngest player ever to win a professional golf tournament in Japan. Each of his victories since then have shown his incredible athletic skill, and he has become a favorite with fans. In 2011, after a terrible earthquake in Japan, Ishikawa impressed his fans once again by promising to donate all of the money he earned that year to help the earthquake victims. Of course there is still older golfers who continue the traditions of the sport, but these three young athletes show how golf is changing.
Irregularities The United States, The Phillipines, The United Nations The police Plural Fish Plural or singular English (language) Diabetes The English (people from England) Plural Eight hours of sleep Five thousand miles The news Two plus two
Irregularities SINGULAR Some proper nouns ending in s News Fields of study (school subjects) Many illnesses Expressions of time, money, and distance Arithmetic (mathematic) expressions Languages PLURAL Irregular plural nouns People Police Cattle Fish Groups of people with the The Chinese The poor
EG, p. 94, ex. 20 1. The English are 2. Linguistics is 3. Diabetes is 4. English is 5. are Canadians 6. 70 percent is / one percent is 7. is 256 8. The Netherlands is 9. Fish are
Reviewing Topic Sentences Exercise 3, pp. 32-34 What do you remember about topic sentences? What do we need? 2. Losing a friend over a financial disagreement might seem like a sad tale, but sometimes you don t know someone as well as you thought, and you have to cut them out of your life. 3. First impressions are very important, but sometimes you get the opportunity to change them. 4. The day of the government coup in my country taught me to stand up for what I believe in.
Grammar Terms What is a clause? A clause in English contains a subject and a verb! There are two types of clauses in English: independent & dependent IND: She went to the mall. DEP: After she went to the mall, she ate lunch. What is a phrase? A phrase in English does not contain a subject and a verb There are many types of phrases in English: prepositional, adverbial, verb, etc. She went to the mall after the movies. Both of her friends like shopping.
Prepositions vs. Subordinators of Time What is a preposition? A (short) word or phrase in English that shows a relationship (time, space, etc.) between two words. They are usually followed by a noun or noun phrase!
Prepositions vs. Subordinators of Time What is a subordinating conjunction? A word or phrase in English that is always at the beginning of a dependent clause and connects an independent clause with the dependent clause. NOTE: Some words are both prepositions (after, until, etc.) are both prepositions and subordinating conjunctions!
HOMEWORK When I assign homework from English Grammar, there is a specific way I would like you to do your homework: Complete the homework on a separate sheet of paper (not in your book) Correct your own homework using the answer key in the back of the book Try to understand why you got the answer wrong; if you cannot find out why, make a note and ask me during class Tonight s homework: Chapter 6: ex 19, 26, & 27 Read the story on p. 45 (DCS), answer the COMPREHENSION questions on p. 46 in a short one or two sentence response