Noun: a person, place, thing, or idea. A noun can be common (a general object) or proper (the name of a person or place). For example, dog and goodness are common nouns while Rhode Island and Joe are proper nouns. Verb: a word that shows action or state of being. For example, run, jump, sit, learn are actions that a subject can do. Adjective: a word that describes a noun or a pronoun. For example, pretty, large, beautiful, and loud are all adjectives. Adverb: a word that describes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Adverbs usually end in -ly, but not always. For example, quickly and carefully are adverbs that modify verbs while very is an adverb that modifies adjectives and other adverbs.
Pronoun: a word that takes the place of a noun. The most common type are person pronouns. Personal pronouns include: I, me, you, we, he, she, it, and they. There are many different kinds of pronouns besides the personal. They include indefinite, interrogative, reflexive, intensive, relative, and others. Preposition: a word that describes the position of an object. For example, in, on, under, over, beside are all prepositions. A preposition begins a prepositional phrase. Conjunctions: words that join words, phrases, or clauses. The most common are the coordinating conjunctions (and, or, but, nor, for, yet, and therefore) and subordinating conjunctions, which are those words that join dependent clauses to main clauses in complex sentences (since, when, where, if, although, etc. ).
Interjections: words that are used to express an emotion like surprise or shock or disappointment. They are words that are thrust into the midst of the sentence (hence, interjected). Determiners: the first words in noun phrases that act in a way that limits or quantifies the noun. Articles such as “a/an” and “the” as well as words like many, some, or two are what “determines” if the noun is specific or general. [3] X Research source
Nouns answer the questions “who?” and “what?”[5] X Research source Adjectives answer the questions “what kind?”; “which?”; and “how many?"[6] X Research source Verbs answer the question “what is it doing?” Adverbs answer the questions “how?”; “when?”; “where?”; and “why?” [7] X Research source
On a horizontal line, write the noun subject and verb of the sentence. Divide these with a vertical line. Using diagonal lines, connect adjectives and determiners to the noun that they modify and adverbs to the verb or adjective that they modify. Use dotted lines to link conjunctions with the words that they connect.
Songs can provide an easier method for children to memorize the more difficult and abstract parts of speech, such as the conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, and determiners.
Quickly twirl in the green hula hoop. Gently bounce the big ball. Gracefully jump through the spinning rope.
If you have a class composed of speakers from many languages, this may be difficult to do. Instead, try asking each student what they would call a verb, noun, etc. in their own language. Have them produce examples of each in their native language before translating them into English.
The specific determiners are used when the listener knows the exact noun the speaker is referring to. For example, in the sentence “That woman was speaking,” the determiner “that” refers to a specific woman known to the speaker and listener. Specific determiners include the definite article (the), possessives (my, your, his, her, its; our, their, whose), demonstratives (this, that, these, those), and interrogative (which). The general determiners are used with general subjects and nouns which are unfamiliar to the listener. For example, in the sentence, “A woman was speaking,” the determiner “a” refers to an unknown woman. General determiners include the indefinite articles (a/an) and words like any, other, another, or what.
