Another one of our firm convictions is that teachers (and consequently, their students) are helped by understanding English when generalizations can be made at the highest possible level of language- Indeed, what we seek to do in this book is to give reasons* not rules, for why English grammar functions as it does. | 292 The Grammar Book 7. Meaning. Give your students practice in category shifting from mass generic to count specific nouns tea a tea teas Tea is a healthy beverage. This is a nice tea. Try it Sri Lanka produces many teas. Other nouns that could be used are wine coffee cheese beer bread pasta and so on. 8. Use. Give your students practice in expressing generic concepts appropriate to different registers cue elephant gigantic a. Formal The elephant is gigantic a gigantic land mammal. b. Less formal Elephants are gigantic gigantic animals. c. Colloquial An elephant is huge. 9. Use. Develop students awareness of the article system at higher levels especially for academic purposes by studying texts from the students disciplines together in class. This can uncover specific patterns of usage such as the patterns of use for medical language. 10. Use. Master 1995 suggests systematic consciousness raising to improve the article usage of advanced students. Providing constant feedback on article usage in students written work having brief class discussions of article usage patterns and asking students to keep records of their article errors these are all methods he has used. 11. Use. Howard Williams personal communication suggests that teachers of academic English spend some time teaching those common nouns or descriptions that are unique by definition and where iheworks practically 100 percent of the time Draw a line with 10 points along it on the board and draw students attention to these mathematical concepts the first point the last point the second point the second to the last point the next point the previous point the tenth point By drawing a loop from one point back to that point illustrate the same point Show students that these points can be rhetorical as well as literal mathematical and that one can use these determiners with many other head nouns argument example draft case page line paragraph and so on. 12. Use. The informal generic use of the indefinite article
