INTRODUCTION

Teaching grammar for children is challenging. I learn from all these wonderful years

that grammar should be taught creatively. I prefer to teach the pupils learning grammar

through writing activity. Therefore, the pupils gain two types of knowledge at the same time.

Although the preference is improving writing skill, the pupils still benefit the lesson through

learning grammar indirectly. In this simple analysis, I am going to focus on adjectives errors

from year 6 pupils. The level of pupils is moderate and weak. Hence, I group the errors into

three groups; adjective order, misconception between adjectives and adverbs and quantifying

adjectives

ADJECTIVES ORDER

There are many levels of difficulty in understanding adjectives as a whole. Normally

pupils understand adjectives as words that modify the noun. Thus, I use lexical item in proper

way to describe adjectives. For instance, one of the pupils describes the book as: Red,

expensive, and thick book. In term of lexical, the word choice is correct. Anyhow, the word

arrangement seems to be incorrect due to its order. The correct answer is expensive, thick and

red book. I refer to several books for better understanding of the topic.

According to Jagjeet Singh and Adrian Holden if there is more than one adjective then

applying the rule would be necessary. It stated “The first thing you have to do is to decide

whether the adjectives are expressing opinion or fact.” Example of opinion is ‘it’s beautiful’

whereas the fact may be different such as ‘it’s big’. It can be shown as:

Adjectives

Opinion Fact

Name : NOR ELYANA BT ZAINAL

Matriculation number: D20102041229

Group : UPSI 01(A121PJJ)

Course code: BIL3013

Course title: ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Semester: 4

Task title: ERROR ANALYSIS

He is a nice old man

Apart from this, Singh and Holden also state the adjectives order should follow a rule

of OSACOMP.

O= Opinion

S= Size

A=Age

C=Colour

O=Origin

M=Material

P=Purpose

Thus example of sentence that follows the right order is ‘A beautiful, little, old, pink,

Chinese, plastic, hair clip.’

I refer to Justin Chang in his book Grammar For Good English. Adjective order or

Adjective string as mentioned by Chang is also used to modify one noun. The book has very

little information about the order.

I find interesting information about adjectives order in these two books. What most

important is how I can deliver extra knowledge to my pupils. It also gives me understanding

on the whole idea of the order. Before this, I keep asking my pupils to memorise the order. It

is not so authentic though. After reading, I know how the order started and I am going to

apply the knowledge in my lesson.

MISCONCEPTION BETWEEN ADJECTIVES AND ADVERB

As the topic moves deeper the tendency for pupils to engage with wrong concept is

quite high. I always find pupils get confused for words like; happy(adj)- happily(adv),

slow(adj) -slowly(adv). In addition, pupils find fast(adj) and fast(adv) are the same. Apart

from lexical, the pupils could not differentiate much on the syntax. For instance; he is writing

good(adj) is considering as the same for; he is writing well(adv).

For the matter of purpose, I refer to Milon Nandy in his book Correct English. He

states “Adjectives and Adverbs agree in one respect: both are qualifying words. The

difference is that adjectives go with nouns, while adverbs go with verbs.” I find interesting

explanation more on this topic. There are certain adjectives like cowardly and gentlemanly

cannot make adverbs by adding ‘ly’. There is no such word for cowardlily. The solution of

this problem is by making an adverbial phrase such as in a cowardly way.

In addition, I refer to Singh and Holden once more. In my view, I think both Singh

and Holden explain about this confusion explicitly. They drew my attention on the mistakes

whereby some of the mistakes always make by pupils. For instance, he works hard(adj) is

different from he hardly works(adv). Both sentences are different in terms of function and

meaning. According to them, there are three main points of confusion between adjectives and

adverb. First, some adverbs are not necessarily add –ly to the adjectives when they are

formed. For an example the work is hard(adj) and the boys tried hard to win the game(adv).

One of the learning objectives for English Language primary is to acquire vocabulary

in a context. Misconception is normal but to one extend it can be fossil. Apparently, it is

teachers’ responsibility to help the students. The reading is to benefit teacher in term of

knowledge and competency.

QUANTIFYING ADJECTIVES

The hardest part of adjectives is about quantifiers. Normally, quantifiers also are well

known as countable and uncountable nouns. The pupils learn quantifiers under grammar

lesson of noun. When it comes to construct sentences whereby all the adjectives phrases,

noun and verbs are linked together then the problem begins. Pupils do this mistake a lot in

section A of paper 2. Normally, they could not differentiate between much and many as well

as a few and little. Examples of sentences are; there are much sauce on the table; there are

many bread on the table; there are a few spoons on the table. Hence, I refer to four books for

this purpose.

I refer to Betty Azar in her book Fundamental of English Grammar. She states that

many is used with count nouns whereas much with noncount nouns. For example, How

many apples did you buy? and How much fruit did you buy?

Then I refer again to Justin Chang. I could not find much information in his book

except for the listed phrases of quantifying adjectives for instance five apples, many apples

and all apples.

On the other hand, Singh and Holden give precise examples on this matter. According

to them, words that applied with countable nouns are many and few while words applied to

uncountable nouns are much and little. Thus, they give a few examples for better

understanding such as; She lent me a few paper in class(incorrect);she lent me a little paper

in class (correct). In addition, they also mention about awareness of using much and little in

positive and negative statement. Much is usually used in negatives sentences and a question

while a lot of is usually used in positive sentences. For example: There wasn’t much coffee

left in the pot.(Negative);There is a lot of coffee left. (Positive).

In addition, Singh and Holden mentioned ‘little and few are used when the idea is

negative. A little and a few are used when the idea is positive’. For example: There were few

people in the queue.( So I didn’t have to wait long); There were a few people in the queue.

(So I had to wait quite a long time).

Milon Nandy also gives necessary information needed. He stated that a few indicates

there were some things even if the number was small. Few on the other hand indicates there

were not many or scarcely any. The few means all that there were. For instance: A few boys

saw the snake; Few boys saw the snake; The few boys saw the snake.

Back to Azar, she indicates a few is used with a count noun whereas a little is used

with a noncount noun. For example: a few songs; a little music.

This topic is very wide. I need to refer to other books for extra information.

Sometimes, as teachers we neglect some important part of the lesson. It is not about

competency but we seldom use it widely due to curriculum syllabus. By reading, at least we

back on track. The input is familiar but it is just long forgotten.

CONCLUSION

I do a lot of monologue in finishing this task. The pupils’ mistakes sometimes are due

to carelessness and misconception. It is my duty to correct their mistakes. By doing reading I

can relate the mistakes and the whole idea of grammar teaching. It is very beneficial for me

as an English Language teacher.

REFERENCE

Azar, B.S., (1992). Fundamentals of English Grammar Second Edition. New York.

Longman.

Chang, J,. ( 2008). Grammar For Good English. Petaling Jaya. MPH Group Publishing Sdn.

Bhd.

Jagjeet Singh & Holden, A,. (1995). Remedial English Grammar for KBSM. Shah Alam.

Penerbit Fajar Bakti Sdn.Bhd.

Nandy, M,. (2002). Correct English. Subang Jaya. Pelanduk Publications Sdn.Bhd.