This document contains an agenda for a grammar class discussing parts of speech, sentence labeling, and using a corpus for vocabulary. The class is divided into groups that will practice labeling parts of speech in sentences and correcting errors. They will then learn about using the Corpus of Contemporary American English and do an individual vocabulary activity by looking up terms from their conversation starters. For homework, students must post their conversation starters to the class blog.

1. Grammar for Interactions
Spring 2016
IECP
Nikki Mattson

2. Groups
1. Fang + Hamad + Faris
2. Juman + Bashayr
3. Xin + Faisal Zaila + Mashari
4. Tram + Abdulla + Faisal
5. Hassan + Hang

3. Agenda
• Syllabus distribution
• Introduction to parts of speech and
sentence labeling
• Introduction to corpus usage for
vocabulary
• Corpus vocabulary activity

4. Syllabus

5. Parts of Speech?
(Handout)
• Sentence labeling and error correction:
• 1. The leaf is of interesting to scientists
because it may be a cancer cure.
The leaf is of interest to scientists because it may be a cancer cure.

6. Practice
Instructions: Work with a partner to copy,
label, and correct the following sentence.
1. If more funds were allocated to urban renew,
our cities would be much more beautiful.
2. There is almost no different between this
drink and that drink.
3. The general found it difficult to explain the
lost of six tanks in yesterday’s battle.

7. Labelling Key

8. What is a Corpus?
• A very large collection of spoken and written texts that can be analyzed by
computers to see how people write and speak in the real world.
• The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) is the largest
freely-available corpus of English, and the only large and balancedc orpus
of American English. The corpus was created by Mark Davies of Brigham
Young University, and it is used by tens of thousands of users every month
(linguists, teachers, translators, and other researchers).
• The corpus contains more than 450 million words of text and is equally
divided among spoken, fiction, popular magazines, newspapers, and
academic texts.

9. Modelling

10. Conversation Starter
• Many laws state that a person is
responsible for his/her own behavior in
society. Who is responsible for a pet’s
behavior in society? If a pet causes injury
to a person or thing, should the owner be
responsible for the pet’s independent
behavior? Why/why not?
• (Law, Mohammed ALBadi)

11. Individual Vocabulary Study
1.gender (n) –
2.role (n) –
3.behavior (n) –
4.male (adj) –
5.characteristic (n) -
6.female (adj) –
7.reverse (n) –
8.masculine (adj) -
9.feminine (adj) -
10.Generally -
Go to this website: http://www.wordandphrase.info/frequencylist.asp
Enter your word in the search box. Use a common phrase in your conversation starter.
Create a conversation starter, using on of
the Pathways 1 words. You should share
information from your field, and ask a
related question that you think the class
would benefit from discussing. Add your
name and field at the end of your
conversation starter.

12. HW
• Post your conversation starter to the
course blog by midnight tonight. This is
your first graded assignment for class 