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Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Linguistics Studies

Lack of emphasis on NPs in ESL

Michael Lewis has said, after Chomsky, that "sentences" consist of NP (noun phrase) + VP (verb phrase). Lewis goes on to claim that ESL has "emphasised VP (structures) and N (vocabulary) but ignored NP.

He always claims that NPs "have hardly penetrated into language teaching at all". Lewis thinks this is an unfortunate situation.

What do you think?
  

Top answer

Hello old chap, welcome back. I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question, as I'm not an ESL teacher. However, noun phrases seem to feature regularly in the questions on ESL forums; and the more advanced students here seem able to manipulate them adequately; and the non-native speakers that I encounter day to day don't show any signs of noun-phrase deficit.

— MrPedantic

  • Hello old chap, welcome back.
  • I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question, as I'm not an ESL teacher.
  • However, noun phrases seem to feature regularly in the questions on ESL forums; and the more advanced students here seem able to manipulate them adequately; and the non-native speakers that I encounter day to day don't show any signs of noun-phrase deficit.
  • MrP
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32 Answers
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Hello old chap, welcome back.

I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question, as I'm not an ESL teacher. However, noun phrases seem to feature regularly in the questions on ESL forums; and the more advanced students here seem able to manipulate them adequately; and the non-native speakers that I encounter day to day don't show any signs of noun-phrase deficit.

MrP
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AnonymousNPs "have hardly penetrated into language teaching at all"
To judge by this forum I don't think much of the machinery of transformational grammar has penetrated into language teaching. That includes NP's AP's, PP's, and VP's and S's, C's, SC's, and I's. It's somewhat unfortunate because it leaves students in ignorance of some powerful tecniques for
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<< It's somewhat unfortunate because it leaves students in ignorance of some powerful tecniques for explaining grammar. >>

I see. So would you agree with Mr Pedantic when he says "noun phrases seem to feature regularly in the questions on ESL forums; and the more advanced students here seem able to manipulate them adequately; and the non-native speakers that I encounter day
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I guess if students were as well prepared as Mr Pedantic makes out, there would be little need for all the language forums that are hanging on the Internet.
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I feel ignorant... I don't know what a noun phrase is. Ok, wait, checking on Wikipedia in progress... found! -->

If noun phrases are like those, then I don't think they are much of a problem. But it depends on what you really mean... because I think I might agree on the fact certain structures with complex noun phrases are not emphasized while teaching English at all. For example:
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A noun phrase is either a single http://www.EnglishForward.com/English/noun.html or http://www.EnglishForward.com/English/pronoun.html or a group of words conta
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Here's one of those "my partner and I's" things, Kooyeen:



They do turn up from time to time.

I agree with CJ about the machinery: we seldom see it here.

I disagree with "Anon" about the absence of noun phrases on ESL forums: NPs such as "the book I bought yesterday" turn up everywhere
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<I disagree with "Anon" about the absence of noun phrases on ESL
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MrPHere's one of those "my partner and I's" things, Kooyeen:



They do turn up from time to time.


Hi,
yes, I was thinking of the material you can find on ESL grammars or courses. Of course on forums you can find every kind of sentence, question, or
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AnonymousBut are they focused on, taught, analysed, broken down, etc. on those fora? Is notice brought to them?
So, on an ESL forum such as this, before learners study noun phrases, they must first learn the tools for analysing noun phrases, in the manner you propose?

I would suggest that an ESL student who could understand the English necessary
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