Question about concept questions

Question

I'm doing an assignment on the 'past progressive'

I've chosen this sentance as an example

Sally: How did you break your arm?
John: I was playing football last night, when I fell badly

concept questions i had in mind

1. When is John playing football?
2. How did John break his arm ?
3. Did he fall playing football or after?

I think i am on the right track with this, but i aint sure
suggestions, comments

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

Your example seems OK. You might want to address 'while', as well.

Sally: How did you break your arm?
John: I was playing football last night, when I fell badly

concept questions i had in mind Well, you have to decide what you are trying to achieve with your questions. Are you trying to get the students to respond by using the PP? Then ask the question in a way that elicits such a response.

1. When was John playing football? They'll answer 'last night'.
2. How did John break his arm ? OK. But they'll probably answer using 'while'.
3. Did he fall playing football or after? They may just answer 'after'.

Best wishes, Clive

Dreamwatch · Answer

Thanks clive, thats useful. The students will not understand the 'past continuous' so , first i'm using a time diagram. And the example and the concept questions are there to reinforce/drill the grammar into them.

Davkett · Answer

Clive
2. How did John break his arm ? OK. But they'll probably answer using 'while'.

Clive, do you mean they will answer, 'While playing football'?

Would they not have likely answered, 'By playing football'?

Or do you think 'how' can be appropriately answered, in such circumstances, with, 'while'?

Clive · Answer

Hi,

2. How did John break his arm ? OK. But they'll probably answer using 'while'.

What I was thinking was this. In an ideal world, the teacher hopes that the student will answer something like Oh, John was playing tennis when he broke his arm. In the real world, and in the classroom, the more common answer will vary a lot, but might well be just fragmentary: playing tennis or even just tennis or he fell.

To get the target structure, I often ask my students to answer me with a complete sentence, although I make sure they know we don't always do this in real life.

My experience is that teaching 'when' and 'while' together is a good way to go. A long-sentence answer might well come as He broke his arm while he was playing tennis.

'By playing football' is of course a good answer, but I'd rather teach 'when' and 'while' first. Also, I think I myself would usually just answer 'playing football'. I think sometimes on a forum like this we may inadvertently give learners the impression that everything we say comes out in perfect grammar!

Best wishes again, Clive

"The rose stays fresh in its name..." -Bernard of Morlay

CalifJim · Answer

To the question "How did John break his arm?" (in the cited context), I think the native speaker will most likely answer "Playing football.". "While playing football" may be felt to answer the question "When?" On the other hand, I don't think "By playing football" is a likely answer because the idiomatic use of "by" + gerund usually suggests that whatever it was was done on purpose, that one had to try to do it. This element is not present in an accident situation, so "By playing football" sounds more like an answer to "How did you build up so much muscle mass?".
Along the same lines, "How did you break the stone?" can be answered "By using a chisel", but "How did you get so sick?" cannot be answered "By soaking my entire body in freezing water and then playing in the snow naked" unless that really is the method by which you actually tried to make yourself sick!

In short, the prototypical answer uses the bare gerund: "Playing football."

My two cents, anyway!

CJ

Davkett · Answer

I don't think "By playing football" is a likely answer because the idiomatic use of "by" + gerund usually suggests that whatever it was was done on purpose, that one had to try to do it. -CJ

Is it just not appropriate when expressed as a fragment? What about when it is made into a complete sentence?

How did you break your arm?

I broke my arm while playing football.

Or,

I broke my arm by playing football.

Or,

I broke my arm by falling on it.

Or,

I broke my arm by falling on it while playing football.

Or,

It was an accident that happened while playing football.

Or,

Well, you see, I was playing football, and this guy came at me, seemingly from out of nowhere, and he hit me so hard, I fell forward and struck the ground, arm first, with such force that the impact was just too much --even though I was real pumped up with steroids. And besides we were playing on concrete...without protective gear, and....

CalifJim · Answer

davkett,

re: fragment vs. complete sentence.

It makes no difference to me. Whether fragment or complete, my first choice (as a guess of the most likely utterance a native speaker would generate) excludes "by" or "while".

How did you break your arm?
Playing football.
OR: I broke my arm playing football.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Hi I need to form 3 concept questions for EACH of these words
Clothes
Noisy
Look for
visit
happiness

But I still dont understand and know how to

please helppppppppppppppppppppppppp

Clive · Answer

Hi,

How about this approach?

It was noisy in the library. Does this mean that the library was

A. not very quiet?

B. not very big?

C. not closed?

Best wishes, Clive

Anonymous · Answer

1. Start by looking the word up in a dictionary- even though you know what it means, this is helpful as it gives you a starting place. E.g.

Clothes- the things that people wear such as shirts, trousers, dresses.

2. Then use this information to make some simple questions.

E.g. What do you do with clothes? Wear them.

What clothes are you wearing? - Trousers and a t-shirt.

3. Then you need to think about what the word does NOT mean (that students might get confused by).

E.g. Are shoes clothes? - No (well, I don't think so, anyway)

Are glasses clothes? - No

This could be confusing because we wear shoes and glasses but they are not clothes.

4. Then think if there is anything else about the word that might be difficult for students.

In this case it's the fact that clothes is a plural word. So you can ask

Can we say 'a clothes'? No.

Can we say 'Her clothes is nice.' No

Why not? - It's plural. We say clothes are..

What do we say if it's just one item? - A piece of clothing.

Just apply the same steps to any word you have to deal with. It does take practice though as you have to kind of put yourself in the shoes of the student to see what they will find tricky about it.

Good luck.

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