Is it a noun, or a verb? NO, it’s…

As a school student, I hated English Grammar. I mean, did we really have to know if the verb was in the past simple tense, if it was an irregular verb or an auxiliary verb? Then there is the question of definite and indefinite articles. Most of the children who have been in my class, will tell you that Mrs. Coetzer says “English is a crazy language: For every spelling rule, there is an exception. What about two sounds which sound the same but are spelled differently? Then there is the matter of homonyms and homophones.

In all sincerity, English is one of the most difficult languages to learn and yet it is used universally, and we use these parts of speech without even realizing it.

Thankfully, the grammar taught in Year 2 is still fairly simple. To explain the importance of learning what a noun is, I asked various students to me bring me a ‘thingy’. Obviously, they were totally confused and kept bringing me different items in the classroom, with me rejecting each one. They caught on quite quickly and asked me to name the items I wanted. I tried another experiment and read them a story, leaving out all the adjectives and adverbs. They all agreed, it was a boring story. After I read it again, with the adjectives and adverbs, they told me they could imagine the story in their heads.

So, it appears that these parts of speech do play an important role in the English language, after all. As I always tell my students, we need to paint a picture with our words.

Kim Coetzer

Year 2 Teacher