A reflexive pronoun is a special kind of pronoun used to talk about the same person or thing that was mentioned in the subject: Alice looked at herself in the mirror. They enjoyed themselves at the beach. We use reflexive pronouns when the person who does something,...
The Grammar Wheel of Fortune
Traditional grammar classifies words based on eight parts of speech: verb, noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. Each part of speech explains not what the word is, but how the word is used. In fact, the same word can be a noun...
Declarative Sentences in English
Declarative Sentences are sentences which convey information; in other words, they make a statement. They do not ask a question or give a command. Declarative sentences are perhaps the most common forms of sentences. Other forms are interrogative, imperative and...
Prepositions of Place in English Grammar
Prepositions of Place are used to describe where something or someone is... Words like: in, on, at, by, behind, over... and so on. Most Common Prepositions of Place The 3 most commonly used prepositions of place are at, in and on. For ESL students prepositions of...
Introducing Possession in English Grammar
There are several ways to show ownership or possession in English grammar. The way we use mainly depends on whether the owner is animate (i.e. a person or an animal) or a thing. But as always, there are exceptions to this general rule. Animate Owners Apostrophe To...
Collective Nouns in English Grammar
A Collective Noun is a noun used to describe a group of objects (things, people, etc). For example, when we talk about collections of people we can use words like: a group of mena gang of teenagersa mob of riotersa squad of soldiers Each of the highlighted words is a...
Connectors in English Grammar
Sentence Connectors are words used to link sentences together. There are several types of connectors. Each one of them is used to express a different relationship between ideas, like: Addition I was in a hurry and I forgot to take my umbrella. John is our chauffeur,...
Acronyms & Backronyms in English
An acronym is a word formed by using one or more letters of the words in a phrase. It's used as an abbreviation of that phrase. In everyday life there are many commonly used acronyms. Some are formed from the initials of each word whilst others use parts of the...
CALL – Computer Assisted Language Learning
CALL or Computer Assisted Language Learning is using computers in the classroom to facilitate learning. In general, CALL is used as an adjunct to traditional teaching rather than a replacement (much like video has been used in the past). While in the past CALL was...
Simple or Continuous Verb Form?
If you teach or learn English you'll know that many students often have a problem deciding whether to use a Continuous Verb Form or a Simple Verb Form. For example, both of these are grammatically correct: I work here.I am working here. But learners can often choose...