Tài liệu Grammar for everyone part 7 docx

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foot feet

goose geese

ESL students need to learn these especially, as they may not be

familiar with hearing them spoken.

Gender

Gender is a grammatical term for classifying nouns according to

masculine, feminine or neuter. The classification is largely irre￾levant in English, which does not attribute gender to inanimate

objects. Many languages do, however, for no obvious reason.

For example:

in French we have la chaise (feminine) meaning chair

but le tabourer (masculine) meaning stool

la pierre (feminine) meaning stone

but le roc (masculine) meaning rock

Note, too, how the article (the word for ‘the’) in these examples

has a feminine and a masculine form. We are fortunate then that

the English gender generally speaks for itself and we have few

alternative forms. Many former distinctions have become blurred

in modern times, even politically incorrect, so that we seldom refer

to an actress or an authoress as opposed to actor or author. In some

respects this is a pity as a ‘unisex’ term provides less information.

1.6 Activities: number and gender

These exercises are particularly useful for young children and ESL

students and provide useful spelling practice, too.

1. Students make two columns, headed Singular and Plural, in their

grammar exercise books. Dictate words which the students write

in the appropriate column. They then add the counterpart of each

word in the other column. Useful words for this exercise include

those that sound like plurals such as:

32 GRAMMAR FOR EVERYONE