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TEACHING
COUNTABLE AND UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS
20th June, 2005
TEACHING
COUNTABLE AND UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS
This session was as much a
voyage of linguistic discovery and metaphysical enlightenment, as it was
about how to teach countable and uncountable nouns.
While this may at first glance
seem unlikely, bear with us and you will see why.
Without any beating about the
bush I suggest you open the document UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS, kindly prepared by Susan and
Martha that gives you some basic rules to guide you through the ins and outs
of nouns and how to know which are which.
Here are some rules we came
across:
1.
Countability comes with a determiner such as, a or an.
What quickly became clear to us
was that most uncountable nouns can easily be made into countable ones with a
few adjustments.
Let's take milk; this can become a
glass of milk. Coffee can become a cup
of coffee, some
would argue that a coffee is also correct. Is it therefore correct to say
"I'd like a water"? Probably, yes. Sand can become a
grain of sand,
luggage becomes a piece of luggage, and so can courage become an
example of courage?
Impatience,
a moment of impatience? It would seem so.
What about chicken? We can say a
chicken or some
chicken.
So some nouns can be both, depending on your meaning. Wood, can be for making a table or a wood can be a forest.
Let's get back to chicken, if we
can take a piece of chicken and say I have some chicken, can we also take a
chair, detach
the leg from it, hold it up and proudly declare you have some
chair? It seems
not. And can we not saw away at a table, take a chunk of wood from it,
walk into work and say, "Look, I have some table?" It seems not. Why? Well,
the reason seems to lie in boundaries. When you have a table leg, it is no
longer recognisable as a table, the definition of "table" has been
lost, the boundary has been broken. However, getting back to chickens, when
you rip a leg off a chicken (preferably a dead one), it is still recognisable
as chicken, its boundary hasn't been broken. Similarly if I take a cup of
sugar and pour some on the table it is still sugar, uncountable. So a rule is
formed;
2.
When a noun is separated and the boundary isn't broken it is uncountable.
This rule was nicely backed up
by Woody Allen running around in one of his films, seemingly at last a proud
landowner, dirt scooped up into his hands declaring, "I have some
land!"
Or is it?
What became clear to us, as we
began drawing on our instinct as native speakers and English teachers, is
that there were often no right or wrong sentences. It's just a case of
different sentences can conjure up different images in the mind of the
listener.
We also quickly drew the
conclusion that some of this could well confuse a learner.
And it was just there that Scott
Thornbury came to the rescue. Scott, by the way, is the author of "How
to Teach Grammar" (Longman), a recommended book from this session. He
says that different level learners need to know different things, especially
about grammar. One of the mistakes of some teachers is to tell students the
wrong information about a grammatical point, information they may not yet
need to know.
Take a simple example. When you
teach beginners the use of "some" and "any", you would
tell them that "some" is for positive sentences and "any"
for negatives or questions. You would not need to tell them that you can use
"some" in questions if you expect the other person to say yes, and
"any" if you want them to say no. As in, "do you want some
more wine?" or "do you want any more wine?"
This is knowledge overload and
the same is true for countable nouns. For a beginner you may teach that a
person is countable and the plural is people. You may not want to say at this
stage that people can also be countable if you are talking about a race, as
in China has 56 peoples. This maybe useful to teach at a low intermediate
level, say.
At this point in our session we
looked at handout 2 COMMON QUESTIONS, thanks to Susan and Martha for
that. This is a list of common questions that students ask about this topic.
If you open that now then the comments below will make more sense.
Comments on COMMON
QUESTIONS
1. "Fish" is the
singular and plural form. In more formal and old English you may have seen
"fishes" for the plural, this is however, rare nowadays. Whilst
some of us felt fishes was correct to describe different species, others felt
saying 2 types/species of fish was the correct usage. Referring back to
boundaries, if a fish farmer were to say to you "Would you like some
fish?", is he offering to sell you a batch of trout, or is he inviting
you to taste his dinner?
2. One people, two peoples. How
many peoples are there in China, by the way?
3. A would be the normal answer.
D is correct if you are referring to a specific fire.
4. B. is more common.
5. 1. ia A, 2. should be
"The science".
6. 1. Fruit. 2. Fruits or fruit.
7. Knowledge is uncountable.
8. "Do" can be used as
a noun, as in "the do's and the don'ts". While we say that's a
don't, we
wouldn't say that's a do, we'd say that's a must or a must-do. However, if we
say a do, we could be referring to a party (as in "what a dry
do!"...a party with little alcohol). Alternatively, it could refer to a
hair do!
9. Time is countable. One time,
two times. How many times? However, when we say how much time do you need? it
is uncountable, the units of time (minutes, seconds or hours etc...) could be
countable. This was a tricky one for the philosophers of the group who
insisted that time doesn't exist, therefore how can you count it? If time is
just an abstract concept and the only moment is now, how can you measure
time?
10.
11. Sheep and deer are like
fish, in the sense they are both singular and plural countable nouns. Cattle,
though is uncountable. You could say a head of cattle, to refer to one. There
are many unusual collective nouns in English, such as a herd of cows, a
school of fish, a flock of seagulls, an army of ants, does anybody know what
a group of starlings are called? To find out more visit:
http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Teach/English-collective.html
12. Countable and more
colloquially uncountable.
13. A. a paper is often used to
refer to a thesis or a newspaper.
14. Experience can be either
countable or uncountable, and the meaning doesn't change. I have a lot of
experience, or many experiences. Character, can be either but the meaning
changes. He has a lot of character, means he has a strong personality,
however, many characters in a play refers to the people of the play.
15. "in good
condition" is for inanimate objects, "in good health" for
people.
16. Consult a good grammar book
for the correct usage! Good ways of teaching it maybe through using collocations
(e.g. there's plenty of time), set phrases (e.g. there's little time to
waste), humour (e.g. "there are little people in the class today."
"Really and where is Snow White?") or physical realia (e.g. use
glasses or bowls with a lot or a little water).
17. See first handout on
UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS. We also agreed that, "the" is specifying or
identifying, and "a" is classifying.
Also, consider the phrase
"Save the Whale!" Why is it "the" whale? It's not one particular
one we have seen, is it? Apparently not. This is an example of a culturally
identified stereotype. We are referring to all whales. If we said, "Save
whales!" it may only refer to some whales, somewhere, in a vague kind of
way. However, why do we say, "we must save time" not "we must
save the time"? And as some people argued, can we save time anyway? Can
you put it in a box and keep for when you are older? Doesn't everyone get the
same amount of time?
And before philosophy takes
over, as it certainly did with us in this session, this seems a good moment
to stop.
Just to remind you 2 excellent
books to help you with teaching grammar:
"How
to teach Grammar" Scott Thornbury. (LONGMAN)
"How
English works" Michale Swan, Catherine Walter. (OXFORD)
Both are available in the
Wangfujing bookshop.
Thanks
to Susan and Martha for their preparation of materials for this session and
best wishes to Martha who is in hospital post-operation, we wish you a speedy
recovery; we will miss you.
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