About SvVOPT and Emphasis
Leon Lentz
????English teacher ????founder/CGO/trainer Leon's ?? grammarCORE & author of ?? ONE RULE ENGLISH: Why Grammar S*cks & How to Fix It ????discover the One Rule approach for English teachers
A sentence is a stage and parts of speech are players ruled by SvVOPT
SvVOPT shows the basic pattern for English word order. It explains sentences as if they were scenes from a movie or a play. There is a Star (Subject) who performs the action (expressed in Verbs). There can be Other actors (Object) and there's usually a setting of Place and Time.
All the world's a stage, the Bard said. Whenever we use language to describe and explain the world around us, we string words into sentences, and it matters who or what is in the spotlight. When SvVOPT turns into TSvVOP, for instance, the performing parts of speech change position. The one that moves into the spotlight gets extra attention. That's what emphasis through word order looks like.
A great way of showing that is to invite a student from the back of the class to come up to the board and get all the attention. You'll need to be somewhat more inventive when teaching online. But no matter how you show it, the mental image that should stick with your students is this: the first words in a sentence are in the spotlight.
So a sentence is a stage and parts of speech are players ruled by the basic pattern for English word order. SvVOPT rules!
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People Capability Training Specialist
4 年Hi! The kinetic ideas, colour coding and games are great ideas. As is the idea of a central word order rule. But the impact of that rule is lost by suggesting that any combination of it is allowed - any combination is not allowed. It IS possible for T to come to the front to produce a TSVOP sentence (On Mondays, Bob takes the bus to school). But it is not natural English to allow P to the front (To school Bob takes the bus on Mondays). Neither is it possible to produce OSVPT, etc). Inflective languages (eg Slavic ones) can accommodate such flexible word order but English can't. You could convey this in your game ideas by establishing the basic word order, allowing T to come to the front of the class / sentence but then sending P or O back to the places where they belong!
Coordinator/ Professional Trainer/ Facilitator
4 年This is interesting and it will smooth the words order in a sentence explanation????
Freelance Course Creator and English Language Coach
4 年Leon, I love this approach to teaching and learning. I can't wait to try this exercise on my students. Thanks.
Teaching English to international professionals for 15 years.
4 年Great visual to use a student moving from the back to the front of the classroom to show how bringing "T" (time) before S (subject) changes the emphasis.
Graduation at Punjab University
4 年Thanks for posting