1. 1
UNIT1: SELECTED APPROACHES, METHODS AND
TECHNIQUES
OF LANGUAGE TEACHING
Introduction
In this unit we will try and look at the theories and approaches to teaching and
learning. I am sure you are not meeting this topic for the first time. This is a
revision of what you did at pre-service training. We are briefly going to remind ourselves
on the historical aspects of these approaches and methods.
Learning Outcomes
Having successfully completed this unit the teacher should be able to:
• Use appropriate approaches, methods and techniques of language teaching.
A brief history of language Teaching
Refresh your mind by reviewing what language teaching means? (Read ZATEC literacy
and language module 1 page 83 to help you.)
Do you realise that for centuries Latin was being studied as a foreign language all over
the world? The reason given for its study was that, it was the only language of
education,
commerce, religion and government in the western world. However in the sixteen
century, French, Italian, and English gained in importance because of the political
changes in Europe, and so Latin gradually became displaced as a language of spoken
and
written communication. Do you have any idea what the children who entered "grammar
school" in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in England were taught?
Well! They were initially and rigorously introduced to Latin grammar, which was taught
through rote learning of grammar rules, study of conjugation and translation of written
sentences and dialogues. An attempt to promote an alternative approach to grammar
translation method completely failed because everyone believed that Latin developed
intellectual abilities.

2. Can you imagine what happened when modern languages began to enter the
curriculum
of European schools in the eighteenth century? The same basic procedures that were
used
for teaching Latin were applied. You may ask, what were these procedures? Their
textbooks consisted of statements of abstract grammar rules, lists of vocabulary, and
sentences for translation. In fact speaking a foreign language was not the goal, which is
why those grammar sentences bore no relationship to the language of real
communication.
2
By the nineteenth century, this approach based on the study of Latin had become the
standard way of studying foreign languages in schools. A typical textbook consisted of
chapters or lessons organised around grammar points. Each grammar point was listed,
rules on its use were explained, and it was illustrated by sample sentences. This
approach
to foreign language teaching became known as the Grammar-Translation Method.
(Read
page 3 and 4 of Approaches and methods in language teaching to get the principal
characteristics of the Grammar-Translation Method). In the mid- and late nineteenth
century opposition to the Grammar –Translation Method developed in several European
countries. Communication among Europeans demanded for oral proficiency in foreign
languages. Controversies emerged about the best way to teach foreign languages and
ideas were discussed and defended by different linguists. The linguists shared many
beliefs about the principles on which a new approach to teaching foreign languages
should be based. The natural language learning principles brought about the ‘Direct
Method’. (Read pages 5 to 11 of Approaches and methods in language teaching.)
Although the direct method was popular not everyone embraced it enthusiastically. It
offered innovations at the level of teaching procedures but lacked a thorough
methodological basis. Because of the short comings of the methods discussed above
the
linguists and language specialists sought to improve the quality of language teaching in

3. the late nineteenth century, and did this by referring to general principles and theories
concerning how languages are learned, how knowledge of language is represented and
organised in memory, or how language itself is structured.
Approaches, Methods and Techniques
Activity 1.1
As a teacher you have already studied some of the approaches and methods used in
language teaching.
• Write a list of some of these approaches and methods that are used in language
teaching.
• For each of these approaches try to give a brief description and some of the features
that distinguish it from the others.
• Which one do you often use and why?
• Do your learners benefit a lot because of using that method? Is there any evidence to
show that truly your learners benefit?
• If your manager or supervisor walked into your classroom unexpectedly to monitor
you, would you proceed comfortably in your work using the chosen approach or
method?
3
Your answer to activity 1.1 may have included the following approaches/methods,
descriptions and features.
Approaches and methods Brief description Features
Grammar translation Translation of grammar
rules from the language
familiar to the learners to
the target language or vice
versa.
• Learning language
through detailed
analysis of grammar
rules
• Reading and writing

4. are the major focus
• Vocabulary selection is
based on reading texts
• Words are taught
through dictionary
study, memorisation
and bilingual word lists
• Translation is a central
technique.
Direct Method
Teaching directly in the
target language through
the use of demonstrations
and visual aids.
• Lessons begin with a
brief dialogue
• No translation is used.
• Exercises are given in a
target language
• Grammar is taught
inductively with rule
explanation at the end.
Audio-lingual It stems from the fact that
language learning is like
any other learning. It
emphasizes vocabulary
acquisition through
exposure to its use in
situations.
• It involves habit
formulation through

5. repetition and
memorization in order
to avoid errors at all
costs
• It gives learners
numerous opportunities
to speak
• Provides opportunity
for quick reinforcement
• Attends to structure
and form more than
meaning
• Native-speaker-like
pronunciation is sought
4
• Linguistic competence
is the desired goal
• The teacher is expected
to specify the language
that students are to use.
Cognitive Code An approach to language
teaching which stresses
the learners mastery of the
rules of the target
language
• It refers to mental
processes
• It emphasizes linguistic
competence and
performance
• Speaker learns

6. language through
mastery of its rules.
Situational Method It is a method based on
structural syllabus in
which language is taught
by association with
characteristics of
surrounding pictures,
gestures etc.
• It uses real life
situations to provide
meaning
• Rule explanation is
often given either at the
beginning or end
• It involves visual and
linguistic situation.
Communication Language
teaching
It means using procedures
where learners work in
pairs or groups employing
language resources in
problem solving tasks,
Richards and Rodgers
(1995:66).
• Meaning is paramount.
• Contextualisation is a
basic premise
• Comprehensive
pronunciation is sought

7. • Effective
communication is
sought
• Teachers help learners
in any way that
motivates them to work
with the language
• Intrinsic motivation
will spring from an
interest in what is being
communicated by the
language.
Table 1.1
5
In case you have forgotten the differences among an Approach, a Method and a
Technique, American applied linguist Edward
Anthony explains as follows:-
The organisational key is that the techniques carry out a method that is consistent with
an
approach.
An approach is a set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of
language teaching and learning. An approach is axiomatic (clear, does not need to
be proved). It describes the nature of the subject matter to be taught…
A method is an overall plan for the orderly presentation of language
material, no part or which contradicts, and all of which is based upon, the selected
approach. An approach is axiomatic, a method is procedural.
Within one approach, there can be many methods.
A technique is implementational – that which actually takes place in a
classroom. It is a particular trick, stratagem, or contrivance used to accomplish an
immediate objective. Techniques must be consistent with a method, and therefore
in harmony with an approach as well. (Anthony 1963: 63-7)

8. According to Anthony’s model, approach is the level at which assumptions and beliefs
about language and language learning are specified; method is the level at which theory
is put into practice and at which choices are made about the particular skills to be
taught, the content to be taught, and the order in which the content will be presented,
technique is the level at which classroom procedures are described.
Various approaches shall have distinctive features as shown in table 1.1 above.
You could be asking yourself now: “What is the best approach or methodology?”
There is surely no one best method. But if we are going to be good teachers then
we need to blend or integrate two or more methods in order to come up with a
workable procedure in the classroom. The use of two or more methods or approaches is
what is referred to as Eclecticism. (For more information on the methods and
approaches refer to’ ‘Approaches and methods in language teaching by Jack C.
Richards.)
Activity 1.2
The following sentences have been written randomly, each belonging to "Approaches;
Methods' and 'Techniques". Arrange them correctly so that they fall under the
appropriate
category.
6
1. These carry out a method
2. A set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language teaching and
learning
3. It describes the nature of the subject matter to be taught
4. It is axiomatic (can easily be seen, does not need to be proved.)
5. An overall plan for the orderly presentation of language material
6. It is procedural
7. That which is implementational
8. Takes place in the classroom.
9. A particular trick, stratagem, or contrivance used to accomplish an immediate
objective
10. That which must be consistent with a method and in harmony with an approach.

9. From the exercise you can see that the organisational key is that techniques carry out a
method that is consistent with an approach. Within one approach, there can be many
methods. A technique is implementational. It must be consistent with an approach.
Summary
• There are different approaches, methods and techniques in language teaching.
• To be effective in teaching one needs to be eclectic i.e. integrate two or more
methods.
• An approach describes the nature of the subject matter to be taught.
• A method is an overall plan. It is procedural.
• A technique is implementational- that which takes place in the classroom.
• Grammar-Translation. A method of teaching grammar rules which learner use to
illustrate.
7
UNIT 2: LISTENING AND SPEAKING
Introduction.
What is listening? It is the activity of paying attention to and trying to get
meaning from something we hear. To listen successfully to spoken language, we need
to
be able to work out what speakers mean when they use particular words in particular
ways on particular occasions and not simply to understand the words themselves.
Listening is a skill that many find difficult even in the mother tongue. The amount of
concentration one can bring to a listening activity depends on one’s attention span, and
the stimulus given. Listening is not a passive skill. We cannot discuss listening in
isolation from the other language skill of speaking for the two make up what is termed
as
oral communication. Look at Figure 2.1 illustrating the four language skills and how
they are related.
Figure 2.1:(Byrne 1992: 8)
What do you think receptive implies? You need to understand that receptive in this case
does not imply passive. But that both in listening and reading, language users are

10. actively involved in the process of interpreting and negotiating meaning. Both listener
and speaker have a function to perform. In simple terms, the speaker has to encode,
while the listener has to decode (or interpret a message).
Learning outcomes
Having successfully completed this unit the teacher should be able to:
• Teach purposes of listening
• Teach good listening habits
• Teach the tips for listening and speaking
• Teach the purpose of speaking
8
Activity 2.1
Answer all of the following questions.
• What is your understanding of successful listening?
• Do you always take in everything when you are listening?
• When a friend is speaking to you, what helps you to comprehend their message?
Write your answers somewhere because you will need to refer to them later.
Effective Listening:
What do you think is effective listening? Donn Byrne (Teaching Oral English) explains
that effective listening involves a number of skills that are deployed simultaneously and
these are:
• The spoken signals which have to be identified from the midst of the surrounding
sounds.
• The continuous stream of speech that has to be segmented into units, which have to
be recognised as known words.
• The syntax of the utterances that has to be grasped and the speaker’s intended
meaning which has to be understood.
• The application of the linguistic knowledge to formulating a correct and appropriate
response to what has been said.
We know that the active nature of listening means that the listener must be motivated by
a communicative purpose.

11. Reflect
Reflect upon what happens when you are listening to the:
• News bulletin
• Songs
• Poems or the doctor’s instructions.
• Do you maintain the same degree of attention in the above three instances of
listening?
• Give reasons for your answer.
People have various reasons for listening. You too, have your own reasons. Sometimes
we listen for pleasure, sometimes we listen for total comprehension and yet, other times
for the retention of main ideas or points. The different purposes help us maintain the
degree of attention.
9
Activity 2.2
Complete the table below to illustrate the purpose of listening.
Situation Purposes
Football commentaries
Speech by your local counsellor
Oral comprehension passage
Sermon in the church
Giving directions
Football match
Narration of family history
Watching a video
Many people find themselves in a variety of situations where they need to listen for
different purposes. The following are some of the main reasons for listening:
• Improving the listening attitude where you listen for pleasure e.g. listening to music
playing on radio, stories plays etc.
• Developing aspects of language where listeners include listening to improve the

12. pronunciation of sounds, stress and rhythm and intonation in language as well as
becoming familiar with new words and structural patterns.
• Reinforcing conceptual development where some spoken texts, such as stories can
act
as useful revision for reinforcing concepts.
Providing support for literacy where listeners get encouraged to make connections
between spoken and written language by picking out written words or statements which
are part of a spoken message. (Reading File: Volume 4: 1994)
10
Now look at what Byrne (1992:15) says on purpose and nature of listening
comprehension programme:
• To give the learners experience of listening to a wide variety of samples of spoken
language. The purpose therefore is exposure (as in the mother tongue) to:
- different varieties of language (standard/regional, formal/informal) etc.
- different text types (conversational, narrative, informative etc.). The motivation for
the learner should be pleasure, interest, and a growing confidence at being able to
understand the spoken language without reference to the written form.
• To train the learners to listen flexibly, e.g. for specific information, for the main
ideas or to react to instructions (i.e. by doing something).
• To provide, through listening, a stimulus for other activities e.g. discussion, reading
and writing.
• To give the learners opportunities to interact while listening, e.g. in a classroom this
must be done largely through discussion – type activities and games, where listening
forms a natural part of the activity.
Steps to active listening
The steps to be followed in order to enhance active listening are outlined below:
• Be prepared to listen. This is done by turning out all distractions and make
yourself comfortable. As a listener, look at the speaker to pick up sable messages
which could be conveyed by body language.
• Decide the purpose of listening for each occasion. These can be attained through:
(i) Information gathering

13. (ii) Mentally stimulated or challenged
(iii) Help in forming opinion
(iv) Broaden your understanding
(v) Develop closeness.
• Plan your fulfilment for the purpose of listening. This can be attained through:
(i) Listening to gather information
(ii) Forming an opinion
(iii) Listening to develop closeness to a friend.
Authentic listening situation:
So far we have been discussing listening theoretically. I suggest that we now try to look
at listening in more practical terms by looking at situations that we find our selves in
regularly.
1. Listening to announcements: Imagine you are at a bus station, airport or railway
station waiting for a friend. What do you hear? A baby crying; noise of a train
pulling out; shuffling of feet as people rush to go and board? What are you listening
for? In a situation like this you are probably listening for the voice of your friend.
11
Do you realise that you are almost exclusively interested in extracting the relevant
information from that of your friend’s voice while more or less ignoring the rest of
the utterances.
2. Listening to the radio: Do you sometimes find it difficult to listen to the radio?
Have you ever thought why? In this situation as a listener you have very limited
knowledge of what is going to be said or who is going to say it. Therefore the
language of entertainment programmes on radio does certainly require a high level of
listening skill.
3. Watching live performance: Have you ever watched a play at your school or
perhaps in a theatre? What was your objective of watching that play?
4. Listening on the telephone: You have probably done this simply to take a message
or have a conversation. Again like listening to the radio you are unable to see the
speaker and in addition have had problems in distinguishing the spoken sounds
because of interference and distortion.

14. 5. Listening to instruction: Do you remember your sports lessons at school where you
listened to instructions from your sports teacher? You probably found that your
immediate response to the task was often made easier by the visual support of the
teacher.
6. Listening to public speaking: What makes you listen to a speech, for example?
When people attend rallies they are often as interested in the views and attitudes of
the speaker as they are in the actual topic being spoken about.
Can you now suggest some more authentic listening situations in addition to the above
list?
7……………………………………………………………………………………………
8…………………………………………………………………………………………….
9…………………………………………………………………………………………….
10…………………………………………………………………………………………...
Activity 2.3
You and I have discussed some of the authentic listening situations. I believe you and
your pupils at one time have found yourselves in such situations. Can you try and
design
tasks that you can engage your pupils in to help them practise and develop their
listening
skills, especially in the classroom. Share what you have written with your friends in the
12
Teachers’ Group. Try out one task with your friends before you can do it with your
pupils.
Authentic listening tasks
Have you ever exposed your pupils to listening to a variety of authentic texts so that
they
practise and develop their listening skills? As teachers it is important that we make our
pupils hear samples of un-simplified language from the earliest stages. The objective of
this is not to discourage them but to demonstrate to them that they can interpret quite a
lot of the situational features even if they do not understand what is being said. The
material for the exposure as Byrne (1992: 16) puts it could include the following:

15. 1." Stories, anecdotes, jokes, talks, commentaries.
How do we make these interesting and mind capturing? We may have these materials
recorded or improvised by us. If we are giving a story or a talk we should try to be as
spontaneous as possible. It may be better to use outline notes rather than read a script.
2." Conversation, discussions, plays.
In this case it is important to give pupils background e.g. about the speakers
3. Songs (modern, western)
Do you think this would provide a good form of listening? Well, it would because the
pupils are generally very much concerned to make out the words. I am sure this could
be
combined with some task especially that of ‘ear-training’, where learners could be asked
to distinguish between key sounds, stress and intonation patterns.
4." Videos and films.
Can you imagine what a great advantage it would be in using wherever possible
recorded
material, where the pupils can see what is happening as well as listening.
Note that these items should be followed by related tasks like asking pupils to write
down the words of a song for example which could begin as an individual task and then
lead on to class or group discussion or writing. However the main aim is to provide
pleasurable listening as an end in itself.
Strategies for teaching listening skills
1." Stories:
Do you remember the times you listened to stories from your mother, father, and grand
parents or indeed from brothers and sisters? Did you have an idea why those stories
were being told to you? Really, stories are a rich source of listening practice. In order to
develop listening skills, there are a number of different strategies that you can use in the
context of listening to a story. For instance:
13
Getting the general picture:
Think for a minute; remember an occasion when you were at school or at college. Draw
your mind to that lesson when your teacher/lecturer told a story. Why do you think

16. he/she made you listen to that story? Could it have been that he/she encouraged you to
listen to the story simply for pleasure? I believe your teacher’s intention was not for you
to remember details but to get the general idea of what the story was about.
Predicting:
Your teacher/lecturer should have encouraged you to predict events in a story and then
to
check whether what you heard matched your expectations.
2. Physical response:
Instructions:
This can either be done from instructions recorded on tape or instructions from you the
teacher or perhaps more interestingly, between the learners themselves in the
classroom.
Some of the well-known activities involving instructions are:
Putting pictures in order.
This is a very good while-listening activity. Present your learners with a number of
pictures. (See Figure 2.2 below). When re-arranged, the pictures form a logical story.
The learners’ task is to listen to you narrating the story as shown in the transcript below,
and then re-arrange the pictures in a logical order by merely putting letters A, B, C etc.
against the Arabic numerals 1,2,3 etc.
14
Figure 2.2
Transcript.
Bwalya was out for a walk one day when she came to a gate in a wooden fence. ‘I
wonder,’ she said to herself, ‘where this leads to?’ She went through it and immediately
came face to face with a very big fierce looking dog. It made her nervous. ‘Does your
dog bite?’ She asked the boy who was standing beside the dog. ‘No. it doesn’t, he
replied. Bwalya leaned forward to pat the dog on the head. ‘Nice doggie,’ she said. But
the dog immediately jumped at her and, she ran for safety towards a tree, it ran after
her,
growling, and tore a piece of cloth from her coat. ‘I thought you said your dog didn’t
bite,’ she said to the boy as she hung from a branch of the tree. ‘That is right,’ he

17. replied. ‘It doesn’t. But this isn’t my dog.’
Picture dictation:
Unlike the traditional dictation in which you ask learners to remember large chunks of
language, picture dictation is an active process in which you ask learners to draw a
picture that you the teacher (or another learner) talks about without showing them. It
can
be any picture, but the description has to be entirely visual and simple, so that even
those
learners that are not gifted in drawing can draw intelligibly. For example, you may say
something like this:
‘I want you to listen to what I am going to say to you about a certain village in Luapula
Province. While you are listening, draw your impression about this village.’ So here we
go.
15
‘There is a village in Luapula near lake Mweru. The huts are built close together. The
roofs are made of grass. There are palm trees all round this village. Just outside this
village there is a cemetery.’
It is obvious that there will be a variety of versions for the above description depending
on how much an individual understood from the dictation.
For more activities read Tutors’ Guide module 3 and 4 of literacy and language,
Teaching
Oral English by Donn Byrne, Young Learners by Sara Phillips, Teacher Training
Reading File Chipata and Mansa. (Icon 8)
Summary
Listening is a skill that we acquire first in childhood. We have also learnt that there are
various reasons why people listen and that some of these reasons are:
• Pleasure
• Total comprehension
• Retention of main ideas or points and that to be good listeners people need to:
• Choose what to listen to
• Attend from the beginning

18. • Maintain the degree of attention relevant to the purpose of listening
• Look at the speaker in order to interpret verbal and non-verbal cues accurately.
16
Speaking
Introduction:
Unlike listening, talking is something most people need little encouragement to
do. But promoting free speaking in our pupils in our classrooms and especially
in the second language can be difficult. What then should we do? As teachers we need
to provide pupils with an interesting stimulus that will give them a natural purpose for
speaking. Can you remember what we said about oral communication in unit 2? We
said
that oral communication is a two way process, between the speaker and the listener.
We
also saw how communication could not take place unless the two skills were developed.
Learning outcomes
Having successfully completed this unit the teacher should be able to: -
• Teach purposes of speaking
• Teach good speaking habits
Reflect
• Reflect on a situation when you were spoken to, and you failed to respond.
• Reflect on a situation when you wanted to say something or give instructions and the
listeners could not respond.
In both instances say why you think it was difficult to respond and suggest what should
have been done.
Have you ever thought of why we speak? We speak in order to:
• Express personal feelings From page 16-17
• Convey messages
• Get things done e.g.
Persuading
Commanding,

19. Instructing,
Apologising and
Teaching.
17
Effective speaking
What do we mean when we say, “Jane is a good speaker”? As you may be aware, a
good
speaker uses: -
• Appropriate words
• Appropriate gestures
• Good pronunciation, stress and rhythm and pauses in order to get a feedback or check
the effect of what they are saying. Good speakers avoid the use of unnecessary
fillers. They vary the pitch of their voices according to the situation.
What is the purpose for teaching speaking?
One of the main goals in teaching the productive skill of speaking is oral fluency. We
can define this as the ability to express oneself intelligibly, reasonably accurately and
without too much hesitation (otherwise communication may break down because the
listener loses interest or gets impatient). To attain this goal, we need to bring the
learners
from the stage where they are mainly imitating a model of some kind, or responding to
cues, to the point where they can use the language freely to express their own ideas.
Byrne (1992:9)
We know that oral communication is a two-way process between speaker and listener.
Study the Figure 2.3 (Byrne: 1992:10) below and see what happens in a speech
situation
and what is involved in oral ability.
Figure 2.3
What do you learn from the diagram? You have noticed that one person may do all the
speaking e.g. in a lecture. In this situation the speaker initiates and simply keeps up the
flow of speech. This can also happen sometimes when a person is giving instructions or

20. directions. However in a conversation although one person initiates, the speaker and
the
listener are constantly changing roles, and consequently speaking involves responding
to
what has been heard. We can, therefore, say speaking is an integral part of listening.
How then do we ensure that the skills are integrated especially in our classroom? Do we
integrate through situations that permit and encourage authentic communication? (e.g.
18
especially through talk and discussion in small groups) or do we teach learners how to
keep the channel of communication open in such situations? (e.g. by asking for
repetition
and clarification ; by interrupting; by signalling agreement or disagreement etc.). Think
about it! (Byrne: 1992:11)
Communicative activities:
Take a minute or two to think about communicative activities. You often use
communicative activities in your class, in your Teachers’ Groups. and you did some at
college. What then do we mean by communicative activities? We may say that
language
teaching practice places considerable emphasis on introducing communicative tasks or
activities in the classroom in order to promote language use. We need to think of a
communicative activity as a piece of work that involves learners in using language in
order to get something done. We need to call upon learners to: -
• Gather information in English or Zambian language
• Exchange information
• Work together in order to produce information in English or Zambian language.
Activity 2.4
Study the following points and use them to design task-based activities.
• Let the activity be exciting, interesting and motivating for the learners.
• Let it provide a suitable challenge for the age group. It should stretch them a little
without being too difficult.
• Learners should focus on getting the task done rather than practising a language item.

21. • Learners need to use both receptive and productive skills to complete the activity.
• The activity should be within the conceptual ability of the learners. (Promat:
Language Methodology: Unit 1: 48)
Summary
We have learnt about:
• Purposes of speaking
• Effective speaking
• Purpose of teaching speaking
We have also learnt that: -
Oral communication is a two-way process
• In real life situations we integrate the skills of listening and speaking.
19
UNIT 3: TEACHING / LEARNING RESOURCES AND THE USE
OF
AUTHENTIC MATERIALS.
3.1. TEACHING AND LEARNING RESOURCES.
Introduction
In this unit we are going to discuss teaching and learning materials you have used
in the classroom. It is important to know the difference between teaching and
learning resources.
Learning Outcomes
At the end of the unit teachers should be able to:
• distinguish between teaching and learning resources and
• use the learning resources appropriately.
Teaching resources are materials used by the teacher in order to enhance the
teaching process. The learning resources usually refer to textbooks that are
sources of information for the learner. In most of the cases, it is difficult to draw a
distinction between teaching and learning resources because they complement each
other.

22. Both of them create an environment for teaching and learning.
A learning resource is an object that may serve as a medium of teaching on the part of
a
teacher, and learning on the part of a pupil. Experience has shown that the use of
learning
aids can greatly increase and reinforce learning.
Research evidence has shown that we learn and retain:
10% of what we hear
15% of what we see
20% of what we both see and hear
40% of what we discuss with others
80% of what we experience directly or practice
90% of what we attempt to teach others
Figure 3.1
20
You may, as a teacher, have experienced that teaching can become more effective if
appropriate resources; human and physical are available. Language teachers should be
resourceful and not only depend on already made or written teaching/learning materials.
Being resourceful and improvising materials means that a language teacher should
exploit the surrounding environment and make use of materials that can enable learners
to understand the lesson.
What kind of learning resources do you use in your school? Do you know that it is
important to use appropriate and suitable learning resources? Below are important
considerations for the use of learning resources:
- How much information the T/L aid conveys.
- The age level of pupils
- The number of pupils
- The characteristics of the learning aid itself.
As a teacher you should use learning aids as a means of extending your ability to
communicate and make instructions more effectively. You should create learning
resources that will make your classroom interesting and challenging. Because

23. commercially made learning resources are usually difficult to find, they should be
improvised by using locally available materials.
Some of the locally available materials that a teacher can use to assist learners to learn
effectively and efficiently are: textbooks, teacher’s guides, work books, models,
collection of plants, insects, artefacts, magazines and newspapers.
It is important to remember the points below as we make teaching and learning aids:
• Learning aids are an additional source of information and not a complete method
of teaching.
• Learning aids should be relevant to the subject of the lesson.
• Real objects or specimens are the best learning aids
• Models are better than charts, pictures and maps. Let pupils handle models
• Too many learning aids can distract learner attention from the main subject of the
lesson
• You must encourage pupils to collect and make learning aids
• Use locally available materials for aids as much as possible
• Aids should not be left in the classroom for too long.
Activity 3.1
Make a list of the kind of materials you would use in the classroom to help your pupils
develop their listening skills. For each material write the instructions you would give and
the activities the pupils would be involved in. Refer to unit 2 of this module on Listening
and Speaking for more information.
21
How often do you allow your learners in your class to improvise? Improvisation
is a way of encouraging general confidence and fluency in language use by allowing the
learners to explore and exploit their communicative repertoire in any ways they wish. It
also encourages them to express their own imagination and individuality through the
language. This in turn helps them to relate the new language to their own personality.
Her is an example of how you can allow improvisation in a language lesson. The
starting
point to make an improvisation may be to come up with a simple everyday situation into

24. which the learners are asked to project themselves. For example, they should be asked
to
improvise (in pairs) a scene of a meeting between old friends who have not seen each
other for several years. Other examples are to role-play or dramatise a scene.
Activity 3.2:
Why do you use teaching/learning resources in a lesson? Explain.
Compare your answer with Macharia & Wario (1989:67) reasons for using teaching and
learning resources in a lesson:
• stimulate pupils’ interest
• capture pupils’ attention
• evoke responses from the pupils
• clarify abstract concepts by giving them concrete dimensions
• provide variety in learning
• encourage discussion in a language lesson
• improve the classroom environment by providing excellent materials for display.
Reflect
Look around your classroom and answer the following questions:
1. What teaching/learning materials do you use for teaching reading?
2. How many of these materials have you improvised?
3. Do you use improvised situations in order to teach reading? Give an example.
Activity 3.3:
What teaching/learning materials would you use to teach writing in Lower and Middle
Basic grades?
22
Summary
• Teaching / learning materials are texts and aids used by the teacher and
learners in order to help the learner grasp the content.
• These are prescribed or created by the teacher.
3.2. USE OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS
Introduction

25. In the previous section, we discussed the importance of improvising T/L
materials. The materials you improvise are often those you use in real life situations.
These materials are real or genuine. They are therefore called authentic materials.
Authentic materials are any materials that are not originally produced for use in the
classroom, but that could be used as a focus for all or part of a lesson.
Examples of these might include: photographs, newspapers, advertisements, crossword
puzzles, brochures, pamphlets, games, jokes, diaries, real objects, films, video, receipts
and many more.
Learning Outcomes
• To encourage teachers to be creative and improvise or produce their own materials.
Activity 3.4:
In your school discuss the various authentic materials that could be used with
Grades 1 – 7. Then complete the table below:
Grade
Source of Authentic
Materials
Type of Activity
How it could be used
1
2
3
23
4
5
6
7
Table 3.2.
Modern thinking in language teaching stresses the importance of authentic
materials, because they are samples of language in use – they are
communicative. As a teacher you should ensure that language is used in real life to
perform certain tasks in the classroom because language has functions.

26. You may have observed that authentic texts such as newspapers are created to
communicate something, while many typical classroom texts are teacher generated in
order to focus on particular teaching point, for example, the past simple tense. These
teacher-generated texts will be quite unnatural in that the frequency of instances of the
teaching point will be far greater than would be found in the real world of authentic texts.
While teacher-generated texts can be useful, it is more useful if something like the past
simple tense can be taught in the context in which it is found in the real world, say in the
newspaper report.
Activity 3.5:
Make a survey in your school and explain how different authentic materials are stored.
Reflect
1. Do you use authentic materials in your class?
2. Have you thought of categorising them in terms of topic and theme? Give
examples.
Activity 3.6
Make any teaching material that you would use for authentic teaching. Explain how you
would use it.
24
Summary
• Authentic materials are used in language learning because they are:
appropriate, unique, true, holistic, everywhere, natural, textual, interesting and
communicative = AUTHENTIC.
• Authentic materials ensure that language is used in real life situations.
25
UNIT 4: GRAMMAR
Introduction
You are now going to look at one of the most interesting aspects of language study. You
will spend time examining major parts of the grammar of English and Zambian
Languages. As you read on you will discover that this unit is dealing with the structure
of words, the rules of arranging words into sentences in both English and Zambian

27. Languages and word classes. We can assure you that the knowledge of major aspects
of
English and Zambian Languages grammar, which you will gain from reading this unit,
will give you enough confidence to be an effective teacher of both languages.
Learning Outcomes
At the end of your reading we expect you to:
• Demonstrate ability to understand the structure of both English and Zambian
Languages.
• Use your knowledge of the way English and Zambian Languages work to
determine which aspects of language structure need emphasing in your
lessons.
• Determine which aspects of language structure cause less learning difficulties
for pupils.
• Do a contrastive analysis of grammatical elements and Zambian Languages in
order to identify similarities and differences between the former and the latter.
• Use the knowledge of contrastive analysis to both predict Zambian pupils
learning difficulties in English and find remedies before you present your
lessons.
The structure of words
We assume that before you began reading this sentence you had read the title of this
unit.
Look at it again. What ideas do you form in your mind when you read this title ‘The
Structure of Words’? Pause for a moment and write a sentence explaining the meaning
of this title.
Did it occur to you, while you were thinking about the meaning of the title of this unit,
that you were actually getting ready to study parts of words?
26
Activity 4.1.
Look at the following words and divide them into their constituent parts.
English Zambian Languages
playful basankwa (Tonga)

28. mucikolo (Tonga)
tulamuyanda (Tonga)
unkindness adzabweranso (Nyanja)
anamangidwa (Nyanja)
helpless meeno (Kaonde)
lilepe (Lozi)
unfaithfulness kulobala (Lozi)
jumping tatulaabamona (Bemba)
ducks balapeelana (Bemba)
If you have problems in dividing the words given above into parts, ask for assistance
from fellow teachers or, in the case of Zambian languages, people who know the
languages we have drawn examples from.
The exercise you have done above is a test for you to judge whether or not you know
the
structure of words in English or, indeed, Zambian languages. What was your division of
words into parts like? Check if you divided the words properly.
The word playful has two parts, the stem play and the suffix - ful which marks this word
as a member of a particular class of words called adjectives. Note, however, that not all
adjectives end in -ful. Unkindness has three parts, un- a prefix which carries a negative
meaning, - kind is the stem, - ness is a suffix which- expresses a state or quality and/or
often marks an item as a noun (Quirk, et al, 1985:69; Crystal, 1987:90). There are two
parts in helpless, the stem help and the suffix - less which marks an item as an
adjective.
Unfaithfulness has even more parts, un - which carries a negative meaning, - faith - as a
stem, - ful - the adjective suffix and - ness which marks the item as a noun (Langacker,
1967:74 - 75). In jumping, jump is the stem while the - ing suffix helps to convey a
sense of duration (Crystal, 1987:90). The word ducks consists of duck and the suffix - s
which expresses plural (Ibid).
We hope you found the above analysis fascinating. We also hope you noticed that the
structure of each word indicated what class or part of speech it belonged to. Quirk, et al
(1985:69) summarizes this phenomenon thus:

29. Such indicators enable a speaker of English to recognize
implicitly the word class of an item, even if he has not met
that item before, purely on the basis of its form.
27
Were you able to recognize the word class of each linguistic item you came across in
English before you read this unit? Let’s now turn to the Zambian languages words you
were asked to divide into parts. Was it easier for you to divide Zambian languages
words
into parts than the English ones? Here are the words in the five of the local official
languages.
Tonga
The word basankwa, young men or boys, in Tonga belongs to class two nouns. It has
two parts, ba - is a prefix which expresses plural while - sankwa is the stem which
carries the meaning youngman or boy. The singular is musankwa (class 1), young man
or boy, from mu - - sankwa. Mucikolo, inside the school, has three parts, the extra
prefix of the locative class (i.e. class 18) mu - carries the meaning ‘inside’; - ci - is a
class
7 prefix which expresses singular and - kolo, as a stem, carries the meaning school.
Tulamuyanda, we want him or her, is a verb which consists of five parts: tu - carries the
meaning ‘we’; - la - is part of the tense marker (ie. the present simple) - mu - is the
object
personal pronoun ‘him’ or ‘her’; - yand - is the stem of the verb ‘want’ and - a, as a
suffix, is tense marker two.
Nyanja
Adzabweranso, he/she will come again, is a verb with five parts: the prefix a -
represents
the subject pronoun ‘He’ or ‘She’; - dza - is a tense marker which carries the meaning
‘future’ or ‘will’; - bwer -, carries the meaning of the verb ‘come’; - a - is a second tense
marker and -nso expresses the meaning ‘again’. In anamangidwa, they/she/he was
arrested, there are equally five parts: the prefix a - expresses the subject pronoun ‘he’,
‘she’ or ‘they’; - na - helps to convey the notion ‘in the past’; - mang - is the stem for the

30. verb ‘arrest’; - idw- is the suffix for the passive extension ‘be arrested’ and - a is part of
the tense marker.
Kaonde.
If you had problems in dividing these words when you looked at them for the first time, it
must be much easier now for you to do so. To identify the parts in the word ‘meeno’,
‘teeth’, you need to know that in this language, ‘tooth’ is called jiino from ji - which
expresses singular and -ino, the stem which carries the meaning ‘tooth’. Therefore, in
‘meeno’, ‘teeth’, there are two parts: ma -, the class 6 noun prefix which expresses
plural
in most Zambian languages, and -ino which carries the meaning ‘tooth’. You may ask
what happens to the vowels ‘a’ and ‘i’ in the prefix and the stem, respectively, in order
for us to have the ‘ee’ we see in ‘meeno’, ‘teeth’. Well, this is a result of vowel
coalescence or fusion of vowels within a word. In most Zambian languages vowel ‘a’
fuses with ‘i’ to form a long vowel ‘ee’. Can you think of other examples? Please write
them down.
Lozi
In this language the noun lilepe means ‘axes’. It has two parts: the prefix li - which
carries the meaning plural and the stem - lepe which conveys the meaning ‘axe’.
28
Kulobala, to sleep, is an infinitive verb with three parts: ku - expresses ‘to’; - lobal -
carries the meaning ‘sleep’ and the suffix - a denotes the present simple tense.
Bemba
The word tatulaabamona, we have not yet seen them, has six parts: ta-, -tu-, - laa -,
-ba-, - mon - and - a. The prefix ta - carries a negative meaning; - tu - stands for the
subject pronoun ‘we’; - laa - conveys a sense of duration or the notion ‘have ... yet’; - ba
- represents the object pronoun ‘them’; - mon - carries the meaning ‘see’ and the suffix -
a is part of the tense marker - laa -. In balapeelana, they give each other, there are five
parts: the verb prefix ba - stands for ‘they’; - la - is part of the tense marker (ie. present
simple tense); - peel - is the verb stem which carries the meaning ‘give’; - a - is tense
marker two and - na carries the reciprocal extension meaning ‘each other’.
Reflect

31. Reflect upon what we have said so far in this unit and answer the following
questions.
1. What have we been talking about so far in this unit?
2. From the examples given in both English and Zambian languages, give similarities and/or differences between the forms of
words.
3. Do you think the knowledge obtained from this unit will be more relevant to the
pupils than the teacher? Give reasons for your answer.
4. What term is used to describe the study of the structure of words?
5. Give examples of words in English and a particular Zambian language you speak
which do not have an internal grammatical structure we have identified in the
examples given so far.
If you have read books that talk about the structure of words, you probably know that
this
study deals with the minimum meaningful grammatical units of a language and how they
are combined to make words. It is called morphology. Dixon (1991:4) says morphology
deals with the structure of words. We hope you have now understood that in this unit we
are learning about morphology or the internal grammatical structure of words.
We are very sure that if we asked you to divide the word unfriendliness into parts, you
would know that it consists of four parts: un-friend-li-ness and that each of these parts
has a meaning. The parts of a word are the elements we refer to as minimum
meaningful
grammatical units. Do you know what these parts are called? They are known as
morphemes.
Do you know that morphology is one of the components of the aspect of the scientific
study of language that is usually called Grammar? Read what Crystal (1987:90) says:
Morphology: This branch of grammar studies the structure of words.
29
Activity 4.2
Answer the following questions
1. What is morphology?
2. With the help of examples from both English and Zambian languages explain

32. what a morpheme is.
3. In your Teacher Group discuss what you think grammar is and give examples.
4. Give examples of nouns and verbs that have between two and six parts in the
Zambian language you know very well and explain the meaning of each part.
5. Prepare a forty minute lesson plan in which you teach pupils nouns that begin
with the prefix un - and end in the suffix - ness.
Let’s go back to the term morpheme. Linguists sometimes distinguish between
free and bound morphemes. Look at the following words in English and identify
free and bound morphemes.
boy, quickly, unable, sadness, dogs, sad, rapidly
Free morphemes are those that can stand alone as independent words (e.g. tie, sad;
bwera, ‘come’ in Nyanja and ine, ‘me’ in Bemba). All the others that cannot stand alone
as independent words are said to be bound morphemes as is the case with the plural
morpheme s in dogs, the -ness of sadness, the -ly of rapidly (Langacker, 1967:75 - 77),
and the prefix a - as well as infix or tense marker - dza - ‘will’ in adzabwera, He/she
will come, in Nyanja. In the Bemba word nkaya, I will go, the personal pronoun n - ‘I’
and the tense marker - ka -, ‘will’ are bound morphemes while - ya, ‘go’ is a free
morpheme.
Are you aware that morphology is linked to the concepts of derivation and inflection?
What do these terms mean? Dixon (1991:4) provides the answer to this question:
If a morpheme is added to a word and yields a word of a
different kind, this is called a derivation, e.g. the formation
of adjective beautiful from the noun beauty, noun decision
from verb decide ...
If a morpheme just adds some extra element of meaning to a
word, which is required by the grammar of the language,
then it is called an inflection, e.g. the verb kill inflects for
past tense, becoming killed, and the noun horse inflects for
plural number, becoming horses.
Does the above explanation help you to understand the difference between derivation
and

33. inflection? Can you give examples of derivation and inflection in your local language?
30
Activity 4.3
Look at each of the following examples and state whether it is a case of inflection or
derivation:
• manga, arrest, - mangidwa, be arrested.
• saka, want, - sakilwa, be wanted
• bomba, work, - umubomfi, a worker
• butuka, run, - butukisha, run hard (ie.faster).
• konka, follow, - umukonshi, a follower or disciple
• lata, love, - mulatiwa, one who is loved
• yanda, want, - yandwa, be wanted
• tuma, send, - intumi, a messenger.
Activity 4.4
Go over the work starting immediately below the questions in Activity 4.2 and then
answer the following questions:
1. Explain and illustrate the difference between:
(a) free and bound morphemes
(b) inflection and derivation.
2. Prepare a lesson plan in which you teach pupils how to form nouns from verbs in
a particular Zambian language that is offered to learners at your school.
3. In your Teacher Group compile a list of derivatives and another one of inflected
words in both English and at least two Zambian languages.
4. After discussing with fellow teachers, write a short paper stating the similarities
and differences between inflection in English and Zambian languages.
5. Conduct an action research aimed at establishing the extent to which pupils in
your class use derivations and inflections in their written and spoken discourse in
both English and Zambian languages.
Getting it right
As a teacher of either English or a particular Zambian language that is offered to
learners

34. at your school, you are most of the time engaged in correcting pupils’ work. The extract
given below is an example of such work. The teacher had asked her pupils to write a
composition about what they did last weekend and the people they met.
I last weekend was enjoy myself. Me and my friend Lufoma go for
shopping. On way to a shops my friend ask me if I has money enough.
31
I telling her that I has not many money. After walk for ten minutes we
meet a friend of ours, Chansa. My friend Lufoma ask me if I see
Chansa. I tell her that I have. She asks as were we going. When we
tell him she decides to follow.
Activity 4.5
Imagine that you have been asked to correct the above excerpt from a pupil’s
composition and then answer the following questions:
1. Name the prominent tense pupils were supposed to use in this composition.
2. Did the pupil who wrote the above extract know how to use this tense? Give
reasons for your answer.
3. Identify and list the errors in the above extract.
4. Classify the nature of the problems this pupil had in writing this composition.
5. Examine each of the sentences in the above extract and correct the error or errors
6. Discuss the whole exercise you have been doing with a fellow teacher and
confirm the correctness of your re-written sentences.
We hope that in this Activity you were able to identify that the pupil who wrote the
extract did not know how to use the past simple tense. We also hope that you identified,
listed and corrected the following errors.
No. Errors Corrections
1. I last weekend ... Last weekend I ...
2. ... was enjoy myself ... enjoyed myself
3. Me and my friend Lufoma go for
shopping.
My friend Lufoma and I went
shopping ...

35. 4. On way to a shops .... On our way to the shops ...
5. ... my friend ask me ... ... my friend asked me...
6. ... if I has money enough. .... if I had enough money.
7. I telling her ... I told her ...
8. ... that I has not many money ... that I didn’t have much money
9. After walk for ten minutes .... After walking for ten minutes ....
10. ... we meet a friend of ours, Chansa. ... we met our friend, Chansa.
11. My friend Lufoma ask me if I see
Chansa
My friend Lufoma asked me if I had
seen Chansa.
12. I tell her that I have I told her that I had.
13. She asks as were we going. she asked us where we were going.
14. When we tell him.... When we told her ....
15. ... She decides to follow .... She decided to follow.
Were you able to explain the nature of the problems this pupil had in writing this
composition? Compare the answers you wrote in Activity 1, question 4 with the ones
below:
32
1. Failure to use the past simple and past perfect tenses, e.g.
(a) .... ‘was enjoy myself’ instead of ‘I enjoyed myself.’
(b) ‘My friend ask me’ instead of ‘My friend asked me.’
(c) ‘... we meet ...’ instead of ‘... we met ...’
(d) ‘My friend Lufoma ask me if I see Chansa’ instead of ‘My friend Lufoma
asked me if I had seen Chansa’.
(e) ‘I tell her that I have’ instead of ‘I told her that I had’.
(f) ‘She asks ...’ instead of ‘She asked ...’
(g) ‘When we tell ...’ instead of ‘When we told ...’
(h) ‘... she decides to follow.’ instead of ‘... she decided to follow.’
2. Wrong position of the adverb of time ‘last weekend’; ‘I last weekend ...’ instead
of ‘Last weekend I ...’

36. 3. Using the object pronoun ‘me’ instead of the subject or personal pronoun ‘I’.
4. Failure to use the first person with other nouns and pronouns in the correct order,
e.g. ‘Me and my friend ...’ instead of ‘My friend and I ...’
5. Wrong use of the preposition ‘for’ to express purpose, e.g. ‘... go for shopping’
instead of ‘...go shopping’.
6. Omission of the adjective ‘our’ and use of the indefinite instead of the definite
article, e.g. ‘On way to a shops’ instead of ‘On our way to the shops.’
7. Using a wrong auxiliary verb ‘has’ instead of ‘have’ after ‘I’, e.g. ‘... if I has ..’
instead of ‘.... if I have ...’
8. Wrong position of adjective ‘enough’, e.g. ‘... money enough,’ instead of ‘...
enough money.’
9. Use of the determiner or adjective of quantity ‘many’ with an uncountable noun,
e.g. ‘... many money’ instead of ‘... much money.’
10. Failure to use the - ing form of the verb after ‘after’ e.g. ‘After walk for ten
minutes ...’ instead of ‘After walking for ten minutes ...’
11. Using the possessive pronoun ‘ours’ instead of the adjective ‘our’ e.g. ‘... a friend
of ours ...’ instead of ‘... our friend...’
12. Use of wrong words ‘as’ instead of the object pronoun ‘us’; and the auxiliary verb
‘were’ instead of the adverb ‘where’
13. Use of the masculine object pronoun ‘him’ instead of the feminine ‘her’ to refer to
a female, e.g. ‘When we tell him...’ instead of ‘When we tell her ...’
Did you get everything right? Can you identify what we have been doing in trying to
identify, classify and correct the errors? You probably think this is a good exercise in
error analysis, don’t you? Well, you could be right. In our analysis of the extract from
the composition written by a pupil, we have been doing the following things:
• discussing the rules for the combination or arrangement of words into sentences.
• pointing out how the English language arranges its words in sentences.
• talking about the rules people use when speaking or writing English.
33
The three bullets above we are talking about the same thing which we are going to
mention later.

37. Reflect
Reflect upon what you have been reading and answer the following questions.
1. What name is given to the study of the way in which words are combined
together?
2. The study of the way in which words are combined together is one of the two
components of this aspect of the scientific study of language.
What term is used to refer to this aspect of the scientific study of language?
3. As a teacher of English, how does this knowledge of the rules people use when
speaking or writing English help you to teach your subject?
4. In your Teachers’ Group examine pupils’ written work or spoken discourse,
identify their common errors and discuss the nature of the problems they have in
writing or speaking English.
5. Using the information obtained in question 4 above, suggest the aspects of
language structure which should be taught in order to address the pupils’ learning
difficulties.
In the previous section, we said that morphology is a component of grammar.
We hope by now you know that when we talk about the way in which words are
combined together within (and sometimes between) sentences, we are referring to the
syntax (Dixon, 1991:4, Crystal, 1987:94). For example: In English an adjective comes
before a noun (e.g. a big house) and not ‘big a house’.
We also assume that from the Reflection exercise, question 2, you know that syntax is
another component of the aspect of the scientific study of language, which is usually
called grammar.
Now, if grammar consists of syntax and morphology, what definition can we give it?
Mcathur (1983:38) says grammar is the rules people use when speaking or writing a
language. Compare this to Stevick’s definition of grammar (1988:187):
Grammar is a way of telling, as accurately and clearly as
possible, just how a particular language arranges its
smaller forms - its word stems, prefixes, suffixes,
intonations and the like - within its larger constructions

38. such as words, clauses and sentences.
We have said so many things about the way the English language arranges its words in
sentences. Are you aware that even in Zambian languages the arrangement of words is
not arbitrary? Do you know that when you speak or write Bemba, Kaonde, Lozi, Lunda,
Luvale, Nyanja or Tonga, you combine words together in a particular way? The exercise
below will help you observe this phenomenon.
34
Activity 4.6
1. Translate the following sentences into a particular Zambian language you speak
and answer the questions that follow:
a) The tall young man is eating an orange.
b) My big tooth is shaking.
c) That small turtle dove is flying
d) Those white rabbits are sleeping.
e) The strong axes are lost.
2. Look at the translated version of each sentence and write down at least two rules
explaining the arrangement of words and the emerging pattern.
3. Compare the original sentences in English with the ones you have translated into a
Zambian language and state the difference(s) between the arrangement of words
in the former and the latter.
4. Identify and state the similarities, if any, between the English and Zambian
languages sets of sentences.
5. In your Teacher Group, discuss how the difference you have identified in question
above would affect pupils’ learning of English and suggest remedies.
6. Using the knowledge gained from your comparison in questions 3 and 5, go back
to the extract of the pupil’s composition under the section marked Getting it right
and explain why she made such errors.
There may be some similarities between the sentence patterns in English and
Zambian languages. For example, the pattern ‘Noun phrase + verb phrase’ is
reflected in both cases as in My big tooth/ is shaking, and Iliino lyandi ilikulu/ lileetenta
(Bemba); Liino laka lelituna/ lashekesha (Lozi); Lino lyangu lipati/ lilazungaana

39. (Tonga).
There are many differences between the arrangement of words in English and Zambian
Languages. You will notice, for example, that in Zambian Languages the noun ‘tooth’
(iliino, liino or lino) precedes the possessive adjective ‘my’ (lyandi, laka, lyangu) and is
rendered as a possessive pronoun ‘mine’ and that the adjective ‘big’ (ilikulu, lelituna,
lipati) comes after the noun it modifies and is rendered as a relativized verb (i.e. a verb
used in a relative clause) ‘which is big’. We hope you can also see that just as the noun
‘tooth’ in English requires the auxiliary verb ‘is’ in its concord and ‘teeth’ will demand
that we use ‘are’, iliino, tooth, in Bemba, requires the agreement lya- (in lyandi, mine)
and ili - (in ilikulu, which is big). In this language (Bemba) the plural ‘teeth’ is rendered
as ‘ameeno’. The plural form of the noun automatically calls for a different pattern of
agreement in Zambian languages. For example, Ameeno yandi ayakulu yaleetenta, My
big teeth are shaking.
Have you seen that when you speak or write a Zambian language you arrange words in
a
certain order in the same way you observe rules, consciously or unconsciously, when
you
combine English words together to form sentences? Are you aware that if you were to
35
maintain the word order used in the English sentence My big tooth is shaking, you
would
come up with a very awkward sentence Lyandi ilikulu iliino lileetenta, Mine which is big
tooth is shaking, in Zambian languages? Conversely, the permitted word order in
Zambian languages is unacceptable in English, Tooth mine which is big is shaking .
We hope you have seen that both the English language and Zambian languages
arrange
their words in sentences in a particular way. This is what we call syntax - the way in
which words are combined together. The various sentence patterns you can think of in
either English or a particular Zambian language you speak are also part of syntax
because

40. the principle of arranging words and clauses into the acceptable simple, complex as
well
as compound sentences is the same.
Word Classes
Introduction
As a teacher you would probably like to know the way your friends present their
lessons. Please read the following passage!
It is exactly 08.00 hours. Mrs. J.C., as the pupils affectionately referred to their teacher,
enters her Grade 6 class. She greets the pupils and waits for them to settle down before
she presents her lesson. “Now class,” she begins, “today we are going to discuss parts
of
speech in both English and Bemba. At the end of this lesson, you will be able to identify
and classify words into their categories.”
The pupils look puzzled because most of them do not know what the term ‘parts of
speech’ means. “What does that mean?” one pupil whispers to his friend.
“Well,” says the other pupil, “I think it is a machine with many parts.”
The other pupils who are near these two burst into laughter. “Shut up and listen!”
Shrieks Mrs. J.C., “I’m telling you that today’s lesson is about parts of speech or sets of
words which are in different categories. Some are called nouns; others are verbs,
adjectives and so on. Now, what is a noun? What is a verb? What is an adjective?” Up
to this time the pupils are just looking at the teacher. After the teacher’s sharp
reprimand
to those who laughed, all the pupils are too scared to say anything. Besides, it appears
they are not following the lesson. The teacher also seems to notice that the pupils are at
a
loss. “Now, listen,” she says, “a noun is a name of something; a verb is a doing word; an
adjective is a word that describes a noun.”
At this point Bwika, one of the intelligent girls plucks up enough courage to say
something. “Madam,” she begins, “can you give us an example of a noun?”
The teacher is surprised at the pupil asking such a question. She thinks for a moment,

41. looks at the class and says, “Well, I have told you that a noun is a name of something. A
chair is a noun; a desk is a noun; a book is a noun. Your name, Bwika, is a noun; and in
Bemba there are nouns such as ukuulu ‘a leg’, umumana ‘a river’, and ulupili ‘a hill’.
36
Most of the pupils brighten up now and, during this excitement, Buupe, another clever
girl, says, “Madam, you have said a noun is a name of something, and you have given
us
examples, but is ubusuma ‘beauty’ also a ‘thing’?”
Mrs. J.C. is again surprised at a Grade 6 pupil asking such a challenging question. She
rubs her nose and says, “Yes, beauty is also a noun, a name of something. Now, repeat
these definitions after me: A noun is a name of something; ‘doer’ is a noun; a verb is a
doing word or an action word; jump’ is a verb; an adjective is a word that describes a
noun; ‘big’ is an adjective; ...”
For some time the lesson goes on like this. Then the teacher says, “Don’t ask me if ‘is’
is
an action word; you know it is a helping verb, so it is an action word. Now, I want you to
write down examples of nouns, verbs and adjectives in your exercise books.”
Reflect
1. What was good about the way this lesson began?
2. What kind of teacher was Mrs. J.C.? Give reasons for your answer.
3. Did pupils in this class like their teacher? Support your answer by citing evidence
from information given in the lesson procedure.
4. In your Teacher’s Group look at the lesson procedure again and then discuss
whether the teacher used a traditional or a modern approach to teach these
categories of words. Give reasons to support your arguments.
5. Why did some pupils in this class burst into laughter?
6. Name the categories of words that the teacher mentioned in her lesson and the
examples she gave.
7. In your opinion, why were the pupils in this class ‘at a loss?’
8. Look at the lesson procedure again and discuss with your mentor whether this is
an example of a teacher or learner - centred lesson. Give reasons for your answer.

42. 9. Did Mrs. J.C. answer Buupe’s question satisfactorily? Give reasons for your
answer.
10. From this lesson, what do you consider to be the major weaknesses in giving
definitions of groups of words based on meaning?
37
11. What, do you think, should be the alternative to giving definitions of words based
on meaning?
12. Explain and illustrate the teacher’s failure to distinguish between an ‘action word’
and a ‘being word’ in this lesson.
13. In your Teacher Group discuss whether the above categories of words are part of
the grammar of English or any other language one is studying. Give reasons for
your answers.
14. Do you think the teacher achieved the objective of this lesson? Why?
We hope you have learnt something from the lesson procedure given at the beginning
of
this unit and the subsequent questions in the reflection part. Do you remember the term
used to refer to word classes in the old grammar books? Don’t look back at Mrs. J.C.’s
lesson. Search your memory and write down this term. Did you get it right? The term is
parts of speech.
Activity 4.7
We are now going to ask you questions related to what you studied in the section
about the structure of words. Do you remember parts of the words that indicate the
classes they belong to? Is it the prefixes or suffixes? Do you still remember words in
English that end in -ly, -ness, -ion, -less, etc? Give examples of these words and
indicate
their class or, in traditional grammar, what part of speech each one of them is.
By now you ought to be getting familiar with the concept of word classes. Do you know
that when we talk about word classes we are still discussing grammar? Read the
following quotation from crystal (1987:91):
Since the early days of grammatical study, words have been
grouped into word classes, traditionally labelled the ‘parts of

43. speech’.
Dixon (1991:7) also echoes crystal’s words when he says that at the level of grammar
words can be arranged in word classes (traditionally called ‘parts of speech’), with
common morphological and syntactic properties.
As crystal (1987:91) and Burton (1984:22) state, in most grammars, there are eight
word
classes, illustrated here from English:
Nouns e.g. boy, machine, beauty
Pronouns e.g. she, it, who
Adjectives e.g. happy, three, both
38
Verbs e.g. go, frighten, be
Adverbs e.g. happily, soon, often
Prepositions e.g. in, under, with
Conjunctions e.g. and, because, if
Interjections e.g. gosh, alas, coo
Reflect
Reflect upon what we have said so far about word classes and the examples we
have drawn from English, and then answer the following questions.
1. Do such word classes exist in the Zambian language you speak?
2. Write at least two examples for each of the eight word classes from the Zambian
language that is offered to learners at your school.
3. In your Teacher’s group examine a two-paragraph text from any piece of written
literature in a local language and identify as well as group the words in it (i.e. the
text) into their classes.
4. Discuss with your mentor the difference between the examples of words given in
each word class in English and a local language.
We hope you did well in the above exercise. What answer did you give to
question 1? Were you aware that word classes exist in every language? Read
what Dixon (1991:7) says:
For every language we can recognize word classes, sets of

44. words that have the same grammatical properties, although
the nature of these properties will vary, depending on the
grammatical profile of the language.
The above quotation should have cleared your doubts, if you had any, about the
existence
of word classes in Zambian languages.
In this unit we have repeatedly used the terms ‘parts of speech’ and ‘word classes’ inter
changeably. Do these terms mean the same thing? Think for a while and share your
answer with your fellow teachers. Now, let us read what crystal (1987:91) says about
this:
39
Modern approaches classify words, too, but the use of the
label ‘word class’ rather than ‘part of speech’ represents a
change in emphasis. Modern linguists are reluctant to use
the notional definitions found in traditional grammar - such
as a noun being the ‘name of something’. The eagerness of
these definitions has often been criticized...
Does this quotation remind you of Mrs. J.C.’s lesson at the beginning of this unit? Do
you remember, specifically, why one of the pupils, Buupe, asked whether ubusuma
‘beauty’ was also a ‘thing’? Can you now understand why pupils in Mrs. J.C. ‘s class
found it difficult to comprehend what she was teaching?
Perhaps we should examine the notional definitions Mrs. J.C. used and identify their
weakness. When she said, “... a noun is a name of something,” Buupe, one of the
pupils,
asked if ‘beauty’ was also a ‘thing’. Indeed, would we say sweetness, justice, speed,
compassion, happiness, etc. are names of ‘things’? Aren’t these non-material ‘things’ or
qualities, states and concepts that exist only in our minds (Burton, 1984: 23, 116)? Isn’t
it vague to refer to intangible states of mind, qualities and feelings (ibid) as ‘names of
things’? Isn’t the adjective red also a ‘name’ of a colour? Would we therefore, say red
is also a ‘name of something’? Have you noticed the vagueness and/or inadequacies of
notional definitions? Having pointed out the above shortcomings, crystal (1987:91)

45. summarizes the argument as follows:
In place of definitions based on meaning, there is now
a focus on the structural features that signal the way in
which groups of words behave in a language. In English,
for example, the definite or indefinite article is one
criterion that can be used to signal the presence of a
following noun (the car) ... Above all, the modern aim is to
establish word classes that are coherent: all the words
within a class should behave in the same way. For
example, jump, walk and cook form a coherent class
because all the grammatical operations that apply to one
of these words apply to the others also: they all take a
third person singular form in the present tense (he
jumps/walks/cooks), they all have a past tense ending in
-ed (jumped/walked/cooked), and so on.
Crystal (ibid) further says many other words display the same (or closely similar)
behaviour and that this would lead us to establish the important class of ‘verbs’ in
English.
Let us look at another good argument for classifying words according to the way they
‘behave’ in a language instead of definitions based on meaning. Are you aware that you
cannot tell what class a word belongs to simply by looking at it? Crystal (1987:92) says
everything depends on how the word ‘behaves’ in a sentence. According to Crystal
(ibid)
40
round is a good illustration of this principle in action, for it can belong to any of the five
word classes, depending on the grammatical context.
Adjective
Mary bought a round table.
Preposition
The car went round the corner.
Verb

46. The boat will round the small island soon.
Adverb
We walked round to the shop.
Noun
It’s your round. I’ll have a whiskey.
Do you know other words in English, which can ‘behave’ like round in different
sentences? Look at these two sentences:
1 (a) Aikayo will record the minutes of tomorrow’s meeting.
(b) Aikayo will keep a record of his expenses.
Have you seen that the word record in sentences 1(a) and 1(b) behaves in different
ways? Can you identify that in these sentences it belongs to two word classes (i.e. verb
and noun, respectively)? We hope you’ve noticed that the same word can belong to
more
than one word class (Freeborn, 1995:37). Does this phenomenon exist in Zambian
Languages? Look at these examples:
BEMBA
1 (a) Mpeela akapanga nteme icilu. ‘Give me a small sword so
I can cut a pole.
(b) Ponde akapanga umupando mailo, ‘Ponde will make a chair
tomorrow.’
2 (a) Ubula ubu buutali ‘This intestine is long’
41
(b) Ubula amapaapa yamuti ‘Strip bark from a tree’
3 (a) Akanwa ubwalwa mailo ‘He/she will drink beer tomorrow
(b) Akanwa kandi kaakulu ‘My mouth is big’
4 (a) Kabilo wa mfumu aleebila imbila ‘The Chief’s councillor is making a
public announcement’
(b) Bwembya, imbila imfumu “Bwembya sing for the chief’
LOZI
1 (a) Sibeso ukula lila
‘Sibeso is suffering from intestine pain’

47. (b) Lila bulilo
‘Smear the floor’
(c) Nikenezwi ki lila,
‘Enemies entered my premises
2 (a) Nibata kupata mali
‘I want to hide money’
(b) Mwana una ni pata yebunolo
‘The child has a smooth face’
(c) Mundia una ni pata
‘Mundia has good luck’
(d) Poto yapata
‘The pot is boiling’
3 (a) Bona Zaezize Mwendabayi
‘See what Mwendabayi has done’
(b) Bona baziba
‘Them they know’
(c) Ndu ki yabona
‘This house is theirs’
4 (a) Taha Kwanu
‘Come here’
42
(b) Taha ieza sialeto
‘The weaver bird is making a nest’
NYANJA
1 (a) Yangana bala lija
‘Look at that scar’
(b) Bala mwana
‘Bear a child’
2 (a) Ng’amba nsalu iyo
‘Tear that cloth’
(b) Chaka cino kuli ng’amba

48. ‘This year there is a drought’
3 (a) Phula poto pa moto
‘Take the pot off the fire’
(b) Anadya phula cifukwa cosafunsa
“He ate wax because he didn’t bother to find out what it was’
4 (a) Kamba ndi mnyamata uja
‘Talk to that boy’
(b) Anyamata paulendo ananyamula kamba wambiri
‘The boys carried a lot of food for their journey’
We hope you have understood the significance of identifying the way a word
‘behaves’ in a sentence before you can tell the class it belongs to. We also
assume that you know that the shift from using the notional definitions as a basis for
classifying words to a focus on the structural features that signal the way in which
groups
of words ‘behave’ in language has led to the use of the label ‘word class’ instead of ‘part
of speech’
Now that you have covered enough groundwork on word classes, we should talk about
the two sorts of word classes, namely minor and major word classes. The minor word
classes consist of structure or function words (Freeborn, 1995:36) such as articles,
prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions and interjections. The minor classes have limited
membership and cannot readily be added to. For example there are just seven personal
pronouns in English - I, we, you, he, she, it, they (Dixon, 1991:7; Burton, 1984:119). Do
you know the other term used to refer to minor word classes? They are also known as
closed word classes because no new words can be added; they are constant in
number.
43
Major word classes comprise content or lexical words such as nouns, verbs, adverbs
and
adjectives. As Dixon (1991:7) and Freeborn (1995:36) observe, these classes have a
large and potentially unlimited membership. Open word classes is another term used to

49. refer to these classes of words. They are called open because new words can be added
to
these classes. Dixon (1991:8) aptly describes this phenomenon thus:
It is impossible to give an exhaustive list of the many
thousands of nouns, since new ones are being coined all
the time (and others will gradually be dropping out of
use).
If you read more grammar books, you will discover that some linguists use the terms
closed and open sets of words to refer to what we have discussed above.
Reflect
Reflect upon what you have just read above and then answer the following
questions.
1. List the terms used to describe the two main categories of words.
2. With the help of examples, explain the difference between the two main
categories of words you have stated in question 1 above.
3. Justify the use of all the terminologies mentioned in question 1.
4. In your Teacher’s Group compile examples of the two main categories of words
in both English and a Zambian language that is offered to learners at your school.
5. Write a short essay in which you explain how knowledge of word classes and the
two sorts of word classes can help you teach English and Zambian languages
more effectively.
Bearing in mind that the parts of speech are the classes into which words are placed
according to the work that they do in a sentence (Burton, 1984:22), we shall proceed to
look at each of the eight word classes.
NOUNS
Are you aware that there are basically four kinds of nouns in English? Here are the four
main groups (Burton, 1984:116; Thomson and Martinet, 1979:6; Freeborn, 1995:39).
Common nouns name members of a class of people or things who share the name in
common with all the other members of their class, for example woman, farmer, book,
dog, table.

50. 44
Proper nouns name particular people, places, things, for example Tom, Lubinda,
France,
Kasama, Africa, the United Nations.
Abstract nouns name non-material things, i.e. qualities, states, concepts that exist only
in our minds, e.g. charity, beauty, fear, courage, joy, sorrow.
Collective nouns name groups or collections of people or things, regarded as a whole,
for
example swarm, team, crowd, flock, group, class.
Do you know that there are two other terminologies used to refer to types of nouns?
Have you heard of count and mass nouns? Read the following definitions:
Count nouns: nouns that refer to people and things that can be counted (i.e. those that
can take plurals), e.g. asses, houses, lambs, knives, skies.
Mass nouns: those nouns that cannot take plurals, e.g. sheep, deer, cattle, music.
Note that most scholars prefer the term mass to non-count or uncountable which are
ambiguous: they can refer to mass or may include words that are plurals only.
Remember also that whereas abstract nouns tend to be mass nouns, concrete nouns
tend
to be count nouns (Freeborn, 1995:39).
Activity 4.8
1. Pick out each noun, in each of the following sentences, and say what kind it is
(Burton, 1984:23 - 25).
(a) Helen wrote to Jean.
(b) Justice need not exclude mercy.
(c) A crowd gathered to watch the fleet sail.
(d) His father bought him a bicycle.
(e) When Mr. Banda was in the bush he saw a pride of lions chasing a herd of
antelopes.
(f) My birthday falls on a Tuesday this year.
(g) He had no friends or relations and lived-in solitude.
(h) As a player, his sportsmanship was outstanding.

51. (I) We were rivals, but I felt no enmity for her.
(j) My friend Smith was a member of the team that played with such courage
to win the cup.
2. Prepare a thirty-minute lesson plan in which you teach your Grade five (5) class
common and proper nouns.
3. Explain and illustrate the difference between the following:
45
(a) abstract and concrete nouns
(b) count and mass nouns
4. In your Teacher’s Group list collective nouns and discuss
(a) the contexts in which they can be used.
(b) the strategies you can use in class to teach such nouns.
5. Look at the types of nouns in English again and then give two examples of each
type in at least two Zambian languages.
6. Write a short seminar paper in which you contrast and illustrate the four types of
nouns in English and Zambian languages.
7. Complete the following table of types of nouns in the Zambian languages
indicated. Give two examples in each case.
Language Common
Nouns
Proper Nouns Abstract
Nouns
Collective
Nouns
Bemba
Kaonde
Lozi
Lunda
Luvale
Nyanja
Tonga

52. We hope that from the examples you have given in the exercise above you are now
aware
that the four types of nouns you studied in English exist in Zambian languages as well.
Let us now look at the plural forms of nouns in English. First of all read what
Burton (1984:116) says:
A noun is either singular or plural, according to whether
it names one or more than one person, place, idea or
thing.
From the aforesaid we can conclude that number plays a big role in determining the
form
of the noun. However, before we cover this in more detail, let us look at the type of
plurals that Freeborn (1995:40) refers to:
Most plural nouns in English are marked with the suffix -
s. This is the regular form. There is a small number of
other, mostly very familiar, irregular plurals, which have
kept their form of old English...
46
Activity 4.9
1. Explain and illustrate the concepts of singular and plural as well as regular and
irregular in reference to nouns.
2. At this level of your education you are probably aware that in making the plural
forms of nouns we follow certain rules. Look at the following examples of the
singular and plural forms of nouns and then write down the rules followed in
making the plurals in each case (Freeborn, 1995:40 - 41). Thomson and Martinet,
1979:7 - 9).
(a) boy boys
place places
mistake mistakes
(b) tomato tomatoes
kiss kisses
brush brushes

53. watch watches
box boxes
photo photos
piano pianos
hippo hippos
(c) baby babies
lady ladies
country countries
fly flies
butchery butcheries
donkey donkeys
day days
valley valleys
monkey monkeys
(d) wife wives
life lives
knife knives
leaf leaves
loaf loaves
thief thieves
scarf scarfs or scarves
hoof hoofs or hooves
chief chiefs
cliff cliffs
handkerchief handkerchiefs
belief beliefs
47
(e) foot feet
man men
woman women
mouse mice

54. louse lice
goose geese
child children
ox oxen
brother brethren or brothers
(f) fish fish
fruit fruit
sheep sheep
deer deer
cattle cattle
music music
(g) oasis oases
radius radii
appendix appendices
medium media
formula formulae or formulas
syllabus syllabi or syllabuses
stadium stadia or stadiums
agendum agenda
criterion criteria
memorandum memoranda
(h) armchair armchairs
bookcase bookcases
grown-up grown-ups
boy-friend boy-friends
break-in break-ins
lorry driver lorry drivers
passer-by passers - by
head of department heads of department
brother - in - law brothers - in - law
head of state heads of state

55. manservant menservants
(I) ..................................... clothes
..................................... trousers
..................................... underpants
..................................... knickers
..................................... scissors
3. From the examples given above there is a group of nouns that have what linguists
call zero plural. Identify and list these nouns and then explain what linguists
mean when they say such nouns have zero plural.
48
4. What learning difficulties are the pupils likely to face with the plural forms of
nouns? Suggest remedies for these learning difficulties.
5. In your Teacher Groups examine the singular and plural forms of nouns in
Zambian languages and English and then discuss similarities (if any) as well as
differences. After this discussion, write a short report highlighting and illustrating
your findings.
6. Prepare a thirty - minute lesson plan in which you teach pupils how to make
plurals of nouns in the Zambian Language offered at your school.
As a teacher of English you need to acquaint yourself with all the spelling rules
you have studied in the plural forms of nouns. We hope you are also aware that
whereas the plural form of a noun in English is obtained by adding ‘s’ to the singular
form, the prefixes in Zambian languages indicate whether the noun is in singular or
plural
form. Look at the following examples:
Bemba: umumana, river; imimana, rivers
Kaonde: muzhi, village; mizhi, villages
Lozi: mulikani, friend; balikani, friends
Tonga: musimbi, girl; basimbi, girls.
There is another important thing you need to know about the concept of zero plural we
talked about earlier on. This is that there is a very common zero plural which is used
with nouns of measurement which follow numerals of determiners expressing quantity

56. (Freeborn, 1995:41; Thomson and Martinet, 1979:8, 251, 253). Look at the following
examples.
1. He bought a ten-ton lorry.
2. She has just come back from her two-month holiday.
3. I met Mr. Mundia’s ten-year - old daughter.
4. Her nine-month pregnancy does not stop her from cleaning her house.
Activity 4.10
1. Write five sentences to illustrate the use of zero plural as indicated in the
examples that precede this exercise.
2. Most speakers of English as a second language make the errors illustrated below
when they use nouns in sentences.
49
(i) Identify and underline the error or errors in each sentence.
(ii) Explain the type of error
(iii) Rewrite each sentence and correct the error or errors in it.
(a) A cat have four legs
(b) The tomatoes are many in my garden
(c) That criteria is wrong
(d) Neither Lubinda nor Moonde are here.
(e) Some of the girls in my class speaks good French
(f) Most of the business men has cars.
(g) The childrens’ shoes are clean.
(h) The wife of Mr. Bwalya has come
(I) The chair’s legs are broken
(j) The tail of the black cat is long
(k) Mr. Mumpanga’s house is five minutes walk from here.
(l) We bought a two-month’s - old dog
(m) I saw my father’s - in - law farm
(n) This is a days’ work
(o) Either Banda or Silumesii are coming
(p) English is used as a media of instruction in our schools.

57. (q) I will buy a scissors
3. Give five examples of nouns of non-English origin and write their plural forms.
4. As you are aware count nouns such as house, knife, boy can take plurals (i.e. they
can be counted). For example, we can say many houses, three houses, two
knives, etc
(a) With the help of examples explain how you would qualify or count mass
nouns such as milk, sand, ink, hair, grass, dust, sugar, oil, furniture and
luggage.
(b) Give at least six examples of expressions used to count mass nouns in any
Zambian language
We hope you still remember us referring to noun prefixes in Zambian languages
indicating whether the noun is in singular or plural form. It is important at this
point to state that the morphological structure of nouns in Zambian languages, just like
other Bantu languages, is basically of two types:
(i) Noun prefix + stem, e.g.
Kaonde: muzhi village
mizhi villages
50
Lozi: mutu person
batu persons
Tonga: musamu tree
misamu trees
Masamu
(ii) Augment + Noun Prefix + stem, e.g.
Bemba: umushi village
imishi villages
umuntu person
abantu persons
You should remember that an augment is simply defined as any morpheme that
normally
precedes a Noun prefix. However, some grammar books refer to all the morphemes that

58. precede the stem in a noun as a Noun prefix, thus:
Umushi village instead of
u - + - mu - + shi - umushi
Note also that as is characteristic of all Bantu languages, every noun in any Zambian
language belongs to a class. Most nouns show what class they belong to by a prefix;
that
is by the way they begin. There are between 18 and 20 noun classes in most Zambian
official languages, as indicated in the list of noun prefixes below.
Class
Number
Bemba Kaonde Lozi Lunda Luvale Nyanja Tonga
1 umu- mu- mu- mu- mu- mu-,m- mu-
2 aba- ba- ba- a- a- a- ba-
3 umu- mu- mu- mu- mu- mu-, m- mu-
4 imi- mi- mi- nyi- mi- mi- mi-
5 ili-, I- ji- li- di-, I- li- dzi-, li- li-, I-
6 ama- ma- ma- ma- ma- ma- ma-
7. ici- ki- si- chi- chi- ci- ci
8. ifi- bi- li- yi- vi- zi- zi
9. in- n- n- n- n- n- n-
10. in- n- li- n- zhi- n- n-
11. ulu- lu- lu- lu- lu- lu- lu-
12. aka- ka- ka- ka- ka- ka- ka-
13. utu- tu- tu- tu- tu- ti- tu-
14. ubu- bu- bu- u- u- u- bu-
15. uku- ku- ku- ku- ku- ku- ku-
16. pa- pa- fa- ha- ha- pa- a-
17. ku- ku- kwa- ku- ku- ku- ku-
18. mu- mu- mwa- mu- mu- mu- mu51
19 si-
20 bi-

59. Can you identify all the noun prefixes used in each of the seven official Zambian
languages? Try to add stems to each prefix in every language and see how many
nouns
you can form. Note that while the stem of a noun may remain constant, the prefix can
change. For example, munzi, village and minzi, villages in Tonga. You should also
remember that the prefix of every noun shows not only the noun class but also the kind
of
agreements the noun requires in verbs, adjectives demonstratives and other words
used
with it, say, in a sentence. For instance in icipeele cilya icikulu naacimwene cileeliisha
akaana kaaciko ‘that big turtle dove I saw it (yesterday) feeding its chick’ the noun
icipeele ‘turtle dove’ has class 7 prefix ici (ici - + - peele) agreeing with it a
demonstrative adjective cilya ‘that’, an adjective icikulu ‘big’, a verbal subjective
pronoun cileeliisha ‘it is feeding’, a verbal object pronoun naacimwene ‘I saw it’ and a
special (or diminutive) possessive form kaaciko ‘its’, while the prefix of the possessive
form agrees with akaana ‘young’ (Mann, et al, 1977:19; Mann and Carter, 1975:37).
Note the changes that would take place if you changed ‘turtle dove’ to ‘turtle doves’
thus:
ifipeele filya ifikulu naafimwene fileeliisha utwana twafiko ‘those big turtle doves I saw
them (yesterday) feeding their chicks’. We hope you have seen that the noun class is
treated as a system of concordial agreement.
Read Reference
1. Study the list of noun prefixes given in the seven official Zambian languages, as
well as other information on noun classes, and then answer the following
questions:
(a) With the help of examples explain the concept of noun classes.
(b) Identify and list the nouns which occur in two classes and then explain the
difference between them.
(c) What is the difference between the way nouns in Bantu languages are
classified now and the way they were classified when grammars of these
languages were written in the nineteenth century?

60. (d) In your Teacher Group discuss and list similarities and differences
between the shapes of the prefixes in Zambian languages
(e) What are the similarities and differences between nouns in classes 9 and
10 in most Zambian languages?
(f) Identify and illustrate prefixes that give nouns diminutive, augmentative,
pejorative and abstract meaning.
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(g) What is the difference between class 1 and class 3 nouns?
(h) Illustrate cases of nouns that change their classes when they form their
plural.
(i) List three noun prefixes which can give you mass or uncountable nouns in
any Zambian language and give examples.
(j) What is peculiar to class 15 nouns in most Zambian languages?
(k) List all the locative classes in any Zambian Language and illustrate the
way they are used.
(l) Explain and illustrate the three different meanings of each of Lozi prefixes
in classes 19 and 20.
2. Explain and illustrate how your awareness of the concept of noun classes in Bantu
languages can help you to both understand the way Zambian languages work and
teach pupils plurals, special use or function of nouns in classes 11, 12, 13, 14, 19
and 20 and how to construct correct sentences in Zambian languages.
3. Design a filling in exercise, with very clear instructions, for a Grade 3 class, in
which you test pupils’ ability to identify and use correct noun, verb and adjective
prefixes in at least eight noun classes.
4. Translate the following nouns into any Zambian language and indicate the class
each noun belongs to:
a) poverty
b) an egg
c) elephants
d) a hill
e) a girl

61. f) trees
g) boys
h) oil
PRONOUNS
We hope you still remember that pronouns belong to a closed word class (i.e. they are
constant in number). What are pronouns? Do you remember examples of pronouns?
Think about these questions.
Read Reference
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1. Read the following passage and then state what kind of pronouns the words in
bold type are.
Mr. Kwandangala was annoyed. He looked at the pupils who
were still chatting excitedly and said, “Shut up and look at me!”
All the pupils sat quietly. They were afraid of telling Mr.
Kwandangala what had happened. He was a very strict
teacher.
“Why were you making noise?” asked Mr. Kwandangala.
Mary, who was the youngest girl in class, stood up. She
coughed lightly and said, “John is to blame for the uproar in
this class. He grabbed a book from Cynthia and threw it onto
the floor. Cynthia grabbed him by the collar and slapped him.
Then the rest of the pupils became excited. They clapped and
cheered.”
“Did you also clap and cheer, Mary?” Mr. Kwandangala
asked.
“No, sir. I remained silent throughout this period,” answered
Mary.
“Sit down, Mary,” said Mr. Kwandangala, “I will punish all of
you except Mary because she has been honest.”
2. With the help of examples from the above passage explain why pronouns are
referred to as words that can replace nouns or noun phrases.

62. 3. Why are pronouns such as I, you, he, she, it and we called personal pronouns?
4. Study the following table of personal pronouns in English and then answer the
questions below (Freeborn, 1995:76; Burton, 1984:119).
Personal Pronouns in Standard English
Person Subjective Objective Possessive
Singular
1st person 1 me mine
2nd person you you yours
3rd person masculine he him his
3rd person feminine she her hers
impersonal one one one’s
Plural
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1st person we us ours
2nd person you you yours
3rd person they them theirs
(a) Write and explain the terms used to refer to changes of word-form
that personal pronouns make to signal person; number and
function.
(b) Write three words that describe personal pronouns in terms of
gender.
(c) Form the possessive adjective from each of the following personal
pronouns:
I, you, he, she, it, we and they
(d) Explain and illustrate the similarities and differences between possessive
adjectives and possessive pronouns.
(e) State two important things about the use of you as a personal pronoun, as
illustrated in the table.
(f) What is the difference between subjective and objective pronouns? Give
examples to support your explanation.
(g) Write a statement about the use of it as a personal pronoun, as shown in

63. the table.
5. Translate each of the following sentences into any Zambian language and then
identify and underline personal pronouns used in this particular language.
(a) I will go to Choma tomorrow
(b) We are eating oranges
(c) James gave me a banana, too.
(d) They will give you an umbrella
(e) You are working very well
(f) He will marry her
(g) She is looking at him
(h) Look at that flower. It will wither if you don’t put it in water soon
(I) One ought to help one’s parents.
(j) The teachers have seen us
(k) Boys, I will give you the books tomorrow
(l) I want to give them an orange each
(m) You have been making noise, so I will punish all of you.
(n) Ponde will send me money
(o) This book is hers
(p) This is her book
(q) That is my umbrella
(r) That umbrella is mine
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6. From the examples of personal pronouns in Zambian languages given above list
the similarities and differences between personal pronouns in English and
Zambian languages.
7. Look at sentences 5 (o), (p), (q) and (r) in English and Zambian languages and
then explain whether there is a difference between possessive adjectives and
possessive pronouns in Zambian languages.
8. Why are all subjective personal pronouns in Zambian languages called dependent
pronouns and some objective personal pronouns independent pronouns?
9. Which of the following phrases accurately describes the parts of the words in

64. Zambian languages, which represent the English objective personal pronouns?
a) verbal affix
b) verbal infix
c) verbal prefix
d) verbal suffix
10. Why is it wrong in English but correct in Zambian languages to say Me I will go
to Mpika?
11. Is it possible to use the impersonal pronoun, one, in the Zambian languages?
Give reasons for your answer. Explain the use of this pronoun in English
(Freeborn, 1995:72).
12. Discuss and list in your Teacher Group, pupils’ learning difficulties that may arise
from the differences between personal pronouns in English and Zambian
languages. Suggest remedies.
13. Having discussed at length personal and possessive pronouns in English and
Zambian languages, we would like you to look at the other kinds of pronouns in
English in the table below and match from the right column. Where no examples
have been given provide your own.
Kinds of Pronouns Examples
relative pronouns themselves
herself
reflexive pronouns .....................................
.....................................
impersonal pronouns .....................................
.....................................
Interrogative pronouns .....................................
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.....................................
demonstrative pronouns one
myself
emphasizing pronouns ourselves
yourself