ID056 – BUILDING SENTENCES AND PARAGRAPHS

FINAL TASK
GENERAL INFORMATION:

This unit assignment consists of doing the task presented below. This assignment must
be done individually. It must be submitted according to the official submission
procedure described on the web page where this file was downloaded. Assignments
sent directly to the tutor by email will not be corrected. The work must fulfil the following
conditions:

 Type of font: Arial.

 Size: 11.
 Line height: 1.5.
 Alignment: Justified.
 Margins: 2.5 above and down, left and right 3 (usual default configuration)

The assignment has to be done in a Word document. Please, do not write the answers
in bold, in order to simplify the distinction between them and the activities’ statements.
On the other hand, the assignment must still fulfil the rules of presentation and edition,
and follow the rubric for quoting and making a bibliography in the Study Guide.

It is very important to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the Study
Guide. This final task for Unit 3 will evaluate the conditions of presentation presented
below, the assessment criteria and, especially, the accomplishment of the objectives of
this unit:

 Effectively build sentences and paragraphs.

 Linking paragraphs by using signaling words correctly.
 Using English punctuation features effectively.

The tasks which do not fulfil the terms of submission will not be corrected.

 Student: Marta Santonja Balaguer

 Group: 2022-11
 Unit: Building sentences and paragraphs (BSP)
 The correct file name would be: 2022-11MSantonja_BSP

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 

Tasks:
You are going to build a short essay on methods for teaching prepositions in English.
Read the instructions and complete the tasks below.

Instructions
Compare two methods for teaching prepositions and explain which one is more
successful.

TASK 1:

Put the following sentences in the correct order to create the introduction to
your essay1:

A. Such language differences make the teaching of this area very difficult.

B. Another method takes a cognitive linguistics approach, in which

prepositions are studied in relation to spatial relationships.

C. Using prepositions correctly in English is very difficult if English is not a

person’s first language.

D. The essay which follows gives a brief history of prepositional theory and
compares the traditional and cognitive linguistics approaches, arguing
that a cognitive linguistics approach helps students to understand the
concepts underlying prepositions, and so is more effective in helping
students to use prepositions correctly.

E. Prepositions are small connecting words that do not necessarily exist in

other languages or may not have exactly the same meanings.

F. One popular teaching method relies on students learning combinations of

nouns and prepositions.

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Adapted from Miller & Warner (2014) — The University of Adelaide

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Using prepositions correctly in English is very difficult if English is not a person’s first
language. Prepositions are small connecting words that do not necessarily exist in
other languages or may not have exactly the same meanings. Such language
differences make the teaching of this area very difficult.

One popular teaching method relies on students learning combinations of nouns and
prepositions. Another method takes a cognitive linguistics approach, in which
prepositions are studied in relation to spatial relationships.

The essay which follows gives a brief history of prepositional theory and compares the
traditional and cognitive linguistics approaches, arguing that a cognitive linguistics
approach helps students to understand the concepts underlying prepositions, and so is
more effective in helping students to use prepositions correctly.

TASK 2:

Read articles Prepositions from the Perspective of Cognitive Study and Applying
the Cognitive Linguistics approach to teaching English prepositions ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘at’
in the Indonesian EFL classroom (see attachments 1 and 2).

Now, write the main body to your essay. Add two more paragraphs by arguing
that the cognitive linguistics approach is more effective than traditional
approaches. Do not copy and paste text directly from your sources; write in your
own words.

Bear in mind the techniques that you studied in this unit: types of sentences,
sentence length, characteristics of a paragraph, signaling words, punctuation,
etc.

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You will build the conclusion to your essay in the following task.

Note: You might want to complete Task 3 in advance to have a better idea of
what should be argued in this task.

Length: 300-350 words.

Regarding the teaching of prepositions, on the one hand, the traditional approach tends
to memorize, making list of them, and explain them with examples. As a consequence,
it is more difficult for students to use prepositions correctly in a paragraph because they
have an abstract point of view.

On the other hand, the cognitive linguistic approach analyses prepositions by

integrating them into activity. It gives fluency, precision and automation of prepositions.
This means students read a series of sentences that contain prepositions and need to
reconstruct paragraphs to make real sense. With this form of teaching, students'
understanding of prepositions is integrated into practice.

According to the cognitive linguistic approach, there are prepositions such as in, on and
at, whose spatial relationship is relevant to the place where they are located. From a
pedagogical point of view, teachers need to instruct students about the different space-
temporal scenes, provide information-based activities, and inform about cross-
language barriers between languages. Some examples are: I’m good at painting / My
birthday is on November 14th/ Students are in class.

The spatial relation in English differs from Spanish. As we can see translating the
previous sentences: Soy bueno pintando/ Mi cumpleaños es el 14 de noviembre/
Estudiantes están en clase.

Consequently, this change in the spatial relationship of the prepositions creates

difficulties in understanding their correct position. To avoid these problems, teachers
can give collaborative tasks such as dictogloss (tasks in which students listen to a text
that contains prepositions and reconstruct it using the correct prepositions) or text
editing task (task in which students collaborate by editing a text). This can ensure that
the cognitive linguistic approach is effective.

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TASK 3:

Finally, put the following sentences in the correct order to create the conclusion
to your essay2:

A. Spatial relationships, however, may differ from one language to another,

and so this method is not completely effective.

B. By studying spatial relationships, students appear to remember

prepositions more accurately than they do using the traditional
memorization method.

C. Nevertheless, the cognitive linguistics approach appears to be useful for

many students and it is recommended that researchers study this
approach further to see whether it is applicable for students with different
language backgrounds and at different levels of language study.

D. This essay has argued that a cognitive linguistics perspective is more

effective than simple memorization in helping students to remember noun
and preposition combinations.

This essay has argued that a cognitive linguistics perspective is more effective than
simple memorization in helping students to remember noun and preposition
combinations. By studying spatial relationships, students appear to remember
prepositions more accurately than they do using the traditional memorization method.

Spatial relationships, however, may differ from one language to another, and so this
method is not completely effective. Nevertheless, the cognitive linguistics approach
appears to be useful for many students and it is recommended that researchers study
this approach further to see whether it is applicable for students with different language
backgrounds and at different levels of language study.

2
Adapted from Miller & Warner (2014) — The University of Adelaide

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Bibliography

Bailey, S. (2014). Academic Writing. A handbook for International Students. Routledge.

Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive

Guide (1st edition). Cambridge England. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Gillett, A., Hammond, A., & Martala, M. (2009). Inside Track to Successful Academic
Writing (1st edition). London, New York: Pearson Education Canada.

Lindstromberg, S. (2010). English prepositions explained. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Publishing.

Tyler, A., & Evans, V. (2005). Applying Cognitive Linguistics to Pedagogical Grammar:
The English Prepositions of Veriticality. Revista Brasileira de Linguistica Aplicada.