ESL Students Study Sentence Types
Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences a Key for ESL Students.
Unlike many abstract approaches for teaching ESL grammar, a review of simple, compound and complex sentence types offers students the option of independent self-study.
Some might suggest that the study of sentence types will provide ESL students with a "solid foundation" in their understanding of English grammar forms, and perhaps others will propose that these sentence types establish an "essential structure" that ESL students need, especially in writing; however, using architectural metaphors like "foundation" and "structure" suggest a kind of brick-and-mortar, build from the bottom up type of learning.
It's Not That "Simple"
It makes sense that the word simple suggests something simple and that the word complex suggests something complex, but it's not that simple, nor is it too complex.
Many ESL students believe simple sentence types are "lower-level" sentences than compound or complex sentence types, and it may be true that some ESL teachers believe this to be true as well.
Sure, simple sentences have only one subject/verb combination, whereas compound and complex sentence types have multiple subject/verb combinations, but take a look at the following excuses for being late to class:
After spending a long time eating a healthy breakfast of whole wheat cereal, a glass of orange juice, and a delicious banana, I wandered distractedly through a bright field of beautiful, multicolored flowers, eventually arriving late for class. THIS IS A SIMPLE SENTENCE!
I ate breakfast but got lost on the way to school, so I was late for class. THIS IS A COMPOUND SENTENCE.
I was late for class because I got lost after I ate breakfast. THIS IS A COMPLEX SENTENCE!
Great Resources For ESL Students: Self-Study of Sentence Types
The following two websites are excellent places for students to begin their study of sentence types or to review what they have already learned:
Of course just having ESL students read the sentences and explanations of others is not going to be as helpful to them as actual hands on practice writing with simple, compound, and complex sentence types, but a clear understanding of them is necessary to get started.
ESL Writing Practice With Sentence Types Can Be A Creative Act
It is possible to get caught up in the "mechanics" of the sentence types, but the potential opportunity for creating a variety of different forms or designs for our ideas should outweigh this desire, and a review of an old rhetorical practice may prove useful for ESL students as they develop their English writing skills.
The following Copying Lesson will provide some good ideas on how to begin using sentence types in the ESL writing classroom both for creative and editorial writing practice.
