You are on page 1of 10

BIL 3023

LINGUISTICS FOR ESL TEACHERS






TOPIC
ADVERBS




PREPARED BY:
Name Sharifah Salfinaz bt. Syed Hood Barakbah
Matriks ID No. D20112053631
Group UPSI01( A132PJJ)
E-Learning Tutor Professor Madya Dr. Nor Azmi bin Mostafa
Phone Number 012-3884979
! #$%&'(%$ #%)('*%+ ,-. #/01 $221 ,%&%3,%$ 1!455!467875

1.0 Part 1: Introduction
Adverbs are one of major word class of English grammar. Some
adverbs are formed at least from two morphemes; free and bound
morphemes. Yule, 1999, p.75) defined morphemes as a minimal unit of
meaning or grammatical function. According to Intan Safinas Mohd Arif
Albakri & Nor Azmi Mustafa (2013 p.16), free morphemes are words used to
describe concepts such as things, actions and characteristics like noun (bag),
adjectives (tall) and adverb (sweetly) and they are called content words.
Intan Safinas Mohd Arif Albakri & Nor Azmi Mustafa (2013 p.18) also
stated that derivational morphemes (suffixes y, ly, -ily, -ally) are used to form
new words and normally the addition of derivational morphemes changes the
grammatical category of the stem word. For an instance, the word slow that
is an adjective when added with the suffix -ly, the word slowly becomes an
adverb. Therefore, by adding the suffix changes the grammatical category of
the word slow.
1.1 Definition
According to BBC Skillwise, adverbs are words that tell more
about verbs or they add information about the verbs. Meanwhile,
Oxford Dictionary stated that an adverb is a word or phrase that
modifies the meaning of an adjective, verb, or other adverb, expressing
manner, place, time, or degree (e.g. gently, here, now, very). Some
adverbs, for example sentence adverbs, can also be used to modify
whole sentences.
B.S Azar (1989 p. A3) defined that:
Adverbs modify verbs. They are often answer the question How? as
in How does she walk? Answer: She walks slowly. Adverbs are often
formed by adding ly to an adjective.
Example:
Adjective slow
Adverb slowly


Chung H. T, Komathy S.R & Ong S.K(2010 p.125):
Adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. They
also often tell when, where, why or under what conditions something
happen.
Example:
modifies a verb She sits quietly in the library (How does she sit?)

modifies an adjective I drove a very big truck . (How big was the
truck?)

modifies another adverb He jogged quite slowly up the hill. (How did
he jog)
From those definitions stated above, adverbs can best be defined as
words that describe verbs, adjectives or other adverbs by conveying
manner, place time or degree and usually end with ly.

1.2 Adverbs: Formation and Function
1.2.1 Formation of Adverbs
Chung H.T, Komathy S.R & Ong S. K (2010, p.126) indicated
that, three formation of adverbs have been classified which are
derivational adverbs, simple adverbs and compound adverbs.
1.2.1.1 Derivational Adverbs
Most adverbs are formed by adding suffixes y, -ly, -ily
and -ally but it is not a strict rule to create adverbs
because there are some adjectives that also end with
ly. For examples lovely and friendly.
Examples of Derivational Adverbs
-y -ly -ily -ally
possible possibly sweet sweetly busy busily basic basically
gentle gently hard hardly lazy lazily economic economically



9 #$%&'(%$ #%)('*%+ ,-. #/01 $221 ,%&%3,%$ 1!455!467875

1.2.1.2 Simple Adverbs
Simple adverbs are adverbs that stand own their own. Most of
these adverbs show direction or position such as below, near,
in and on. Certain adverbs like quick, fast, little and early have
precisely the equal usage as the adjectives.
Examples of Simple Adverbs
a) This information is summarized below.
b) No birds and animal came near.
1.2.1.3 Compound Adverbs
Combinations of two or more features into a single word are
called compound adverbs. They are widely used to show
position and direction. Collin Cobuild (2011, p. 314) indicated
that the compound adverbs such as outside, downstairs,
underwater and throughout are also known as adverb particles
and used to show position.
Examples of Compound Adverbs
a) The girl ran downstairs when she heard the bell rang.
b) The young men hated working underground.
1.2.2 Function of Adverbs.
Collins Cobuild (2012, p.303) stated that adverbs could be
categorized into 8 types. They are adverbs of time, frequency
and duration, adverb of place, adverb of manner, adverb of
degree, sentence connectors, sentence adverbs, broad negative
adverbs and focusing adverbs. Meanwhile, Chung H.T, Komathy
S.R & Ong S. K (2010, p.128) added two more functions of
adverbs; adverb of direction and interrogative adverbs.
1.2.2.1 Adverb of Time, frequency and duration
Adverb of Time is used to provide information and
to state the precise time. It answers the question
When?
Examples:
a) One of my children wrote to me today.
b) We shall now start the event.
Adverb of frequency is used to show how often
we do things or how many times something
happens. It normally modifies or gives more
information about verbs by informing how many
times an action happens. Common adverbs of
frequency used are twice, often, again, daily and
never.
Examples:
a) I brush my teeth three times daily.
b) Have you ever been to Paris?
Adverb of duration states about how long
something last or takes. It is also used to show
something less precise about the length of time
an event lasts. It answers the question how
long?
Examples:
a) The king wont live forever.
b) She glanced briefly at Ryan Gosling.
1.2.2.2 Adverb of place
Adverb of Place gives information about place by
informing where an incident or event takes place.
Adverb of place answers the question where? or
where to?
Example:
a) Jack the Pirate buried his treasure chest
somewhere near Cove Island.
b) The girls are resting inside when the burglar
barged in.
1.2.2.3 Adverb of manner
Adverb of manner is used to say something about
the way something is done or about the
circumstances of an event or situation. Fast, softly,
gently, badly, hard and neatly are the common
adverbs of manner used.
8 #$%&'(%$ #%)('*%+ ,-. #/01 $221 ,%&%3,%$ 1!455!467875

Examples
a) The ballerina danced gracefully on the stage.
b) He acted very clumsily.
1.2.2.4 Adverb of degree
Adverb of degree shows more information about
the extent of an action or the degree to which an
action is performed. Some examples of adverb of
degree are so, very, quite, almost, too and
extremely.
Examples:
a) Jasmeet is really good at painting.
b) I had almost forgotten about the trip.
1.2.2.5 Adverb of direction
Adverb of direction is used to show destinations.
They often go with movement verbs like go and
cannot usually begin a sentence. Adverb of
direction answers the questions in what direction?
or where to? or where from?
Examples:
a) The scouts left the base camp and climbed
higher.
b) She smiled and invited him inside.
1.2.2.6 Sentence connectors
Sentence connectors are used to show what sort of
connection there between one sentence to
another. They are also called conjunctive adverbs
because they perform the same sort of function as
conjunctions.
Examples:
a) The girls practiced so hard for the competition.
As the result, the won first prize.
b) He sprained his ankle, therefore he could not
play today.

1.2.2.7 Sentence adverbs
Sentence adverb is also known as commenting
adverbials. It indicates someone reaction, opinion
or the fact or event someone is talking about.
Sentence adverbs usually qualify a whole sentence
and not just part of it. Most common used of
sentence adverbs are surely, blindly, luckily, really
and clearly.
Examples:
a) Surprisingly, I found that the movie is thrilling.
b) She is clearly not interested in you.
1.2.2.8 Broad negative adverbs
Broad negative adverbs are barely, hardly, rarely ,
scarcely and seldom. They are used to make a
statement almost totally negative.
Example:
a) Sheila could scarcely believe her eyes.
b) He eyes had hardly closed.
1.2.2.9 Focusing adverbs
Focusing adverbs are used to focus on the most
important thing in what are saying such as in
especially, particularly or to express some kind of
restriction (merely, just) and to refer back
something (too, also , either).
Examples:
a) Diane loves deserts especially chocolate-fudge
ice cream.
b) Only Abraham has the key to the mansion.
1.2.2.10 Interrogative adverbs
Interrogative adverbs are questioning words such
as where, when, why and how. They are also
known as Wh-Adverbs.
a) How big is your new house?
b) Why are you so sad?
: #$%&'(%$ #%)('*%+ ,-. #/01 $221 ,%&%3,%$ 1!455!467875

2.0 Part 2: Teaching Adverbs
Set Induction (15 minutes) Musical Bouncing Ball Maze

1. Teacher pastes a giant word maze in on the board. Teacher plays a
musical bouncing ball game.
2. When the music starts, the ball will go around the class. When the music
stops, the pupil who is holding the ball would find an adverb in the maze, and
circle it.
3. The game will continue to a few rounds until the maze is completed.
Example of the Word Maze









Practice (30 minutes) The Wheel of Guessing Game
1. Pupils are divided to two groups. Teacher provides an activity wheel and a
box contains adverb of manner word strips such as slowly, anxiously, badly
loudly.
2. Each team will have a chance to turn the wheel and pick a number. Each
number contains different activity such as sing a song, brush your teeth and
drive a car.
3. Each team will choose an activity and pick an adverb from the box. For
example: sing a song + loudly. The representative from team A will do the
action while the other team will guess the answer. The team who able to
guess correct activity will get 2 points and another 2 points for guessing the
correct adverb.
Example of activities and adverbs :
http://www.teach-this.com/images/resources/how-do-i-do-it.pdf
Production (15minutes) Worksheets
1. Pupils are given two worksheets.
Worksheet 1
Filling the blanks with the suitable adverbs
Worksheet 2
Pupils read a passage. Pupils identify the and underline the adverbs using
coloured pencil.










Example of Worksheet 1

3.0 Conclusion
According to Intan Safinas Mohd Arif Albakri & Nor Azmi Mustafa (2013
p.26), it is important to study the morphological structure of a word to gain
knowledge of the rules of word formation. Grammarpedia stated that words, or
lexemes, are categorised according to the role or function they perform in
grammar. These classes are called parts of speech. We can distinguish
between open and closed classes of words. The open classes are nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs. The closed classes are the determiners,
prepositions, subordinators and coordinators.
As teachers, it is important to make sure the pupils participate actively in
classroom activities as to show their understanding towards their learning. To
achieve a successful class activity, teachers should choose appropriate and
suitable strategies to attract pupils attention thus considering their ability and
levels of proficiency.
Example of Worksheet 2
54 #$%&'(%$ #%)('*%+ ,-. #/01 $221 ,%&%3,%$ 1!455!467875

4.0 Reference
Albakri I.S & Mostafa N.A (2014) Linguistics For ESL Teachers
BIL3023. Tanjung Malim. Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI)
Azar B.S (1989).Understanding And Using English Grammar(Second
Edition).New Jersey.Prentice Hall Regents
Chung H.T, Komathy S.R & Ong S.K (2009) HDEL1203/HBEL1203
Language Description.Selangor. Open University Malaysia (OUM)
Collins Cobuild English Grammar (4
th
ed).(2012). Glasgow.
HarperCollins Publishers
Domain Brothers Ltd. (2012) Adverbs Word Search retrieved 7
th
April,
2014 from
http://www.wordsearchfun.com/101116_adverbs_wordsearch.html
ESL Resources For ESL Teachers (2012). Sticky Ball.Net. ESL
Grammar Worksheet Adverbs2. retrieved April 5
th
, 2014 from
http://stickyball.net/esl-grammar-worksheets.html?id=107
Oxford Dictionaries online. (2014) Definition of Adverbs retrieved on
3
rd
, April, 2014 from
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/adverb?q=adverbs
Yong J. (2012) Teach This.com retrieved 7
th
April, 2014 from
http://www.teach-this.com/images/resources/how-do-i-do-it.pdf

You might also like