How do you explain English terms you take for granted to people who seem to have a basic or good grasp of English and want to know more? I get asked questions like, Can you explain the subjunctive? What's the difference between subjunctive and subjective?
Answer
If you are teaching English as a foreign language overseas, or at home, even if you are not, start a card index with terms you need to explain. Or a file, containing photocopies of pages from grammar books or workbooks so you don't have to spend hours hunting. When teaching, you can use a workbook and go through everything logically, starting with the present tense, then the past, simple past, then the future. Instead of missing your lunch, tea-time drink, or your toilet break, tell the pupil where to find the answer in the class work book and then ask the pupil to explain to the class after the break. You repeat, correct, clarify, and tell the pupils to write down the answer in their language, or to write down the reference to the page in their workbook, or add the reference at the end of their class book's index.
Stories
At the end of the day's English class I was teaching in Singapore I was standing with some pupils looking out at the driving rain in Singapore and we all hesitated to go home because of the weather.
I commented, "It's raining cats and dogs." Everybody was silent for a moment. My pupils were contemplating the weather, I thought.
Then one boy replied, "I see the cats, but I don't see any dogs. Where are the dogs?"
I had a fit of giggles, unbecoming for a teacher, who is supposed to be authoritative, and said, "It's an English phrase."
My pupil stared at me suspiciously. "Really? What does it mean? Why cats and dogs?"
Two thoughts ran through my head. The first was, "It's an old medieval phrase, something to do with cats on thatched rooftops jumping down when it rains, especially cats and dogs coming indoors in thunderstorms."
My second thought was, "The French have a rather rude version something like - how can I put this politely? Water gushing as forcibly as a cow or bull urinating.
Later I looked it up in a dictionary of phrases and a dictionary of proverbs and the huge dictionary in the library. The origin is not important. It's one of those phrases whose original meaning is not known to most people, who just use the phrase, which is a metaphor.
The real origin is important to scholars and those studying language at university in order to write a thesis. But for pupils trying to learn to speak, it is more useful to have a visual image reminding them of the phrase to use in conversation, or to recognise and understand the meaning when they hear it, as happened when I spoke to them.
Similes and Metaphors
A simile says this is similar to that, this is like that.
A metaphor says this is that. In a metaphor one thing stands for another.
For example, a simile would be: "The bride in her voluminous skirt looked like / similar to a ship in full sail."
A metaphor would be: "The bride in her voluminous skirt was a ship in full sail." The word similar is dropped so it is not a simile but a metaphor.
Angela Lansbury, author, English teacher. I teach individuals and groups and businesses in private lessons in written and spoken English, giving presentations and speeches and reading English books and newspapers and technical journals.
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