The Parts of Speech for

ESL Teaching

ESL teachers ought to know English grammar,

at least to some degree. A potential first step in
that direction is knowing the parts of speech.
Many other concepts in grammar build upon this
way of classifying words in the English lan-
guage.

Along with knowledge of the verb tenses, famil-

iarity with the parts of speech is one of the best
ways to connect with students on an abstract
level as they learn English. It’s not an exaggera-
tion to say that words like verb and noun come
up in every single class I teach.

However, as I said about tenses, there is fric-

tion between attempts to describe language and
attempts to teach it. If you search for part-of-
speech graphics online, you will find declara-
tions of both eight and nine parts of speech (for
my version of such graphics, go to the end).
Meanwhile, linguists can get much more granu-
lar and extend out the number of categories to
include ones that have no place in the ESL
classroom.
A common point of divergence when looking at
ESL graphics online (as some indication of what
teachers are teaching) is the inclusion or omis-
sion of article as a separate category. It’s
tempting to set articles apart, given how large
they loom for English learners (large, and omi-
nous). At the same time, articles have often
been categorized as a type of adjective. Neither
of those options appeal to me. I prefer the cate-
gorization of articles (a, an, the) as determiners
as one of the parts of speech.

It’s worth noting that small categories like par-

ticle and postposition are routinely omitted as
parts of speech for practical purposes (they
don’t have many members, and the members
they do have can be captured by the other cate-
gories).

Also, words can often be classed in more than

one category, and sometimes in several. For ex-
ample, the word advance is a noun (the latest
scientific advance) and a verb (our society is ad-
vancing all the time), but it can also work as an
adjective (an advanced civilization). Keeping
track of these permutations can be difficult for
students.

Parts of Speech
Nouns
Nouns are the names for all kinds of things. In a
given text, nouns convey most of the meaning. It
helps to know about countable and uncountable
nouns, regular and irregular plural forms, and
proper nouns.

Examples: desk, desks, love, Morocco, knife,

knives.

Verbs
Verbs describe actions, states of being, mental
processes, and occurrences. They can carry a
lot of meaning, and sometimes they carry very
little. There is a lot for students to learn, such
as various verb types:

• main and helper (auxiliary)

• state and action
• transitive and intransitive
• modal helper (auxiliary)
• phrasal

Language learners must know how to conjugate

each verb so that it agrees with the subject of a
sentence. Importantly, they should also know
participle forms and how to change the verbs
according to tense.

Examples: have, can, run, do, eat, give up.

Adjectives
Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns by giv-
ing us extra information about them. Students
are introduced to comparative forms (eg. bigger)
and superlative forms (the tallest) relatively
early. They may continue making errors in this
area as they otherwise progress.

Examples: red, helpful, older, unbelievable.

Adverbs
Adverbs answer questions like how, how much,
how often, why, when, where, and the speaker’s
attitude toward what they are talking about. It
helps to look at adverbs further divided into sub-
categories:

• Adverbs of Manner say how something is

done
She carefully pulled out the gun.
• Adverbs of Frequency show how often
something happens
We often talked about politics.
• Adverbs of Time and Place
I shouldn’t stay here.
What did you do yesterday?
• Adverbs of Degree make adjectives and
other adverbs stronger or weaker
I’m very thirsty.
It’s quite good.
 • Adverbs of Quantity
He smokes a lot.
She drinks a little.
• Focusing Adverbs narrow focus or refer to
previously mentioned information
They are particularly boring.
I’m a doctor, too!
• Attitude Markers show our attitude to
events or how we understand them.
Surprisingly, they offered him the job.
Adverbs appear in different places in sentences,
which can be challenging to students.

Interjections
Interjections are words like curses, exclama-
tions, brief responses, greetings and fillers that
sit apart from the grammatical logic of a sen-
tence. They can appear outside and inside sen-
tences. Inside sentences, they should be set
apart from the rest of the sentence with brack-
ets or commas.

• Awww! She’s so cute!

• Wow, that’s impressive.
• But, hey, at least I tried.
The above categories, except for auxiliary
verbs, are considered open classes in that they
receive new additions as the language changes.
The following categories are considered closed
as they don’t change regularly.

Pronouns
Pronouns stand in for nouns, and they should re-
fer to a noun that the listener or reader is aware
of. In many cases, they help us avoid saying a
noun over and over, which would sound repeti-
tive.

There are several types of pronouns. Most of the

types are given in the following examples:

• (subject) He has a PhD in Economics.

• (object) Mary hit it with all her strength.
• (possessive) The big present is yours.
• (reflexive) They congratulated themselves.
• (reciprocal) His brothers do not like each
other.
• (intensive) I made these cookies myself.
• (demonstrative) This is the correct answer.
• (indefinite) Everybody is tired of this gov-
ernment.
• (relative) The guy who stopped by was an
old friend from school.

Prepositions
Prepositions help express meanings like place,
time, and more. Sometimes they are just linking
words without meaning. They frequently come
before noun phrases, but they always relate to a
noun or pronoun (which may have appeared ear-
lier in the sentence).

• (place) I met her at the station.

• (time) We work until 4pm.
• (instrument) He works with clay.
• (linking) What are you complaining about?

Conjunctions
Conjunctions connect words, phrases, and
clauses. There are a few types (with examples
in brackets): coordinating (and, but, etc), subor-
dinating (if, after, because, etc), and correlative
(either … or, not only … but also, etc).

• (coordinating) I have a son and a daugh-

ter.
• (coordinating) We like pizza, but we’re di-
eting these days.
• (subordinating) I jumped in the pool be-
cause my hair was on fire.
• (correlative) We’ll either leave late at
night or early in the morning.

Determiners
Determiners inform us about nouns in several
ways. They tell us things like quantity, proximity
to the speaker, and possession. They help us
know when a person is talking about things in
general or about a specific thing. Types of deter-
miners include articles, demonstratives, posses-
sives, quantifiers, and numbers.

• (article) Have you been to the restaurant

on the waterfront?
• (demonstrative) Are these your shoes?
• (possessive) I lost my phone.
• (quantifier) They have enough helpers.

Parts of Speech Graphics

Now, behold my attempts at helpful graphics:

Download the above image as an easily print-

able PDF.

Download the above image as an easily print-

able PDF.

Download the above image as an easily print-

able PDF.