Determiners: in-service training sessions
At initial level, training courses often consider quantifiers and articles but rarely much else. At in-service level, people now need to get to grips with the entire closed class of determiners. Elsewhere on the site, we simply refer to open and closed word classes, incidentally.
It is actually quite unlikely that people starting in-service
training have ever given the area much organised thought, preferring
to teach items as they arise or considering that the teaching of the
determiner system in English is not something that needs to be
addressed above quite low levels.
You know that's not true.
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The key ideas |
This serves as an introduction to determiners so does not focus in any great depth on any of the types.
Worksheets linked from this page concern:
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The notions of count and mass nouns pervade the area rather than being an explicit focus (that should already have been done).
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Five types of determiner |
This should be a reminder but it is not an area which is covered on all initial training courses.
Task 1 of the worksheet just asks people to identify the five sorts of determiner (listed above). Example 12 is of the zero article.
Task 2 of the worksheet provides a list of determiners and alerts people to which ones can be used in assertive and non-assertive contexts with singular count, plural count or mass nouns. It could take a little time.
Task 3 focuses only on quantifiers and now is a good time to discuss the difference between a few and a little vs. few and little.
Task 4 is on articles and the key is:- Examples 1, 5, 6, 11, 12: Indefinite specific reference.
- Examples 3, 4, 10: Generic reference.
- Examples 2, 7, 8, 9: Definite specific reference.
Task 5 asks people to show whether they can tell determiners from
pronouns. It's a brief awareness-raising task only.
Pre-determiners are not included in this worksheet and nor is
consideration of determiner ordering. The guides on the site
could be used for that.
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Related areas |
The worksheets here cover only the basics of determiner use.
The areas linked below are guides to other areas into which you may choose to extend the analysis.
| Related guides | |
| determiners | the main in-service guide |
| articles | the main in-service guide |
| pre- and post-determiners | this guide covers areas not considered above |
| A-Z index | where you can find guides to or containing specific concepts and terms |