TeachingEnglish: Understanding language systems

How will the course help you?

By the end of Understanding language systems, you'll be able to:

• introduce and practise functional language with learners
• identify difficulties your learners have with grammar
• present the use and form of language effectively. 

How can you enrol on the course?

Register for a free TeachingEnglish account or log in to your account.

Enrol on this free course

What resources can you access at any time?

• A free workbook with extra learning content and resources connected to the course contents
• A dedicated Facebook community of course participants with up-to-date insight, resources and innovative teaching ideas for you to try out (Facebook account required)
• Learning content related to our courses on Facebook and YouTube
• Live events and recordings with course tutors and language teaching experts on Facebook and YouTube
• Teaching resources on the TeachingEnglish website
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What are the self-study modules in Understanding language systems?

Module 1 – Understanding functional language

The aim of this module is to look at how teaching functional language helps your learners, how you can identify functions to cover in your syllabus, and practical ways of introducing and practising functional language with learners.

Module 2 – Understanding grammar

The aim of this module is to deepen your understanding of English grammar and to help you reflect on and talk about it. You'll learn about different aspects of grammar, what kinds of difficulties your learners have with grammar and how to relate knowledge of grammar to your classroom teaching. 

Module 3 – Understanding grammar – focus on form

The aim of this module is to help you consider how to present the use and form of language effectively.

Course reviews

What have other teachers said about how Understanding language systems helped them?

"As a teacher Educator, I'm constantly discussing with the teachers about the teaching habits and also about the level in terms of knowing the subject. I was delighted to help some of them discover that there are only two tenses in English and that the future could not be called a tense in English. This brought about a lot of discussions. It was very interesting"

Course participant, Côte d'Ivoire

"I've started being more aware that any new language structure needs to be introduced in a real life context and it's not too difficult or time-consuming to create one: as a teacher I can just tell a shorts story or account from my life to establish a scenario. Also, I now have a really good idea of how to ask concept check questions. I was kind of doing it before but I'm more aware and more concise now."

Course participant, South Africa

"One way I’ve applied the knowledge and skills from this course in my day-to-day teaching is by using concept-checking questions (CCQs) to ensure students fully understand new grammar structures, such as the present perfect. For example, when introducing the sentence "Maria has lost her car keys," I asked CCQs like:

"Did she lose them a long time ago?" (No)
"What is she doing just now?" (Looking for them)"

Course participant, Bangladesh

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