English Grammar Tips (I)

English Competitive Examinations 2024 Spain (I)

If you are thinking of taking the 2024 Competitive Examinations for the English as a Secondary School Teacher in Spain, you should know that you can only take the examinations for Primary Education. If you wish to sit the exams for Secondary Education, Vocational Training or Language School, you must prepare for the English Teacher exam.

On the one hand, the competition for primary school teachers consists of 25 subjects. On the other hand, the competition for Secondary School, Vocational Training or Language School consists of 69 units. Up next, syllabuses for Primary Education (the same throughout Spain).

TEMA 1

La lengua como comunicación: lenguaje oral y lenguaje escrito; y factores que definen una situación comunicativa: emisor, receptor funcionalidad y contexto

Human language is the fundamental vehicle to convey our thoughts, needs and feelings. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the communicative process among people by concentrating on its two basic manifestations: oral and written language.

Finally in the third part, I will deal with the communication theory, the key factors that affect any communicative interaction and the main functions of language according to Jackobson. We deal with an essential topic since communication is the basis of understanding among human beings. In addition to that, the Foreign Language Curriculum for Primary Education emphasizes the significance of this topic by including in its objectives, blocks of contents and assessment criteria the development of oral and written communication through the four linguistic skills.

FIRST

To develop the first part of the topic, I will deal with the definition, properties of language and its functions.

As we can see in these definitions, it is difficult to make a precise statement about formal and functional universal properties of language, so some linguists have tried to identify the various properties that are considered to be its essential defining characteristics.

Let us go on distinguishing which these characteristics are:

· Communicative vs. Informative: We use communicative signals, as the language itself to intentionally communicate something but we can also provide information unintentionally via the informative signals.

· Displacement: Users of a language speaks about things and events nor present in the immediate environment. That means they can refer to past and future time, and to other locations.

· Arbitrariness: There is no link between a linguistic form or sign and the nature of the reality to which represents.

· Productivity: The potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite.

· Cultural transmission: Language is passed on from one generation to the next.

· Discreteness: The sounds used in a language are meaningfully distinct, for instance, the difference between a "b" sound and a "p" sound is actually not very great but when these sounds are used in a language, the occurrence of one rather than the other is very meaningful.

· Vocal-auditory channel.

· Reciprocity: Any speaker or sender of a linguistic exchange can also be a listener or a receiver.

· Rapid fading: Linguistic signals are produced and disappear quickly.

language and its functions. In Tragger's words, Language can be defined as a "system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which the members of a society interact in terms of their total culture".