functional areas

Major Functional Areas

Functional area:	Topic:		Sub-topic	Processes:	Other Grammatical features:	Tense/ aspect	Notes:
Permanent qualities and attributes.	Physical objects.		Physical qualities, Uses. Categories.	Be + attribute Have Be made of Be used for Be a kind of (category)	Third person	Present simple	Natural context for the third person. Natural context for using objects from the immediate environment.
	People:		Physical qualities, appearance	Be + attribute Have	Modified nominal groups Possessive pronouns
(Temporary qualities)			Clothing	Be wearing		Present continuous	Opportunity to contrast present simple with continuous.
Permanent qualities and attributes.			Personality	Be + attribute		Present simple	Easy-going, hard-working, up-tight, etc.
			Personal Information	Be + category (profession) Be from Have Like + thing Like + process Can + material process			The typical first chapter in most textbooks. Combining this with describing objects makes it much easier to include third person.
	Other things		Animals	Be + attribute Have Be a kind of (category) Can + material process Live + location Eat	Third person		Korean students like animals. They’re cute, and they learned all the names in middle-school. Note natural use of third person.
			Places	Be + attribute			E.g.: Cities, home-towns. Natural use of third person.
(Comparison)		Objects Places People		Be more [attribute] than Have more [attribute] than Can [process] better than
Habitual actions of people				Various processes other than Be.	Frequency adverbs. Circumstances of time, place, etc.		Questions with Do-Support. Similar to ‘Personal information’ above.
Actions in progress				Various material/ behavioral processes.	Adverbs of manner. Circumstances of time and place.	Present continuous	Contrast with Present simple for habitual action. Linked by tense/aspect with clothing.
Mental processes	Feelings			Be + feeling. Feel + feeling.		Present simple	Opportunity to combine clauses, especially with "but" and "because".
	Preference			Like + thing Like + clause Love/hate/can’t stand Be + favorite + thing			See also ‘personal information’ above.
	Opinion			Agree/disagree
Location of physical objects.	Immediate environ -ment		Objects, Furniture	Existential processes. Be + location.	Circumstances of location		Easy to combine with actions in progress.
	Street location		Buildings, Businesses				Foundation skill for giving street directions
Past actions and states:	Immediate. Long-term (Life-events).			Various	Circumstances of time, place, etc. Clause combination Clause combination with "when". Sequence markers.	Past simple. (Possibly Present-perfect if learners are ready to handle a new aspect.)	If do-support, negation, Q-formation are in place for present simple, then Past simple should be no problem.
Future actions and states.						Present simple + future modal (be going to/ will) Present continuous for future.	Overlap with Present simple and modality (probability, necessity, obligation, etc)
Modality	Ability Probability Necessity Obligation Permission			Various	Can, may, should, must, have to, etc Mood adjuncts: maybe, probably, etc.	Present simple Past/future	The teacher may wish to introduce modality in conjunction with other functions (e.g.: habitual action, future) rather than separating it. Ideal opportunity for clause combination. Forms the basis for typical "speech functions" covered in intermediate textbooks (advising, requesting, etc.)
Giving directions and instructions:	Street directions		Streets Buildings Businesses Services	Go, walk, drive, turn	Imperative mood Sequence markers Location, direction Clause combination with "then", "when", "until"		See also Street-location above. Excellent opportunity to practice strategies such as clarification, feedback, checking understanding.
	Other instruct -ions		Machines Games Processes	Various material processes, especially expressed by phrasal verbs.			Emphasis on the immediate and physical objects. See also ‘referring to things’ below
Buying and selling:			Goods Services	Be + price Cost + price	Deictics: this, that, these, those, they, it	Present simple	Can be introduced quite early
	Referring to things.				Determiners, quantifiers, count/non-count nouns Complex nominal groups Cohesive features		"Do you have any cheaper ones?" Great opportunity to use objects from the immediate environment and free negotiation.
	Request -ing/ Offering.			Have, need, want Would like	Modality

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