Author: Ano Sensei
Format: Video
Related content:
📚 Part of a series: English in Context: Basic English Grammar
🧑🎓 "And" or "so"? Why a student's "wrong" answer might be right | ENGLISH IN CONTEXT 👀
In this video I use ...a simple quiz question — choosing between "and" and "so" — to illustrate one of the most common ways things go wrong in language teaching. When a teacher writes a question, they have a context in mind. But the student can't see inside the teacher's head. If the student pictures the situation differently, they may arrive at a different answer — one that is perfectly correct in the context they've imagined. "Fred is very tired, so he hasn't eaten all day" is not wrong. It's just wrong in the context the teacher was picturing. And there's a significant difference.
This is a short video, but the point it makes runs through the entire English in Context series: grammar without context is incomplete grammar. Students are routinely marked wrong when the real problem is that the question didn't specify a context clearly enough.
What this video covers:
A classroom quiz question with two valid answers
Why "and" and "so" can both be correct depending on context
How unspecified context leads to unfair marking in language teaching
What teachers and examiners can do to avoid this problem
I'm John R. Yamamoto-Wilson — formerly Professor of English Literature at Sophia University, Tokyo, with a PhD from the University of Cambridge. These videos are aimed at intermediate learners of English, and at the teachers who work with them. 📌 Part of the English in Context series — intermediate grammar points that textbooks often explain poorly or get wrong. Click here for the complete series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzVb6yL_jY6_sKngAN_gYB8w-KC20AGP4
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