An Introduction to Teaching English Compound Nouns in EFL

Abstract

Native speakers of English accept and use noun + noun compound nouns so readily and naturally, that they fail to notice the grammatical incongruity of using one noun to describe another. Learners of English whose native languages have a stricter grammatical basis than English find these constructions not merely difficult to use — but puzzling, and apparently ‘wrong’. This paper aims to correct this position by providing extensive illustrations from everyday English speech to describe how commonplace, such constructions are (and how, in many cases, there is no alternative to using them) — alongside a methodological guide to forming and using compound nouns, with particular reference to their use in the banking, financial and insurance industries in which many learners hope to make their careers. Teaching this topic is currently poorly supported in standard teaching materials — even excellent, and widely-used EFL textbooks make no mention at all of this very commonly-used structure. Compound nouns stand in dire need of an academic pedigree to support them. The paper reviews the two primary kinds of compound nouns found in English (Attributive, and Contextual), with working examples illustrating their varying usages.