Functional language

Functional language is language that you need in different day-to-day situations.

For example: greeting, introducing yourself, asking for or giving advice, explaining rules, apologising, or agreeing and disagreeing. An
y one of these functions can have a number of different exponents, or fixed expressions. For example, giving advice we could say: I think you should …, Why not …’ How about …? Have you thought about …? Or, to explain rules, we can say: We can’t …, we’re not allowed to …, and we have to

Learning functional language gives students of English the skills to communicate effectively in various everyday situations. Functional language contains a lot of fixed expressions. Because there are so many expressions for each function, it is best to teach these structures in manageable chunks. Try to limit the number of structures you introduce in each lesson to help your students remember the specific phrases. Functional language can be taught early in a student’s English language development. There are some basic structures that when introduced enable students to make themselves understood even if their level of English is quite low.

Some expressions are more suitable for a formal situation than an informal one, some you use with close friends and others with strangers. If you are learning a new language, it’s as important to learn functional language as it is to learn vocabulary, or even grammar.The more functional language you know, the more real-life situations you can interact in. You can learn different expressions for different contexts.