Do you teach sentence patterns to your students outright? Most textbooks don’t deal with sentence patterns all at once, but I’ve found it really helps my students understand English better when I lay out the patterns for them. When English language learners have a basic understanding of sentence patterns and structures in English, they can recognize parts of speech and correct their mistakes more easily.

Basic Sentence Patterns

English uses a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) sentence pattern, but this is only the beginning. Let’s take a look at the patterns for the main parts of speech in English.

1. Nouns (S, O, N):

Nouns are people, places, or things. Nouns and pronouns can be subjects of a sentence, objects of a sentence, or objects of a preposition. Nouns are often preceded by an article (Art), including a, an, the, a number (one, two), a quantifier (many, a few), or a possessive adjective (my, their).

S + V + O	People like him.
Art + N	The girl ate an apple.

2. Verbs (V):

Verbs are the action or state of being in a sentence. Verbs usually follow a subject and can be followed by an object. With imperative verbs, the subject is dropped.

S + V (+ O)	My sister jogs. She likes him.
V (+ O)	Begin. Call me.

3. Adjectives (Adj):

Adjectives describe nouns and have two common patterns in English.

Adj + N	beautiful flower
BE + Adj	The flower is beautiful.

4. Adverbs (Adv):

Adverbs can describe verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or even the whole sentence. For more details and examples, see 7 Adverb Patterns.

Adv + V	often go
V + Adv	speak fluently
V + Adv + V	is quickly preparing
Adv + Adv	really well
Adv + Adj	very shiny
Adv + S + V + O	Actually, I like rainy days.
S + V + O + Adv	I like rainy days, actually.

5. Prepositions (Prep):

Prepositions are little words that indicate direction, time, place, etc. They are followed by a noun.

Prep + N	at school

Expanding on the Basics

Intermediate‑level students need to see how the patterns work in conjunction with each other. For example, in the Prep + N pattern, the noun can take an article (Art + N) and/or an adjective (Adj + N).

Example #1

Prep + N	at school
Prep + Art + N	at the school
Prep + Art + Adj + N	at the elite school

Example #2

Adj + N	fast car
Art + Adj + N	a fast car
Art + Adv + Adj + N	a really fast car

Example #3

V + Adv	writes often
V + Adv + V	is often writing
V + Adv + Adv + V	is so often writing

Example #4

SVO	Cats chase mice.
(Art + N) + V + (Art + N)	The cats chase the mice.
(Art + Adj + N) + (Adv + V) + (Art + Adj + N)	The hungry cats always chase the scared mice.

For higher‑level students, you can now show how complex sentences involve multiple clauses and phrases that are joined by conjunctions, transitional words (adverbs), punctuation, etc.

Subscribers can access these charts in our Resources – Grammar & Usage section.

Related

• Complete Sentences
• How to Write a Simple Sentence
• How to Write a Compound Sentence
• Adjectives
• 7 Adverb Patterns
• Sentence Stress