Quote:
Originally Posted by Manuela Rocha   Sometimes I have some difficulties in making it clear for my students why sometimes the questions don't have an auxiliary verb. For example, in the sentence: "How many workers work in that factory?", you don't need an auxiliary verb(do) because the question is about the subject of the sentence. But if you ask:" How many workers do you know in that factory?" you need the auxiliary verb because the question word is not referring to the subject of the sentence. Is that right? Could you, please, give me a more technical answer, so I can explain it more clearly to my students?
Thanks for answering
Regards 
Manuela Rocha |
Technical isn't always better, Manuela. Your explanation is excellent. The important point now is to devise examples for them to practice. it's best if the examples are contextually richj so you might want to have them ask questions, even silly questions that they may already know the answer to, like,
How many brothers do you have? vs How many brothers live at home?
How many workers do you know in that factory? vs How many workers in that factory know you?
This is a part of language that has to be internalized and internalization comes from practicing in context, and allowing that there will be errors but just keep practicing.