important problem

This entry was created in response to a student writing:

X has become an important problem

The reusable link is https://ske.li/ij8 and it looks like this:

 

nb it may be worth drawing students’ attention to the verbs occurring before ‘a [big] problem’

It is also quite interesting to look at other ‘problem’ nouns that are used in this sort of pattern. The reusable link is https://ske.li/big_issue and it looks like this:

 

 

issues that teachers come across

This link was created in response to a student writing

issues that teachers come across

‘Come across’ here seemed a bit informal. One potentially useful link is https://ske.li/issues_ariseconc and looks like this:

 

One could argue that this isn’t exactly the same meaning as the original issue – if you want to keep the idea that a person / entity has a problem/issue, then this link might be preferable https://ske.li/problem_faced. It looks like this:

 

It’s actually more common to find a ‘reduced relative’ clause in this sort of situation. Examples are shown at this link https://ske.li/issues_faced, which looks like this: