AbstractThis article serves as an introductory survey of the grammar of spoken English. More specifically, this article will analyze selected features of spoken language that are significantly different from written language or features of spoken language that are not found in written language. The analyzed characteristics have a high rate of occurrence even in spoken language. The ultimate goal of this investigation is to develop English language teaching materials that will address the detailed characteristics. Introduction What is the hallmark of fluency? Certainly no one will ever be judged fluent without showing competence in producing sufficiently fluent speech. Standard English is not a widely spoken variety; it is mostly written. However, it has become the dominant model for education (Rühlemann, 2008, p. 674-5). If the dominant model of teaching is based on a predominantly written variety of the language, what service can it offer to students who wish to acquire proficiency in the spoken language? For example, are speech particles considered an essential part of the language that students should master? . Without them, students “may appear unnatural, dogmatic, and/or inconsistent” (Lam, 2009, p.1-2). Speech particles, however, exist in the spoken realm and their teaching in a standard English curriculum may not be warranted. Colloquial grammar is sometimes considered a deviant or inferior form of written language, as if the spoken word were an offshoot of the written one. word. Contractions provide us with an excellent counterexample. Contractions are “institutionalized spoken reductions” (Quirk, et al., 1985, p. 123) originating from spoken language that are now accepted as legitimate...... middle of paper......kers and Spoken English : Use of natives and learners in pedagogical contexts, Applied Linguistics 28(3), 410-439.Huddleston, R.D., Pullum, G.K. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Lam, P. (2009). Discourse Particles in Corpus Data and Textbooks: The Case of Well, Applied Linguistics Advance Access published June 18, 2009, 1-22.Liu, D. (2003). The Most Frequently Used Spoken American English Idioms: A Corpus Analysis and Its Implications, TESOL Quarterly 37(4), 671-700.Quirk, R. (1985). A complete grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Rühlemann, C. (2008). A register-based approach to teaching conversation: Goodbye to standard English?, Applied Linguistics, 29(4), 672-693. Simpson, R., Dushyanthi, M. (2003). A corpus-based study of idioms in academic discourse, TESOL Quarterly, 37(3), 419-441.