(ignoring the "I am + adverb" exception in this question)
Compare the sentences:
She often plays football
with
She plays football every day
(not, as is a common mistake, she plays every day football)
When thinking about why this is the correct form, at first I thought multi-word adverbs of frequency have different rules to single word, however consider:
She hardly ever plays basketball
So then I thought maybe it's indefinite (often, sometimes, hardly ever, a lot etc.) and definite (every day, weekly, yearly, on tuesdays) But consider this:
She plays football a lot
(not she a lot plays football)
so what is the rule here that determines whether the frequency word/phrase can go before the verb or not?
Thanks in advance
(full disclosure, I'm a relatively new English teacher not a student, and I'm tearing my hair out trying to find some resource that goes into this distinction. I know that, as a native speaker who was never taught any grammar in school, I need to build my grammar knowledge and I'm trying hard!)
Best Answer
Let's take a closer look at exactly what we're dealing with. Firstly let's ditch the preposition phrases which tell you when something happens, for example on Tuesdays. These aren't really expressions of frequency. Teach these with other temporal preposition phrases such as on Tuesday or at Christmas. Also notice that only the context will tell you whether on Tuesdays implies that the occurrence is actually a weekly event. [For what it's worth preposition phrase Adjuncts (read Adverbials, if you really must) usually go at the end of the sentence, but can also go at the beginning. They never go in the central position]
Secondly, we need to ditch expressions that tell us how much something is done. These may tend to imply frequency, but this is just an implication. These are not real frequency expressions. They are expressions of degree or quantity. Notice that someone who swims a lot, may not swim very often. They may spend one month every year for example, swimming eighteen hours a day at some special event and then not swim for the rest of the year. So expressions like a lot, a bit, much and so forth are not part of what we are dealing with.
Right, so that leaves us firstly with specific frequencies that tell us exactly how frequently something happens. These are usually noun phrases or adverbs derived from nouns. These usually go at the end of the sentence:
They can also go at the beginning:
They cannot go in the post auxiliary position:
And then, secondly, there are those relative, notional frequencies that are vague and not clearly specified (unless they are absolutes like always or never). These are always expressed by adverbs. The favoured position for these is the post-auxiliary position. Some of them can also go at the beginning or end of the clause, but it's important that students understand that the normal, unmarked position is the post-auxiliary one. These adverbs include always, usually, normally, often, sometimes, rarely, seldom, hardly ever and never.
If your students are unsure about where the post auxiliary position is, it's the place that you would put the word not:
It does not matter if these expressions have more than one adverb in them. When this happens it is because the first adverb is modifying the second:
Note:
It is of great benefit to students to understand that BE is nearly always an auxiliary verb, even if there is no following verb. It also certainly makes it much simpler teaching where in the sentence adverbs of frequency should go.
Hope this is helpful!