How to Teach Grammar

This piece explores typical issues surrounding the teaching of grammar and will take a peak at some firm favourites of the author.

Fun and Games

It’s your job to make grammar enjoyable and interesting for your learners; not to drag them kicking and screaming into the classroom. Seriously though, students may have had a negative learning experience that has somehow traumatised them, and it may be an uphill struggle when you are beginning as a teacher or if it’s outside of your comfort zone, but it should become second nature to you. After all, you are an English teacher; an expert in the language and all that the job encompasses. You should be perfectly capable of answering reasonable questions and feel comfortable doing so. Perhaps your students were overloaded with theory, had no opportunities to interact with each other, didn’t get enough grammar practice, revision was overlooked or maybe examples were not relevant to their lives. Whatever the reason, it’s now up to you to make the difference and make sure they learn grammar properly.

Prepositions

At, on and in are notorious for separating the men from the mice. Divide them into prepositions of place and time and teach them on separate occasions for the best results. If you demonstrate grammar in a way that is appealing, it will be easier to remember. Bearing this in mind, you can use hard-hitting, humorous or even extreme examples to maximise impact and to make meaningful memories. In the Netherlands, learners may get confused by the Dutch use of prepositions, which are different from those used in English. For example, children are on top of school rather than at school. Dutch folk tend to appreciate humour of this kind when the linguistic difference is known or becomes apparent. You can draw a person on a school and somebody down below with question marks above their heads questioning the rationality of being up there. It is always useful to have knowledge of learners’ L1 (mother tongue) as you can comprehend why mistakes are being made, and then explain the reasons why from the perspective of their L1.

To really keep them guessing, you can begin by testing their knowledge by challenging them to explain the difference between two similar sounding prepositional phrases, which have different meanings. Take on time versus in time. Chances are that they will give it a fair shot, but will fall at the final hurdle, and appreciate a clear explanation from the teacher. On time is when a person or object adheres to expected time, i.e. an employee who turns up at the time he’s expected to or a delivery in the post that arrives when it should. In time, on the other hand, is when somebody or something is early enough, i.e. a person makes it in time for the train or an article meets a deadline set by a newspaper editor. Next, at the beginning versus in the beginning, which, at first (this one can also be done versus linking word first {for enumeration}) often merits a positive response, but when push comes to shove, the cherry on the cake (explaining the difference between the two) is usually reserved for your good self. At for a certain or specific point like at the beginning of a film when you see the opening titles vs in the beginning, which is more abstract and has no precise mention of when something happened, i.e. in the beginning, dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Present Perfect

Despite also being known as present perfect simple, for most learners, this notorious verb tense is effectively one of the trickiest pieces of grammar to get to grips with. If it doesn’t occur in their L1, then it is bound to feel unfamiliar to them. You may need to have patience in spades and probably nerves of steel on some occasions. Don’t despair. See it as a challenge; you will have plenty of opportunities to perfect your technique. Of course, you can give them a formula (auxiliary have + past participle {give an example}), draw a time-line and explain that it is usually refers to something that began a short time ago, which has a result that has relevance now. Show them how to widen the time-frame a bit later (with adverbs always and ever). The game-changer is to make sure you pay attention to their work situation, social life/ hobbies and recent bits of news. For example: Have you started the new job yet? Have you been to the Van Gogh museum yet? or have you heard the news about X? have all been used before to add relevance and appropriacy. Then, add a deadly serious situation for urgency, i.e. a doctor in a hospital needs to ask his patient: have you eaten anything? The patient needs to be nil by mouth (explain the term) and if he has been naughty, then he won’t be able to have his operation today. If not, then he can have it as planned. Humorous situations are equally memorable. Picture this scenario: it’s 5pm and you are in the kitchen where nice smells of food are emitting. Your son brings a friend around and it’s when people typically eat dinner in your country. What question would you ask your son’s friend? You ask. Have you eaten yet? is the answer. Excellent! Then you ask: what would be the result if he had already eaten and you gave him a second meal? He would puke everywhere and ruin your carpet!

Adverb Placement

There comes a time when sentence structure and grammar go hand-in-hand; hence a writing task with grammar elements can become the order of the day. Advanced grammar is probably not something your students will need or be ready for unless they are preparing for a CPE (Cambridge C2 Proficiency exam), for example. As a teacher, you should always try and improve your grammar skills. You can do research, fill in gaps in your knowledge and even do exercises in advanced grammar books yourself. The premise for this task, on the other hand, is simple enough. You offer up the possibilities re the sequential order of three different kinds of adverbs (manner {m}, place {p} and time {t}) giving an explanation for each type (starting with how, where and when). So, once they know that {m-p-t}, {m-p} or {m-t} are all possible, you can field the questions. To spice things up a bit, you can add some trick adverbs (the answers are given here), i.e. of frequency (f): she never (f) gives free concerts abroad (p) or degree (d), i.e. chimpanzees really (d) enjoy eating bananas throughout the day (t). Before setting the task and without getting too technical, you can also explain that prepositional phrases can either be adverbial (answering the questions: How? Where? or When?) or adjectival (modifying nouns or pronouns; this can be left for another time). Alternatively, you can revert to the test-teach-test model and let them give it a shot without any further explanations until the feedback stage. The various sequences should be enough to get started. Of course, there’s no need to mention that there are other types of adverbs in there designed to trip them up.

As a final thought, I’d like to add a nice juicy quote from linguist Diane Larsen-Freeman who says “grammaring” can be seen as a “fifth skill.” By grammaring, she means “the ability to use grammar structures accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately.” (Teaching Language: from Grammar to Grammaring, Thomson Heinle, 2003, p.143)

How do you enthuse your students with regards to learning grammar? It would be great to hear from you.