Best Practices for Teaching Grammar

Grammar is one of the subjects with no definite blueprint method for teaching despite years of research and practice. Grammar is the building block of communication and writing skills, and it helps to craft words into meaningful sentences and sentences into meaningful paragraphs. Good grammar knowledge is necessary for good communication skills and those who aspire to be a writer. The expectation from teachers is to enrich their teaching grammar methodology and develop it into classroom practices. The explicit crystal knowledge of grammar is vital as it gives us more conscious control and choice in our understanding. Good knowledge of grammar is fundamental to becoming a linguist. 

Practices for Teaching Grammar:

Teachers should avoid correcting while speaking:

Correcting students while they speak is of no use as it decreases their confidence, and they become unwilling to talk again. Rather than this, teachers should note the grammatical error for each individual and correct them after they have finished. Tell them their mistakes and provide the best ways to fix them. A student tends to work hard and improve their marks. If the teacher corrects all errors, students don’t need to edit by themselves.

Teach Grammer with authentic writing:

The best way to make students remember something is by writing. If students are writing a story, teach how to punctuate dialogue and write the summary in their language.

Teach Grammar as a tool to make meaningful sentences:

Teach students Grammar to combine words and meaningful sentences rather than focusing too much on differentiating between the use of shall and will. Focus on significant issues like arranging the word order to make meaningful sentences, correct punctuations, prepositions, conjunctions, etc.

Practice is the best way to make it fluent:

You can only achieve excellence in any subject with practice, and the same goes with Grammar. The teacher should assign writing stories and prepare quizzes of prepositions, articles, conjunctions, etc.

Offer Elective courses:

Provide elective courses or activities that allow students to discover more about the language and find interesting questions. Emphasize those aspects of Grammar that are not available in the ordinary course.

Incorporate the culture of reading aloud:

When students read aloud, the first thing teachers can improve is their pronunciation. Stop momentarily to discuss the conventions and what the writer wants to say. Ask students to explain what the punctuation marks suggest about the characters, tone, mood, etc. It will also develop the writing capability of a student.

Explain grammatical terms through examples:

Students should identify nouns, verbs, pronouns, etc., but the teacher should make it easily understandable by using suitable examples. Once a student understands these things perfectly, it paves the path for further study and allows them to write within their oracy.

Teach and evaluate one skill at a time:

Do not overwhelm the students with too many rules and practices. Instead, focus on a single set of rules and give them a reasonable amount of time to practice until they feel confident about those rules. While evaluating writing correctness, focus on those rules taught in the class.