teaching grammar

I believe teaching grammar in a creative and engaging way should be a duty for both novice and experienced teachers. I have been teaching English for almost twenty years and I have already seen different reactions of students to grammar lessons. When I taught grammar beginning with presenting the rule first just to move on to do drills and other boring exercises I could see them yawning and I must say this is the worst sight that any teacher can be exposed to. Using methods such as storytelling, dictogloss or even preparing grammar lessons based on songs can really make  a difference. Once I also used jokes and I think using humour has the power to energize students and bring positive outcomes that is basically correct use of particular grammar structures.

When teaching grammar teachers should bear in mind that students have different learning styles and use different learning strategies. That is why the mode of teaching grammar should be changed to cater for different learning needs. Teachers' task is to make things as memorable as possible and referring to emotions and to both their own and students' experience will contribute to the acquisition of grammar


The authors of 'Teaching Grammar Creatively' suggest introducing memory enhancing activities while teaching grammar which confirms that fact that teachers should equip students with proper strategies. They mention for example the technique called anchoring. The technique is desribed in detail on pg 11 of the introduction to this excellent book but I especially like the part where students prepare a gapped version of their own text. I sometimes   use this technique and its variations and ask students to prepare their own grammar exercise. Of course it needs to be introduced gradually and students will need a lo of support first but I believe that if students prepare their own exercises that will be even used during a test they are more probable to memorize the patterns and consequently use them correctly.