Courses TESOL Lessons

Learning GrammarLet’s face it – learning grammar is not fun! And english grammar is difficult! Though Teaching english as a Foreign Language (TEFL) gives a teacher one advantage, that is the students already speak one language; many TEFL classrooms may contain students with various language skills, educational backgrounds, and experiences that can make learning grammar difficult. But grammar must be incorporated into a TEFL classroom, regardless of level, to ensure that the students have the appropriate structure to speak the language. As a teacher, it’s important to know the different impediments and various strategies that will assist students to grasp english grammar. There are various reasons and degrees of difficulty that students will experience when trying to learn english grammar. For example, students that are fluent in Latin based languages, like italian, spanish, and french will find it easy to identify the written english alphabet. But students from other countries may have a completely different alpha-numeric system, which makes english letters more difficult for them to understand. Grouping these ‘strange’ english letters can be a daunting task for some foreign students. If possible, teachers may relate the sounds of some of the students’ own language to the sounds of english letters. This may help them see that, though the english letter looks different, it may sound like a similar letter in their alphabet. Making the new letters, words, and grammar concepts as simple as possible will help students to overcome some of the difficulties in learning english. english grammar is also very complex. There are many exceptions to the rule in the english language. Additionally, probabilities, future tenses, past participle tenses, etc. may not play a role in the students’ fluent language, so these concepts may be completely new for them. It will help these students if the teacher provides visual materials to help them understand the concept. For example, when talking about the past and future tenses, the teacher could show a picture of a calendar and circle the current day’s date. Then reference the calendar when introducing sentences in the past and future. Shaking your head, making gestures, saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ can also help communicate concepts. It’s important to have a full arsenal of visual materials available to help the students understand the difficult sounds, letters, and grammatical structures. Visual materials help to simply the words and grammar concepts being taught. Consistency is another key factor to consider. For example, when teaching adult learners new adjectives, write the sentence structure on the board: Noun + Verb + Adjective, then give examples: She is pretty. She is tall. When introducing new adjectives, this process should help them know where to place the adjective in the sentence. Though a teacher should not use jargon when explaining grammar to students, it will help the students to learn some very basic words, like noun, verb, etc. when they try to build sentences, particularly for adult learners. Giving students consistent patterns helps them form appropriate sentences and in turn the grammatical pattern. To teach grammar in a fun way, it must be explained in simple terms and the activities should incorporate some games, songs, funny worksheets and/or dialogs. When people are smiling, they tend to learn the material easier and remember the lesson content. Listed below are sample websites that contain free worksheets and game ideas: http://www.billybear4kids.com/worksheets/start.html http://www.mes-english.com/worksheets/ http://www.toolsforeducators.com/ The Internet is full of interesting games, worksheets, and teaching strategies and should be utilized by a TEFL teacher if at all possible. Other teachers can also provide fun ideas that the teacher may not have been able to devise on his/her own. If the students are enjoying the lessons, they are more likely to learn. Making grammar fun in the classroom is a key element to motivating students to understand difficult grammar lessons. By understanding the difficulties that the students may encounter, keeping the lessons simple, being consistent in your methodology and explanations, and making the lessons fun, a teacher can provide a successful learning experience for the students - even if the topic is english grammar.