The faculty of english philology and translation studies

Build up your own subject knowledge
To teach grammar, you need explicit as well as implicit knowledge, to be confident about using the correct terms and explaining these. Don’t just learn the next term you are teaching. It is important to be able to relate new learning to other features and the text as a whole.
Give talk a high priority in your classroom
Children need to be able to select from a wardrobe of voices that includes Standard English.
Remember the purpose of teaching grammar
Grammar is not simply the naming of parts of speech or for teaching the rules of English. It needs to be strongly embedded in classroom talk, reading and writing.
Teach grammar in context
By introducing children to grammatical features and language in context, you will be helping them to internalise these principles. Try not to go for the ready-made solution by using a worksheet from a book. It will make very little difference to children’s use of language and will be meaningless for those learners who are not yet able to think in abstract ways.
Read aloud and discuss how authors use grammar
Children who read extensively and are read to will have a ‘toolbox’ of structures, patterns and rhythms to draw on.
Be systematic
Make sure you know what the class you are working with have already learned and what they need to learn now. Link new learning with their prior knowledge.
Make learning grammar fun
Teaching grammar can involve investigations, problem-solving and language play as part of developing children’s awareness of and interest in how language works.


1.2 Early methods on teaching grammar
Public institutions everywhere have been preaching the concept of grammar for years, yet for some mystical reason, society cannot seem to figure it out. If one is truly honest about the topic, he or she will have to admit that the collective grammar of this country is simply tragic. Into whose lap does this task fall? English teachers. Teaching English grammar to a group of students is a job that should grant super human status to any teacher who manages to do it successfully. There is a steaming buffet of options to pick from when it comes to choosing the best way to teach this age old and ever-relevant area of study. There is the new-age method of teaching grammar, which ironically doesn't actually teach grammar at all, but instead hopes students just sort of "pick it up" as they read different texts; then, there is a method somewhere in the middle, the "discuss some grammatical concept in a mini-lesson format, then analyze that concept as students read and write" method. Each method depends on who is doing the teaching, what kind of students occupy the classroom, and the demands of the school system, and each method has plenty to smile about and sneer upon.
The traditional method of teaching grammar is still very popular among experienced teachers and teachers that have been in the profession for a while. Everyone knows these kinds of teachers. They proclaim this world has gone to the deepest pits of hell in the roughest of hand baskets, and truly the rest of the teachers wonder why they are still teaching at all.
There are a few young, fresh, braves who enter the teaching field and follow the example set by their teachers in high school-- the traditional, grammar book, worksheet, right or wrong example. Regardless of whether they look at the student population and see the wasting away of society or a field of young and potential-filled flowers, these teachers see grammar as something that should be taught in isolation. It should be given its own time, its own unit, and its own space in the curriculum. Not incorrectly, they see their chosen field of study as something so highly important that it cannot be ignored nor tainted with other subjects; the students must learn it because, well, that's what students do: they learn grammar.
Well, there may be one fact these traditionalists are overlooking when it comes to teaching grammar. Why is it that students, when taught grammar the traditional, isolated way, have to be re-taught the same grammatical concepts year after year? It seems to the common observer that they're simply not learning it. They remember the concepts for the worksheet and the test but soon forget and have to learn the next year There is certainly something awry in this system. Are teachers wasting their time trying to fill young minds with grammatical facts? If they're not, then why do so many adults who have graduated high school and gone through years of repetitive grammar instruction display horrific grammatical skills.
Based on this information, many have decided to abandon the practice of teaching grammar altogether. They have brushed it off as worthless and have instead chosen to cross their fingers in hopes that if students read enough and write enough, they will start to naturally see the patterns of the English language. For some students, this may work. In fact, it may work for many students. However, teachers may collide into a problem with this system. In every state, teachers have a curriculum to follow, a list of "to-do's" These curriculum lists usually contain a set of pure grammatical skills that the students must learn, and unless the teacher wants to rebel against the curriculum that teacher must teach those things, the endless dilemmas of the English teachers would arise. For those teachers who are neither traditional nor rebellious, there is a middle road to grammar instruction. This type of instruction combines grammar with reading and writing as an everyday experience in the classroom. This method is very much dependent on the teacher's creativity and his or her ability to weave grammar into every other area of the English classroom. It is by no means the easiest way to teach grammar, but as research has shown, it may be the most effective. It is definitely the method that takes the most time and creativity on the part of the teacher, but for a dedicated professional, these are both secondary concerns to the level of learning the students achieve. There are teachers who make the traditional method work; somehow they have found a way to get bits of information to implant themselves into student minds like tiny eggs of precious information. There are teachers who don't handle grammar at all, but they make their students read enough and write enough that somehow they pass their state tests and grow up with a basic knowledge of the concepts, and there are teachers who creatively combine grammar to other classroom activities.
Learning and teaching grammar requires some creativity in order to make learning grammar a communicative process (The way to learn is to do. Learn by doing. Doing is learning) So this would depend the grammar structure you are targeting, the learners' level, and what "learning grammar" means to the learner. Traditional method book exercises and worksheets are, also, helpful. A multi-faceted approach is practical. Grammar should be part of an integrated approach. Of course, there is any number of ways to consider an integrated approach. And, also, grammar items should not be taught in isolation. They can be, but in rigidly adhering to doing just one thing at a time. A target structure or target structures indicate direction and focus but other things may come up along the way and there's no sense, of course, in ignoring them. Speaking is primary, and learning to use grammar should be integrated with speaking practice. Combine functions of language with grammar instruction. Still grammar requires some separate attention and focus apart from everything else in order to ensure a solid understanding. What is "modern" outside of an integrative approach which has a strong focus on grammar as a base and facilitating conversation in learning vocabulary, tenses, and sentence structure?
Most grammatical errors of non-native speakers of English would not be found among native speakers of English. Non-native speakers of English require explicit instruction in grammar forms, the meaning of those forms, and how and when to use the forms. Native speakers of English don't require this A point of instruction that may be common to both non-native speakers of English and native speakers of English would be utilizing the variety of grammatical forms, combined with lexical choices, to produce better writing or to be a more articulate speaker. However, even for this purpose, the needs of native speakers and non-native speakers would not always be in alignment.
Sentence combining is the strategy of joining short sentences into longer, more complex sentences. As students engage in sentence-combining activities, they learn how to vary sentence structure in order to change meaning and style. Numerous studies (Mellon, 1969; O'Hare, 1973; Cooper, 1975; Shaughnessy, 1977; Hillocks, 1986; Strong, 1986) show that the use of sentence combining is an effective method for improving students' writing. The value of sentence combining is most evident as students recognize the effect of sentence variety (beginnings, lengths, complexities) in their own writing. Hillocks (1986) states that "sentence combining practice provides writers with systematic knowledge of syntactic possibilities, the access to which allows them to sort through alternatives in their heads as well as on paper and to choose those which are most apt" (150). Research also shows that sentence combining is more effective than freewriting in enhancing the quality of student writing (Hillocks, 1986).Hillocks and Smith (1991) show that systematic practice in sentence combining can increase students' knowledge of syntactic structures as well as improve the quality of their sentences, particularly when stylistic effects are discussed as well. Sentence-combining exercises can be either written or oral, structured or unstructured. Structured sentence-combining exercises give students more guidance in ways to create the new sentences; unstructured sentence-combining exercises allow for more variation, but they still require students to create logical, meaningful sentences. Hillocks (1986) reports that in many studies, sentence-combining exercises produce significant increases in students' sentence-writing maturity.
The first approach in teaching grammar is the deductive approach. This is also called 'rule-driven learning’. Schwarz (2014) stated thatthis approach is the academic and scholarly one that was devised in order to teach Latin and Greek. The approach is very simple, starting from rules to examples. First, the teacher writes an example on the board or draws attention to the example in the textbook. The underlying rule is explained, nearly always in the mother tongue and using the meta-language of grammar. Finally, the students practice applying the rule, orally and in writing. Special attention is paid to areas of conflict between the grammar of the mother tongue and that of the target language. The whole approach is cognitive, with learners considering the rules and weighing their words before they speak or write. Little attention is paid to the value of the message.
Furthermore, Christensson and Seiberling (2021) studied about Focus on Forms approach in teaching grammar. This approach involves drawing learners' attention to grammatical forms by giving the learner's grammar rules. They added that the planned Focus on Form approach makes a communicative-based task that brings out the use of a specific grammatical form by the learners. This approach uses the Presentation-Practice-Production PPP technique. It is a framework for teaching grammar. Although PPP lessons provide skills, most students, according to Richards and Rodgers (2014, as cited by Pham and Do 2021), are unable to communicate effectively in English. In addition, a number of students have shown that they felt difficult to study grammar and that it is a kind of demotivating factor in their studies.
The next approach is the inductive approach. This approach is also called the 'rule developing' approach. Schwarz (2014) stated that this approach induces the learners to realize grammar rules without any form of prior explanation. The path is from examples to rules. Induction, or learning through experience, is seen as the natural route to learning. Teachers who use this approach believe that the rules will become evident if learners are given or exposed to enough appropriate examples. When teaching a grammar point, the first step is to demonstrate the meaning to the class. The teacher keeps silent through this stage except to correct if necessary. The grammar point is shown on the board only after extensive practice. Explanations are not always made, though they may be elicited from the students themselves. In such cases, the mother tongue might well be used. The model is copied and the class may be required to write sample sentences from the model.