How do I teach grammar?

How do I teach grammar?

Rationale:

1)      Human brains constantly look for patterns;

2)      Grammatical patterns are related to functional language use

Do we teach grammar? To answer this question, first, we need to define what grammar is in K-12 classroom practice, how much and to whom should it be taught, and more importantly, how it should be taught.

We don’t teach grammatical jargon to students. We do teach sentence patterns, related functions and usage of patterns.

We would not teach grammar to elementary school learners. But high school students do learn English grammar in their English classes. Many students have experience learning other foreign languages. If a teacher wants to take advantage of conscious learning to make connections and comparisons to the dominant language or other foreign language experience of high school students, why not?

Grammatical structures are frameworks for functional language use. Linguistic knowledge is part of proficiency. Grammatical patterns should not be the starting point or the focal point of teaching but should be identified to assist and expand functional use of the language.

During classroom instruction, we point out grammatical structures for functional use and through functional use. We also help students to summarize grammatical structures for and through comparative study. We also purposely select and group necessary grammatical structure to help students to develop functional coherent discourse. When teaching visual images(characters), concepts and sentence structures alike, teach most effectively by creating contexts that are meaningful to learners. Offer constant opportunity for learners to discover patterns of language and in language use (you design, but make it seem incidental.) In these cases, the teacher does not have to explain much about grammar. But is it being taught? Yes.