Teaching Grammar in the ESL Classroom.

WHY IS GRAMMAR IMPORTANT?

When people communicate verbally, they are judged not only on what they say but also how they say it. That is why it is important for people to know correct grammar. Using correct grammar allows a person to communicate his or her thoughts clearly. It also makes a person appear more intelligent; therefore, people will pay more attention to that person. For example, if someone turns in a resume with spelling and grammatical errors, it could cost that person the chance at a job. If a scientist makes a breakthrough discovery and writes about it with multiple grammatical errors, people could be skeptical of his or her credibility. If President Obama were to call for Health Care Reform in a speech laced with grammatical errors, it would undoubtedly affect his persuasiveness. For these reasons, learning and using proper grammar is essential to verbal communication.

HOW DO I TEACH GRAMMAR?

I believe that the best way to teach grammar is to teach students a process when dealing with certain elements. When I taught Spanish, I emphasized subject-verb agreement very heavily. I would do the same when teaching English. I have had the privilege of observing an ESL teacher a few times, and I like the way that she teaches grammar. She taught her ESL students the prepositions at the beginning of the year, and had them memorize them. Now, when they work with sentences, they have to find the prepositional phrases and put parentheses around them. Then, they have to determine whether or not the subject and verb agree in the sentence. If not, they must correct it. The second time that I went to observe her, I noticed that she had added something to the process. Now, after locating and isolating the prepositional phrases, the students have to find the first noun in the sentence and change it to a pronoun. Changing the noun to a pronoun makes conjugating the verb easier for some students. Another means of learning grammar and vocabulary is Rosetta Stone. I have used Rosetta Stone before, and I really like how it teaches languages. A person learns a language similar to the way we all learn as young children. The native language is never used in the learning process. A person simply learns by trial and error. I have not seen the upper levels of it, but the beginner levels would be great for a student that is new to ESL and knows very little to no English.

When I get my own classroom, I plan on teaching a deductive thought process such as the one Mrs. Vincent (the ESL teacher that I observed) teaches her students. I believe that this is the best way for students in the 6th grade or higher to learn. Also, I would like to try Rosetta Stone with some of the beginning level ESL students. I hope to continue learning strategies from the best ESL teachers so that I can implement them into my classroom.