Republic of the Philippines

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

THE NATIONAL ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

Chapter 2 Methods of Teaching Grammar

Indeed, teaching and learning grammar can create anxieties and frustrations to both teachers and
learners. When teachers don’t exactly know how to manage a grammar class and students can barely learn
from teachers, grammar teaching and learning would be disastrous.

As future English teachers, it is important that you are well-versed with different methods of
teaching grammar to promote better language learning among students and develop a sense of fulfillment
in your role as grammar lessons a lot more interesting and fun.

1. Diagramming sentences

Diagramming sentences is visualizing how to fit together the different parts of a sentence. The
subject of a clause goes in one slot, the verb in another, and so on. Words that modify another word are
attached to the word they modify.

Sentence diagramming is valuable for both English grammar students and teachers. To put in a
diagram words in the sentences forces the learners to identify the logical connections between different
parts of the sentence. It is a form of sentence analysis which requires one to take the sentence apart and
show relationship of each word to the rest of the sentence. It helps students understand how a sentence
works by breaking it down to the component pieces. It is like a puzzle which is not solved until all the parts
are in the right place, and none are left over. However, there has been a shift in the practice of diagramming.
It loses its popularity in the modern times and teachers no longer use diagram and instead focus on teaching
the rules of grammar.

How do you diagram sentences?

Here are the basic rules in diagramming sentences.

1. Identify the sentence elements.

2. Place the subject, verb and direct object together and underline them.
3. Separate the subject from the verb with a vertical line that crosses the underline.
4. Separate the direct object from the verb with a vertical line that does not cross the
underline.
5. Keep adjectives and articles with the noun they modify and place them on separate
diagonal lines touching the word they modify.

Learn more about diagramming for detailed demonstration on diagramming sentences, kindly visit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GcnFxnXniY

2. Learning through writing

EED 213 – THE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF GRAMMAR 1

 Republic of the Philippines
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
THE NATIONAL ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

What does writing to learn mean? Writing can provide a unique opportunity to develop critical
thinking skills. Writing promotes both critical thinking and learning. Writing to communicate or transactional
writing means writing to accomplish something such as to inform, instruct, or persuade but writing to learn
is different. We write to ourselves and talk to others at the same time, and this expressive language does
not function to communicate but to order and represent experience to our understanding.

In this sense, language provides us with a unique way of knowing and becomes a tool for
discovering, for shaping meaning and for teaching understanding. Students explore language through
creative writing, picking up grammar usage along the way and if there are specific problems with certain
grammatical rules, it will be covered in a more structured lesson.

Example: The Reading Journal

Students use the first half of page an opened notebook for recording what the reading is about to
practice noting key details, identifying main ideas, summarizing among others and other crucial reading
skills while on the other half of the page, students jot down any questions they have or any connections
they can make between readings. They have to apply grammatical rules in their own writing.

3. Inductive Teaching

Step 1. Present several examples that illustrate a particular concept.

Step 2. Students must observe how the concept works from these examples.

Step 3. Concept must not be explained beforehand.

Step 4. Students are expected to recognize the rule of grammar in a more natural way.

The main goal of the inductive teaching method is the retention of grammar concepts, with teachers
using techniques that are known to work cognitively and make an impression on students’ contextual
memory.

4. Deductive Teaching

The deductive method of teaching grammar focuses on instruction before practice.

Step 1. A teacher gives an in-depth explanation of a grammatical concept before students

could encounter the same grammatical concept of their own writing.

Step 2. After the lesson, students practice what they have just been shown through
worksheets and exercises.

This type of teaching has many people rethink such methods, as more post-secondary level
students are revealing sub-par literacy skills in adulthood. Deductive teaching methods drive many students
away from writing because of the tediousness of rote learning and teacher-centered approach.

5. Interactive Teaching

This method allows teachers to tailor their lessons to the different learning styles of students. For
instance, each student can be given a large flashcard with a word on it and the students, themselves, must

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 Republic of the Philippines
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
THE NATIONAL ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

physically arrange these into a proper sentence. Other games can include word puzzles or fun online
quizzes.

6. Functional-notional approach

When designing a lesson, teachers often choose real-world situation as their “notion,” and choose
corresponding functions to teach to prepare students to communicate in that situation in the lesson. For
example, a lesson might be about how to buy something at a shop, in which case its notion is shopping
and one of its functions might be asking prices.

7. Situational contexts

Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (2011) said context can be linguistic and situational. Linguistic
content is about the information that was formally written or spoken and situational context is the general
knowledge that a person has of the world.

8. Using texts, stories, songs, and rhymes

There are different ways of using songs in the classroom. The level of the students, the interests
and the age of the learners, the grammar point to be studied and the song itself have determinant roles on
the procedure. Apart from them, it mainly depends on the creativity of the teacher.

At the primary level of singing the song, the prosodic features of the language is emphasized. At
the higher levels, where the practice of grammar points is at the foreground songs can be used with several
techniques. Some examples of these techniques are:

• Gap fills or close texts

• Focus questions
• True-false statements
• Put these lines into the correct sequence
• Dictation
• Add a final verse
• Circle the antonyms/synonyms of the given words
• Discuss

9. PPP

A deductive approach often fits into a lesson structure known as PPP (Presentation, Practice,
Production). The teacher presents the target language and then gives students the opportunity to practice
it through very controlled activities. Presentation involves building a situation that requires a natural and
logical use of a new language. It is in the presentation stage that students know what they will learn and
why. Practice involves testing the procedure so students can be familiar with the language. In this stage,
students will be provided with activities that can make them use the new language. The production stage,
being the most important stage, students here shall have made the transition from “learners” to becoming
“users” of the language. This stage involves creating situations using the language that was introduced in
the presentation to help student communicate meaning using the new language.

EED 213 – THE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF GRAMMAR 3

 Republic of the Philippines
BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
THE NATIONAL ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

Modes of Teaching Grammar

1. Linguistic Mode

Students must be familiar about the use of structures so that they will understand.

Larsen-Freeman (2002, 2014) maintained that students must know about the use of structures so
that they will understand the consequences of their choices because the grammatical system offers its
users choices in how they wish to realize meanings and positions themselves ideologically and socially.
Therefore, grammar teaching should not only for understanding the rules but also for inducing the reasons
of different sentence formations in different contexts.

2. Story-telling mode

A grammar lesson is not complete without an application stage. Ur (1988) shared that application
is believed to require “volume and repetition”; that is, learners need to be given adequate opportunities to
use the items to be learnt as much as possible. Teachers should help learners make he leap from form-
focused accuracy to meaning-focused fluency after explicit instructions by providing a variety of practice
activities that will familiarize the learners with structure in contexts, giving practice both in form and
communicate meaning. (Ur, 1996) Story Telling mode is an effective way to apply what students learn to
real communication.

EED 213 – THE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF GRAMMAR 4