You don’t have to be a grammar expert to help your students with the grammar in their writing.
During the week of Jan. 15-19, 2018, each day, I was interviewed online at LINCS about teaching grammar.
You can read the discussion at this link: LINCS discussion about grammar
The topics were:
Jan. 15: Inductive teaching
Jan. 16: Importance of grammar terminology
Jan. 17: Ear-learners
Jan. 18: Leading students to finding grammar mistakes
Jan. 19: The connection between reading and learning grammar
Each day, I mentioned handout exercises related to that days topic, and I made these available in this posting below.
To see the handouts and read more information about the topics, please read below.
Monday, January 15th handouts
For Units 4 & 6, some students have preferred to work on them individually and others in small groups. Both styles have been effective. At the same time, the teachers do not present the grammar lessons in a teacher-fronted style. They merely read the title and then students start working on their own or in small groups.
For Unit 5, students are in groups of three (Students A, B, C) and each is given one of the worksheets. Before starting, you may want to do the first two or three items together to make sure they understand the format.
The source of these exercises is Pro Lingua Learning Grammar Review Book
For more details and exercises about an inductive approach to teaching grammar, see Inductive Grammar: Why are there commas in these sentences? Here are some clues. What’s the rule?
For more details about using “Grammar Group,” see Engaging grammar group activities (even for hesitant students)
Tuesday, January 16th handouts
This is an example of a lower-level grammar groups activity working with grammar terminology. Unit 5 Grammar Groups
This is an example of an advanced-level grammar groups activity. Grammar Groups Activity Commas
This an example of inductive exercises for learning clauses and conjunctions
Unit 11 inductive clauses and conjunctions
Sample Grammar Terms Quiz
Wednesday, January 17th handouts
This is the grant report my colleagues and I wrote, “Transitioning Immigrant Students into Academic ESL Writing Coursework: A Non-Traditional Approach to Grammar Instruction.” Grant Report non-traditional approach
Click here to see sample exercises of the four aspects: Sample exercises for the four Aspects
Aspect 1: Inductive rather than deductive thinking.
Aspect 2: Analytical rather than pattern practice.
Aspect 3 Multi-sensory rather than visual only.
Aspect 4 Paragraph-level, rather than just sentence-level, application
The grant study and the four aspects were the basis for my textbook: Pro Lingua Learning Grammar Review Book
Thursday, January 17th handouts
You can see samples of the conferencing technique in this posting: How to lead ESL Students to Discover their Grammar Mistakes on Writing Assignments
You’ll see samples from too books for training teachers and tutors in this approach: Handbook: Grammar Conferencing Techniques for Teachers and Tutors and Training Guide: Grammar Conferencing Techniques for Teachers and Tutors.
If you’d like a copy of them, please send me a message through “Contact” on this site, and I’ll be happy to send you them via email attachment.
This handout exercise has been effective for introducing students to how to use margin codes to lead them to editing their papers. Margin coded grammar mistakes Exercise
Friday, January 17th handouts
This is a sample of the reading journal assignment that I give my students: Sample reading journals assignment
This is the job description of a Reading Journal Reader: Reading Journal Reader job description
These are two samples of students’ reading journal entries with the Reading Journal Readers comments: Sample Reading Journal comments
David Kehe
*About the free-download materials. During my 40 years of teaching ESL, I have had many colleagues who were very generous with their time, advice and materials. These downloads are my way of paying it forward.
Common Sense Teaching ESL 