EFFECTIVE GRAMMAR FOR HIGH SCHOOL
There has been added focus on teaching grammar effectively, as the K to 12 program is being implemented fully and in light of the Asean integration and globalization. High school students, whether they are headed to college or into the workforce, need a command of standard English grammar. The best practice for teaching grammar in today's classroom is to provide grammar instruction in the context of writing lessons.
Today, in most high school classrooms, long gone are the days of sentence diagramming and Warriner's English Grammar and Composition textbooks. Decades of research showed that teaching grammar in isolation had no impact on improving how students used language. However, that doesn't mean students still don't need to speak and write well. Notice the phrasing: 'speak and write well' rather than 'speak and write good.' That's standard English grammar at work.
The best practice in teaching grammar today is to incorporate it into writing lessons. Constance Weaver, a professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and author of several books on grammar instruction including Teaching Grammar in Context, links grammar instruction to the way young children acquire language. They emulate the speech they hear.
In writing workshop classes, students learn grammar in short minilessons as they work on essays, stories, and poetry. When students learn grammar in the context of writing, they discover that skillful writers think about what they want to say and how they want to say it.
In their book Grammar for High School: A Sentence Composing Approach, Don and Jenny Killgallon from Johns Hopkins University, argue for teaching grammar by analyzing the work of great writers. Their idea works like this: find examples of various grammatical structures from authentic works of literature. Students can collaborate to uncover what the structure is and how the writer used it in the sentence. Then, teach them to imitate the structure in their writing.
It is no secret that teaching high school grammar is not the easiest task. Sure, there are the few select students who live for adverbs and conjunctions, but the rest of the students are simply taking a grammar class to meet the requirements for graduation. For this reason, teaching high school grammar is particularly challenging.
If grammar teachers simply try to teach grammar rules in a boring, traditional way, chances are the students will zone out. Instead of finishing the class being excellent writers, they will barely pass and poor grammar will haunt them into the future. Luckily, teaching high school grammar does not have to be boring. There are simple ways that high school grammar teachers can engage their students, and help them to retain the information as they enter the outside world.
Teachers should use real-life examples to draw the students in. Use the students’actual names and pair them with objects around the classroom. It is also a good idea to bring in popular local hangouts to get the students even more involved.
Another way to make grammar lessons more entertaining is to make them humorous. A teacher can do this by using jokes for examples or by creating a funny story about someone the students know, such as the school principal. When students are laughing, they are paying attention. Teach in color Identifying the parts of a sentence simply by labeling them is very tedious. Instead, create a color code for the students to use. For example, they can label all of the nouns red, the verbs green and the adjectives blue. Of course, this is just using basic sentence parts, but the concept can be integrated into any advanced grammar lesson. By color coding the sentences, teachers are not only making the lesson more fun, they are also helping the visual learners in the classroom.
Most people are competitive by nature, especially high school students. Teachers should take advantage of this trait by creating games that help the students learn the different grammar rules. Some ideas are to create a Jeopardy-type game, with simple questions and answers. Another idea is to have chalkboard races, where the class is divided into two teams that race each other to properly write out sentence diagrams. Teachers could also have sentences prepared that do not have any punctuation in them, and the students have to compete against each other to see who can properly punctuate the sentences the fastest. Each contest should have a prize of some sort to make it more motivating for the students. This can be something tangible, such as candy or soda, or it can simply be extra credit points or a pass to get out of a homework assignment.
Teaching high school grammar can be very challenging. However, if teachers are committed to making the experience relevant and rewarding for the students, they will see amazing results. Students will look forward to coming to class, they will behave better and they will achieve higher grades. Plus, the teacher will have a lot more fun teaching. --oOo-The author is Head Teacher III (English) at San Juan High School, Mexico, Pampanga