Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Poh]

Hi everyone

I need your help.

I'm an English teacher and I am doing a presentation on "How NOT to teach grammar".

If you're an English learner, please help me. Think about the grammar lessons you did NOT like. Then answer the following questions:

1. What did the teacher do?
2. How did it make you feel?

Your information will help me (and other teachers) a lot.

Thanks in advance!

Peace
Poh

[zackzhou]

hi Poh:

I am an English learner, and I hope my experience helps you. Most of learners often do many different types of grammar excises, especially multiple-choice that contain an error related to grammar. However, I think these types of excises are not effective because many errors are not typical. In other words, some errors in these excises never appear in learners� writing and speaking. Although I am able to select the correct answer in these excises, I make some other mistakes in my writing and speaking. Consequently, I think teachers should find typical errors in students� writings, but not create grammar excises by using their own logics. Combining with my experience of learning English, I think different language has different logic. So, I hope my teacher instructs me to write by using English logic. For example, when I am trying to express �reach my potential�, I use the wrong phrase �excavate my potential� that is correct in my language� logic.

Hope that helps

[LucentShade]

That's interesting, zackzhou, I'll try to keep that in mind when I go back to teaching in the fall, even though I don't teach English. In a way, "excavate my potential" does make sense, at least to me.