Teacher Discussion Forums

We all know that grammar learning is basic for second language learners, since grammar learning can help a second language learner to construct a sentence correctly and understand others easier.

However, do you think it’s essential and suitable for teaching elementary school students grammar?

When teaching elementary age kids, a key thing to remember is that grammar rules, explanations, and other abstract talk about language must be approached with extreme caution. Children are focused on the here and now, the concrete; they think about the functional purposes of language. They have little appreciation for adult notions of "correctness" and they can't grasp the metalanguage we use to describe and explain linguistic concepts. So when grammar is taught, avoid using terms like "present progressive" or "indirect object pronouns". Don't explain rules in abstract terms (To make make a statment into a question, you add a do or does"). Instead, indicate grammatical concepts by pointing out certain patterns ("Notice the -ed at the end of the words.") and giving examples ("This is the way that we say it when it happend yesterday: 'I walked to school'"). It would be practical to keep in mind that complex grammatical explanations at the beginner and/or elementary level will most likely overwhelm students. Therefore, an inductive approach to grammar with suitable examples and patterns will be much more effective.