Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi there,

I wanted to know how much time would you usually spend to teach a grammar point or a skill.

I work in a public school in NJ teaching ESL to mainly Asian students.

Depends on the grammar involved, but I myself generally don't explicitly teach grammar (especially not to elementary school-age kids), but rather find "strong" contexts and related functional phrases that hopefully will exemplify the necessary and intended meanings in and by themselves, that I later can and do refer back to as I "recycle" the "grammar" as it occurs with other "lexis" (the scare quotes mean that I take a "lexicogrammatical" view of language, and thus endeavour to include and cover high-frequency lexis in as many "repetitive" contexts as necessary - that is, the grammar involved with and revolving around say noun phrases will be something that obviously crops up a lot, and can have attention drawn to it as often as seems necessary, rather than being supposedly "covered" (no hope!) in a forced, intensive lesson or two).

Might be of interest:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic ... 217#646217

Bear in mind though that I was working as an "Assistant" English teacher (AET) in Japanese elementary schools (an EFL rather than ESL context).

I don't know that there is a specific equation for how long. Some grammar points are more salient and some are much harder to grasp. For example the idea of plural and singular for your Asian students might be very difficult since they don't differentiate between the two, at least in Japanese and Korean (maybe others).

I wouldn't spend too much time on trying to get perfection on a particular form, but I never feel like I need to move on if the students aren't ready.

- Mark

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I'm more like fluffy hamster in my approach to grammar with kids - I present it within sentences and the kids use it, without necessarily realising that they are learning grammar.

I usually work on something for at least two lessons and then make sure I keep on revising it constantly after that. I find that students don't remember what they did at the beginning of term if you don't have it cropping up briefly throughout the term.

Shelley
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