Title: An English language teacher should have a very sound knowledge of grammar t o enable him/her to become an effective English

Teacher. Discuss and provide examples to support your discussion

Learn the grammar is essential for the good communication skills. So teachers in the class should concentrate on grammar

I agree with both posters. I think the way to teach grammar is to USE IT. A lot. I really like writing workshops where kids write, write, write, and then listen to mini-lessons that focus daily on little things they can do to improve their writing, grammar included. The other way, of course, is to read a lot. I do wonder what effect all the "shortcuts" in texting, etc. have on grammar. How can we expect students to write properly when the majority of their writing is through texting and as far from "proper" as you can get?

I've noticed the same thing with my former students. I would teach a grammar lesson, we'd practice it, quiz on it, and it looked like the students knew the topic well. Then, in their writing they promptly forgot about what they learned. In teaching the writing process, I use peer groups to conference and proofread. Usually I arrange the group heterogeneously. There is frequently a student response sheet on which the peer points out any grammar errors that have been the focus in class. Of a group of four, at least one (or more) of the students can catch the majority of the errors and is a good enough student that their own writing is fairly correct. I've even had some of my less talented English students catch their peers in a mistake. All this is done in the manner of cooperatively assisting each other to write their best.

As most of the previous contributors have mentioned, "practice makes perfect" when it comes to learning grammar through writing. The same concept applies with learning vocabulary -learning the words alone is good for rote memorization, but learning vocabulary in context, either through reading or writing -- allows the students to actually LEARN the material.

As anthonda49 mentioned, peer reviews are excellent ways for students to learn how to actually use grammar and to apply grammatical concepts to writing. On your teacher-created peer review sheets, perhaps ask students to look for certain phrases or clauses, to count the number of helping verbs, etcetera. Some teachers even choose to focus on one or two grammatical concepts at a time when creating rubrics for grading writing assignments. When students receive consistent feedback -- from teachers and from their peers -- they usually respond positively.

To put it another way, grammar should make learning a language easier, rather than more difficult

Grammar is often a matter of transference. Students may seem to have "mastered" it in a drill-and-kill worksheet, but may not be able to apply it to their own writing. Too often, grammar instruction is too polarized--it either happens solely through sentence diagramming and drill-and-kill worksheets or it doesn't happen at all. I completely agree that the ultimate goal must be for students to apply these grammatical rules and concepts in their own writing. Certainly, we need to be teaching students grammatical rules and concepts, but that should be done one rule at a time and when the need arises (in other words, when evidenced in student writing). I've found these rules and concepts best taught in short, mini-lessons. We then look back through literature that we have read, looking for examples of those rules and concepts in practice. Finally, we return to our writing portfolios looking for places in our own writing where we might revise and apply the rule or concept. It isn't a perfect protocol, but it seems to work and students seem to retain both the rule and the ability to apply the rule.
A graduate school professor told his English majors, "Do not teach grammar. Teach writing." This method of teaching a type of "grammar in action" is effective many times. If you are a teacher, teach students rules of grammar, but give them examples first. I think inductive method would be more effective. Implementation of those grammatical rules will be seen to be projected in their writing, so, let them practise writing more. Ask them to create sentences on their own following a certain rule. Check them. Then let them go through open-ended writings more.

When discussing effective grammar instruction, it's necessary to understand the difference between declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge.

Declarative knowledge is knowledge about a particular subject area. In reference to grammar studies, declarative knowledge indicates a student's ability to memorize grammar rules. Procedural knowledge is the ability to do something specific. In reference to grammar studies, procedural knowledge indicates the ability to correctly use grammar in everyday life.

In order to truly master English grammar, a student must have both declarative and procedural knowledge

A Change in Teaching Philosophies

The way grammar is typically taught in schools today is most likely very different from how you learned basic grammar rules. Although declarative knowledge was once the primary goal of grammar instruction, today's teachers now place a greater importance on helping students develop procedural knowledge. Traditionally, English grammar was viewed as a separate part of the educational experience. Teachers helped students learn by requiring regular substitution or pattern practice drills and diagramming sentences. Memorization was a key part of grammar instruction, with frequent quizzes and worksheets available to test a student's mastery of grammar rules. This philosophy is sometimes referred to as prescriptive grammar instruction. Today, grammar is viewed as an essential communication tool. Instead of viewing grammar as a separate area of study, teachers often strive to integrate grammar instruction into other subject areas. Drills are minimal, often replaced by a practical discussion of how grammar can be used to aid in effective communication or how grammar is used in a particular piece of literature. This philosophy is sometimes referred to as descriptive grammar instruction. Even though the hands-on knowledge students gain from descriptive grammar instruction can be quite valuable, it is interesting to note that this modern approach to teaching English grammar is not without its critics. In fact, many people believe the current pedagogical approach has led to an overall loosening of grammar standards. However, this has yet to be conclusively proven.

Tips for Teaching Grammar

If you're interested in helping your child develop a better understanding of English grammar, remember the following tips:

Don't use worksheets to measure knowledge. Grammar worksheets are fine for practicing basic concepts, but worksheets place too much emphasis on simple memorization. They fail to help students develop the critical thinking skills necessary for applying the rules of grammar to real life situations. Teach grammar in the context of good writing. Encourage your child to write stories and poems, using his work as a starting point for grammar instruction. Relating grammar to a subject that interests your child will help him see grammatical rules as both practical and relevant. Stress communicative competence. If you are reading a story with your child, use the text as an opportunity to discuss irregular verbs, proper pronunciation, and any other related grammar concepts. Reading also provides a chance to reinforce that good grammar is a building block writers use to effectively communicate their ideas. Use error correction to support language acquisition. If your child is discussing his day at school and makes a grammatical error, respond by using the correct grammar form and providing a brief explanation if necessary. However, it's best to avoid overstressing minor mistakes that don't interfere with communication. You don't want your child to view learning grammar as something to be reprimanded.

There are several reasons we need a well knowledge grammar teacher to improve understanding of the rules of grammar in students. For example:

Without good grammar, clear communication is nearly impossible. Proper grammar keeps you from being misunderstood while expressing your thoughts and ideas. Writing and speaking correctly gives you the appearance of credibility. If you're attempting to build a reputation as an expert in your profession, this is extremely important. Other people consider good grammar to be a mark of intelligence and education. Don't allow strangers to form a negative impression of you based on your poor communication skills.

Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to learning English grammar. While there are many spelling and grammar check software programs available, a computer can't fully grasp the intricacies of the English language. In some cases, a computer grammar check will even suggest incorrect alternatives when attempting to fix common errors.

To Teach or Not to Teach (Grammar)No Longer the Question There was a time, not so long ago, when virtually every high school English teacher who heard the word "grammar" could immediately recall Warriner's, diagramming sentences, and endless skill and drill exercises. These teachers embraced the notion of prescriptive (also called traditional or school) grammar. Grammar was taught as a discrete set of rigid rules to be memorized, practiced, and followed. During the height of the whole language movement, when teaching grammar in isolation became taboo, these teachers were left frustrated and baffled by the lack of grammar instruction in the classroom. English teachers of later generations, on the other hand, joined the profession embracing ideas of descriptive (also called transformational) grammar. These teachers believed that grammar instruction should be matched to the purpose of the user. Teachers found descriptive grammar theories to be more flexible, reflecting actual usage and self-expression over "correct" structures. Some people credit the descriptive approach with a general loosening of rules regarding grammatical structures that were once considered unacceptable, such as split infinitives. The Importance of Grammar With the widespread institution of standards and high-stakes tests, students are expected to recognize and use correct grammar.

Educators can no longer afford to assume that students acquire an accurate understanding of formal language structures through reading, writing, and speaking. Furthermore, they also cannot assume that prescriptive or descriptive approaches, in isolation, are singularly effective. Rather, English and language arts teachers must embrace the notion that grammar instruction, like any other content area, should reflect current pedagogical approaches. Grammar instruction should be tailor-made to meet the needs of students, and should weave both prescriptive and descriptive practices into relevant, meaningful instruction. Standards and Pre-Assessment Sound instructional practice begins with assessment and planning. Begin building your grammar instruction plan by comparing what students must know with what they already know.

Identify the standards. In this standards-driven era, your district or school curricula may dictate grammar skills to be taught at each grade level. If the skills are not labeled as grammar skills, use the proofreading/editing skills that are listed under writing standards. These standards clearly identify what your students must know and what you are responsible to teach. Determine what students know. The next step is to determine what your students already know through an assessment. Be careful with this assessment; it is easy to test surface knowledge of a grammar concept without testing the underlying knowledge. Many students will be able to recognize a sentence fragment as incorrect, but they may not know the concept by its correct name, why it is incorrect, or how to correct it. Design your assessment to reveal true understanding of the grammatical concepts. Plan instruction. Use the results of the pre-assessment to outline three to four grammar skills to focus on each week. The goal of effective grammar instruction is to weave it into the reading and writing that function as the backbone of the English curriculum. So, consider your pacing guide and embed grammar concepts logically into it.

Grammar Instruction Made Easy

The Daily Two Introduce grammar concepts through "the daily two." Write two sentences on the board each day that demonstrate a balance of correct and incorrect applications of the

concepts upon which you are focusing. Establish a routine that requires students to rewrite in a notebook the two sentences, making the necessary grammatical corrections as they write. As you review the sentences on Monday, present succinct, immediately applicable grammar instruction. Teach the correct vocabulary to describe the grammatical concept and explain the underlying rule, or prescription for application.

Each set of the remaining weekly sentences should be used to practice correct application of the grammatical concepts for that week, and reinforce concepts from previous weeks. While other minor problems might be included, such as end marks and beginning capitalization, the emphasis must be to practice and reinforce the major concepts. The Weekly Five Continue grammar instruction by expecting students to apply the grammatical concepts you are teaching in their own writing. If the concept is subject-verb agreement with an interrupting phrase, assign students to apply that construct in at least four sentences during an in-class writing assignment. Collect the papers and carefully select five papers appropriate in topic to be shared with the class. White out the student names and make enough copies of the paper for each student. Review with the students the grammar concepts found in the 'daily two' and ask students to proofread the student papers in search of either correct or incorrect application of those ideas, and then discuss.

One a Day

Finally, weave grammar instruction into reading instruction and study. Ask students to search for examples of the grammar concept in a piece of literature or nonfiction being read or studied by the class. Turn this into a contest by having pairs or small groups skim to locate examples of the concept to point out to the class. Ask students to explain how incorrect usage of grammar in the passage might affect the reader.

This article was contributed by Janice Christy, M.Ed., English Department Chair, Louisa County High School, Louisa, Virginia.

Effective Grammar Instruction in the Immersion Classroom

As language instructors we seem to face a paradox when teaching children to understand and communicate effectively in a second language. One the one hand we know that grammatical competency enables a person to be more precise in communicating meaning, especially when concepts become more complex. On the other we are aware that instruction is most effective when it is dynamic and meaningful not the description of what comes to mind when we think of typical grammar lessons. Therefore, our task is to merge these two apparently contradicting truisms about language acquisition in academic settings into techniques that honor both. The goal of this section of the grammar component is to offer suggestions to teachers that will help them in this difficult, yet necessary task. To attain the objectives of a truly holistic approach and meet students needs, immersion teachers balance instruction between proactive and reactive approaches. Proactive instruction is pre-planned and is best when organized to begin with noticing activities and followed with awareness activities (Lyster 2007) Noticing activities highlight target skills and the classroom environment is designed to draw learners attention these skills. Teachers model for students how to stop and notice the environmental features that she has put in place to aid in their acquisition of the target skill. These features may include the following:

Stressing the intonation of the target skill Providing representational gestures Color coding and bold-facing Making anchor posters with the students that offer reference points

It is important to remember that these and any other features of instruction are presented to the students to make their purpose explicit. Teachers also must regularly follow-up by modeling for the students how to stop, notice and use these available tools. Such activities serve to initiate the transition from implicit to explicit knowledge of the target language and to anchor it solidly in students consciousness to ensure easy access during language use (DeKeyser 1998). Noticing activities alone are insufficient without follow-up awareness activities. These activities develop students metalinguistic awareness enabling them to more easily internalize the various and complex elements of language use. Rule-discovery tasks are one such set of activities. An effective strategy for helping students in discovering and internalizing rules is comparing and contrasting their first language with their second (e.g. Day and Shapson 1996, DiCamilla and Anton 1997, Cummins 1998, Cook 2001). Cross-lingual comparisons can help clarify some second language distinctions (see figure 1). However it is important for the immersion teacher to remember that these cross-lingual comparisons are not done casually. Rather they are planned and specific time is set aside for them. Teachers make clear that this time is unique in that both languages are being used simultaneously for comparison purposes, but that the expectation during content instruction in the target language both languages are not to be used together.

Awareness activities also encompass a variety of follow-up language production practices that further heighten students awareness of given target language skills. These production practices should not be too cognitively taxing for the students. Examples may be: language games, role plays, and cooperative group-work with embedded language goals. Some more specific examples come from research on language learning; Harley (1989) suggests providing students with two illustrations representing actions at different times in a sequence. Students then write sentences conjugating verbs to match the illustrations. Eventually students illustrate and write their own to show their increasing mastery of a given language element. Beck (2002) describes the creation of instructional contexts that make the target vocabulary, forms and grammar structures more obvious to the students. Instructional context can be materials created by the teacher or texts that teachers find which tend to feature the target skills a Spanish language story that lends itself to the examination of the preterit and the imperfect past tenses would be a good example. Reactive instruction consists of unplanned activities that occur spontaneously as teachers seize upon opportunities to embed the proactive instruction in meaningful contexts (Lyster 2007). When this is done effectively language learning is enhanced. One common way to offer reactive instruction is with corrective feedback. When students are producing in the target language and make errors in a previously taught structure, immediate feedback is more likely to help a student internalize the skill. This is because postponement of the correction until a lesson is to be taught removes the skill from the very real context of discourse (Spada and Lightbown 1993). However, it is important to remember that correction that is simply a corrected restatement will lead only to a repetition of the corrected form by the student. This is far less likely to engage the student in a metalinguistic analysis of his usage. For this reason corrective feedback is more effective if self-repair is solicited through a prompt. A prompt is often a clarifying question in which the error is recast correctly. The expectation is that the student responds appropriately to the prompt and if he cannot he is reminded how to do so. Striving for self-repair in corrective feedback requires a deeper level of language processing and therefore has the potential to be more effective. Essentially, reactive instruction is a way to draw students attention to language with the intention of helping students say what they themselves had already decided to say (Lyster 1998). This is done effectively when language is being used in context in content classes. Brief interruptions to negotiate language form and structure without breaking the communicative flow that takes place in second language content instruction, trains students to be attentive to their emerging language skills as they use them. In conclusion, when teachers are explicit in the teaching of language forms and grammar structures (proactive approaches) it becomes natural practice for them to reinforce those forms and structures during the discourse that occurs content instruction (reactive approaches).