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Learn English Grammar Without Memorizing Grammar Rules
By Leslie Woodford

You’ve studied for several years, but trying to learn English grammar puts you to sleep.  You are starting to feel comfortable with the language. You understand most conversations and can follow the thread when watching movies; you can carry out your day-to-day activities and can interact with native speakers, but your English grammar needs work.

You’ve tried all the grammar books but haven’t made any progress. This article teaches you how to learn grammar without studying grammar rules. It assumes that you are surrounded by native English speakers. (You can still apply these tips if you are not, but you’ll have to work harder to create language opportunities.) Let’s get started: how to learn English grammar without memorizing grammar rules.

Lay the foundation: Read

How much do you read in English? Do you do any pleasure reading in English?  If not, start there. Ask the librarian at your local library to select books in English that match your current abilities. For example, if your conversational skills are at an intermediate level, i.e. you can speak on familiar topics, ask and answer simple questions, initiate and respond to simple statements, and carry on face-to-face discussions, I’d recommend that you start with children’s picture books. The pictures are engaging, and the stories entertaining. They are short enough for you to not get discouraged, and the language is varied enough to expose you to a rich pallet so you can learn English grammar and vocabulary.

I love Cinderella stories; many variations on this tale exist. Some of my favorites are Ella’s Big Chance: A Jazz-Age Cinderella by Kate Greenaway, Fanny’s Dream by Caralyn Buehner, and Bubba the Cowboy Prince by Helen Ketteman. Speaking of Helen Ketteman, I also love her Aunt Hilarity’s Bustle; besides being an entertaining story, this has a rich set of vocabulary.

If your English skills are at the advanced level, for example, you are able to participate freely in most casual and some work conversations, able to give simple directions or explanations at work, and able to talk about past and future events, then you might want to try young adult literature.

Keeping with the Cinderella theme, one of my favorites is Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.  I also love serial books — books that have more than one book in the same series — the Little House on the Prairie series is a timeless classic. The Harry Potter books have taken the world by storm; I’ve enjoyed them. If you undertake this series, you will certainly learn English grammar since some of the books have more than 500 pages.

If your skills are still at a beginner level, don’t fret. For example, if you are able to ask questions and make simple statements based on memorized sentences, understand conversation fragments and simple commands, then look for beginning readers.  Beginning readers are designed for children just learning to read. These books have simple vocabulary and short sentences.

Once you find the right level of books, start reading regularly.  I recommend reading at least twenty minutes per day.  As you do so, make mental notes of the grammar structure.  As you find grammar constructions that regularly puzzle you, note them on paper to discuss later with a native speaker.  It will help your pronunciation and fluency if you do at least part of your reading aloud. Keep reading.  As your skills improve, select books that are more difficult.

You might wonder how all this reading will help you learn English grammar. Jim Trelease is an expert on reading. In his book, The Read-Aloud Handbook, he explains how reading helps grammar: “Grammar is more caught than taught, and the way you catch it is the same way you catch the flu: you’re exposed to it” (6th edition p. 41). Think of these readings as English grammar exercises, the more you expose yourself to correct grammar, the more you’ll be able to use correct grammar.

Build your skills: Write

You may spend several months focusing on daily reading in English. Once daily reading becomes second nature, it will be time to turn your attention to writing. You’ll need a helper for this. Find a native speaker who can help you practice and drill you on English grammar exercises. This person will become your mentor. Choose someone who is patient and who can commit some time to help you learn. Look for someone who might have time available — a retired person, for example. Your mentor does not need to be a professional language teacher. In fact, it might be better to get someone who is not a professional because then she will not have pre-conceived ideas about how you should learn English grammar.

Eventually, you’ll want your mentor to create drills for you to practice grammar patterns that you find difficult.  But first, let’s start writing. Try capturing your weekend experiences (or other meaningful events) on paper. Select experiences that are meaningful to you and write them down in your native language.  Then translate them.

It might seem like you are taking a step backwards to write first in your native language. You might think: “Hey, I already know my language; I want to get better at English. I want to be able to think in English without having to translate.” Patience; I want you to think in English too. The reason for this extra step is because you write in more complex sentences in your native tongue. If you write the stories directly in English, you are likely to use simpler grammar and vocabulary. Translating from your native language forces you to use more complex English than you would if you wrote first in English.

Next, have your mentor correct any grammar errors. Also, ask him to make sure that the English doesn’t sound awkward.  Use this time to have him explain, if possible, why certain constructions are incorrect or awkward. Have patience with him, though; sometimes he might say, “It doesn’t sound right.”  During this process, make sure that you watch for errors that you repeat over and over. Finally, create drills to practice saying these things correctly.

Summary

In summary, using these two techniques will help you learn English grammar. Reading will be fun and will expose you to correct English. Writing about your experiences will let you hone your grammar and will be a nice way to record your thoughts and feelings. Best of all, you’ll get better at English, and you’ll never have to memorize another grammar rule.

Leslie Woodford has been a language enthusiast for thirty years. She has studied language in Sweden, Italy and the South Pacific and provides her tips and insights on http://www.yourlanguageguide.com a “how to learn any language” website.

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Learn English Grammar Without Memorizing Grammar Rules

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Grammar is a confusing subject filled with strange terminology. Terms like “infinitive,” “gerund,” and “anomalous finite” can seem daunting, but they are nevertheless helpful in discussing the form and function of language.

Do we need to learn these terms in order to speak and write grammatically?

No.

We learn grammar mostly by hearing and duplicating patterns of speech. Some linguists (Noam Chomsky, for example) believe that we are born with an innate “universal grammar” — that the basic operating software for human language comes pre-installed in our brains.

Others disagree.

In any case, we acquire more grammar as we learn our native tongue. This process happens naturally. Children learn to speak without teachers, and sometimes without parents. When kids are sufficiently exposed to a spoken language, they will learn that language themselves — along with its grammar.

How do they do this?

By recognizing patterns.

The human brain is a pattern-recognition machine. It seeks out patterns in everything, and finds pleasure in them. It hears patterns in sound and makes music. It finds patterns in movement and creates dance. It observes patterns in the heavens and invents astrology.

Grammar is the study and use of language patterns.

Children acquire spoken grammar by recognizing and duplicating patterns of speech. They don’t know how to describe or analyze what they are doing. They just do it.

But if most people can learn grammar through patterns, without the descriptive or analytical grammar force-fed them in school, why study grammar at all?

Precision.

When it comes to precision, there is a big differences between spoken language and written language. Written language must be more precise.

Why should this be? Why can’t we simply write the way we speak?

Speech is usually a two-way communication, a dialog. If there is some confusion about meaning, as there often is in conversation, it can easily be clarified. If you don’t understand a statement, you can ask, “What do you mean?” and the other person can rephrase.

However, when speech is a one-way communication, it becomes more formal. A political speech, for example, is almost always written in advance, rehearsed, and sometimes even read from a teleprompter. This is not a dialog in the usual sense. The audience is not supposed to interrupt the speaker with questions. Therefore, the speaker must get it right the first time if he wants his message understood.

How does he do this?

By becoming more formal, more grammatical, and treating the spoken word like writing.

When an author writes a book or an article, the reader doesn’t get the chance to interrupt and say “What? I don’t understand. Can you please rephrase that?” Therefore, authors take greater pains with written than spoken language. They need to get it right the first time (or at least by the final draft).

A blog is written in a more formal style than people use when speaking. But it is less formal than, say, a technical paper. In part this is because blogs are a mix of one- and two-way communications: first, the blogger writes a post; next, they publish it; in the future, a reader might add a comment.

Or not.

A blog post begins as an example of one-way communication. But it may some day evolve into a dialog. Therefore, the writing style for blogs is more precise and grammatical than conversational speech, because bloggers want to be understood without further clarification, but less formal than, say, a eulogy, because they want to invite further discussion.

Emails, too, are one-way communications that may turn into dialogs, and therefore tend to be less grammatical than, say, magazine articles. However, the more public an email (the larger the recipient list), the more the writer will attempt grammatical precision.

To a far greater extent, text messages resemble the imprecision of speech. They are a form of two-way communication. Any confusion can easily be clarified.

For example, I received a text message this morning from a friend of mine: “I should probably see Ailme.”

I responded: “Huh?”

The reply: “Haha. The down side of t9 is all the assumptions it makes. Instead of Chloe it says Ailme.”

My friend felt comfortable firing off a text message without proofreading it because she knew that any misunderstanding could easily be fixed. If she were writing the same name in a newspaper article, she would have double-checked the spelling.

Text messaging invites dialog. This is one of the reasons texting is more addictive than email: when people text someone, they are more likely to anticipate a reply.

And of course text messages are notoriously ungrammatical.

But books and articles and essays are not text messages. They are not online chats. They are not posts on a discussion forum. When you write a novel, you are communicating with a reader you will probably never meet. The only response that reader will give you is a number: 1-5 stars on Amazon.

If you want that number to be higher, be precise.

And grammatically correct.

David Wisehart is a novelist, playwright, and screenwriter living in Southern California. He blogs as The Grammar Guy at http://www.grammar-guy.com

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Teaching English grammar can be hard going - for the teacher and the students. It doesn’t have to be difficult or painful, however. You can teach English grammar using fun learning games and before you know it your students will be more than willing. How does it work, you ask. Well, there has been a movement away from the traditional methods of teaching English grammar through writing, rewriting and worksheets to using a more active approach through games. Researchers have also begun to look at how and why these new methods work.

Four sound reasons to teach grammar with games

1. Arif Saricoban and Esen Metin, authors of “Songs, Verse and Games for Teaching Grammar” explain how and why games work for teaching grammar in an ESL classroom. They say, “Games and problem-solving activities, which are task-based and have a purpose beyond the production of correct speech, are the examples of the most preferable communicative activities.” They go on to explain that grammar games help children not only gain knowledge but be able to apply and use that learning.

2. Additionally, games have the advantage of allowing the students to “practice and internalise vocabulary, grammar and structures extensively.” They can do this because students are often more motivated to play games than they are to do desk work. Plus, during the game, the students are focused on the activity and end up absorbing the language subconsciously. One can also add that fun learning games usually contain repetition, which allows the language to stick.

3. While games are motivating for the students, probably the best reason, according to Saricoban and Metin, to use games is that “the use of such activities both increases the cooperation and competition in the classroom.” One can use games to add excitement through competition or games which create bonding among students and teacher.

4. Aydan Ersoz, author of “Six Games for the ESL/EFL Classroom” also explains more reasons why games do work for teaching grammar. Learning a language requires constant effort and that can be tiring. Ersoz says games can counter this as because:

* Games that are amusing and challenging are highly motivating.
* Games allow meaningful use of the language in context.

Children are more motivated to learn grammar with games

The theory of intrinsic motivation also gives some insight as to why teaching grammar through games actually works. Intrinsic motivation refers to the internal factors that encourage us to do something. Most young learners will not internally decide that they want to learn grammar. They don’t yet understand the concepts of why it’s important to know proper grammar, so these external factors won’t affect them much either. Instead, intrinsic motivation can lead encourage them to play games. If these games are good then they will be learning while they are playing.

Using some movement is crucial because movement helps activate the students’ mental capacities and stimulate neural networks, thus promoting learning and retention. If you have a large class with no space you still have options. Children can stand up, sit down, move various body parts and pass things around to each other. Movement does not only mean children tearing around the playground.

What Kinds of Games Work Best?

When you are looking for games to use in your classroom, don’t just pick something to be a “time filler” which does not have a definite linguistic outcome. These games may entertain the students, but when you don’t have much time with them each day as it is, you want your game to do double duty to get the most out of the time you spend playing games.

Have a clear linguistic outcome for each game. The game can be a listening game to allow the students to repeatedly hear a new grammatical structure in use, or it can be a speaking game to allow practise of the grammar once it has been absorbed through listening beforehand. There are degrees of difficulty with speaking games from basic repetition in a fun context to more creative sentence creation for revision or more advanced practise once the basics have been mastered. The teacher should lead the children through this progression so that the game at hand is always well within the grasp of the students. This makes games fun rather than laborious. It is a mistake to play a speaking game immediately after the new grammar has been presented. Ideally reading, spelling and writing games come after the new grammar has been absorbed and the students can use it orally.

Another thing to watch out for with grammar games is that a maximum of students are involved simultaneously. If you have thirty children you want to avoid a game where only one child is speaking at a time. What are the other twenty-nine children supposed to do in the meantime other than get bored? On the other end of the scale however are games that cause chaos in class and make teachers unpopular with colleagues because of high noise levels. A variety of suitable games are available for you to try free in the resource box below the article.

Now you can stop the eye-rolling and complaining from your students when you even THINK about teaching them a grammar lesson, and have some productive fun.

Shelley Vernon has helped 1000s of teachers be an inspiration to their pupils and achieve results 2x as fast. Improve the effectiveness of your lessons by up to 80%. Receive free English language games now on Fun ESL games for children website.

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Profile of Grammar Girl

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Mignon Fogarty, the “Grammar Girl” with her television debut!

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This is part 3 of a lesson on prepositions of location and direction. The list of prepositions is long, so this is meant to be a review and not an introduction. Level: high beginner - intermediate.

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This is part 2 of a lesson on prepositions of location and direction. The list of prepositions is long, so this is meant to be a review and not an introduction. Level: high beginner - intermediate.

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A grammar lesson for the lower levels. Topic: The simple past tense. This is PART TWO.

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A grammar lesson for the lower levels. Topic: The simple past tense. This is PART ONE.

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