5 Tips for Teaching Difficult Grammar

Difficult Grammar Teaching

 
Reader Question: Teaching Difficult Units

This question comes from a friend of mine, Daniel who I did the CELTA with back in the day. He's leading a seminar on "Teaching Difficult Units" and was wondering if I had any tips. He's a stellar teacher (better than me?!) and I'll sure he'll do fabulous without my help, but I'll do my best to answer his question.

My Experience Teaching Difficult English Grammar

My background in the area is that I teach English major students at a top-level university in Busan, South Korea so by the time the students get to their third or fourth year, the stuff I'm teaching is pretty intense. Like modal passive verbs, causative get + have, past modals, passive for present continuous and present perfect, etc. For the most part, my students have not been exposed to this kind of stuff before, except very briefly in passing so I have to be solid on it and can't rely on their background knowledge. In addition, it's usually stuff I've never taught before which makes it even more difficult.

Top 5 Tips to Teach Difficult Stuff (in no particular order)

Context  (topic). You should always have a context for anything that you teach, something by which your students can hang their grammar hats on. Teaching isolated grammar or vocabulary without giving your students a situation in which they can use it is a huge disservice and is actually a waste of time. 

Research. I've found that you don't need to know all the intricate details of a specific grammar concept before teaching it, but you should be extremely proficient. I do three things to research: use the textbook and make sure I know that section inside and out. Then, I'll look online for what other teachers have said or written, either for other teachers, or usually more helpfully, students. The British Council puts out lots of good stuff for difficult grammar concepts. I'll also check YouTube and see if there are any helpful videos of other teachers explaining the concept. Don't copy them, but see what works and what doesn't and take the best stuff for your own lesson. Very occasionally, I'll run across a video that is amazing, and I'll show it in class (but it's rare!).

Simple is Best.  I'm a huge believer in simple always being best, basically in everything in my life. This especially applies to teaching difficult concepts and in my experience, it is best to present only the basics and then let the students figure out the rest on their own, with a bit of help from you. Presenting all the ins and outs of every single point at the start is often too overwhelming.

Student-Centered is Ideal.  Related to point #3 is the idea of making your lesson student-centered. Can you do a self-discovery style of grammar teaching? Can you do a very short presentation of less than 5 minutes? Can you get the students comparing answers together instead of with you?  It will be more difficult for the students (and for you to set-up), but once they get it, they'll get it and will retain it for a whole lot longer.

Review. Whenever I introduce something that is quite difficult, there are always students who don't really "get it." That's okay and part of teaching. I try my best to help them in that class, but in the next class, I will ALWAYS review the concept. I'll briefly explain things, one more time in a slightly different way and will usually pair it with a different context. Then, I'll have the students work together with a different partner than the previous class on some sort of activity.

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Top 5 Vocabulary Teaching Tips

Vocabulary Teaching Tips

A helpful article that I ran across from Edutopia.

The Must Dos of Vocabulary Instruction

I particularly like #1-Be Selective.  Yes!  Less, is more basically all the time with anything related to teaching.  It's better that your students know a few things really well than know lots of stuff, not really at all.

For more vocab teaching ideas, check out another sites of mine:

ESL Vocabulary Activities

Quiet Time is Okay (or, I'm not an Edu-tainer)

A common thing that many English teachers in Korea fall into is feeling like they need to be an Edu-Tainer (Education Entertainer).  I think it's mostly because of how foreign English teachers are portrayed in the media: as clowns (Babos in Korean) or dancing monkeys.  This means that some teachers always feel the need to "perform" and keep the students entertained, excited and happy no matter what. 

I resist this at all costs for the following reasons:

1. I'm not naturally an "entertainer." I'm a bit shy and so being on stage isn't really something I crave or want. 

2. Learning can't always be "fun." Sometimes, you need to memorize vocab, or explore a difficult grammar concept in depth.

3. Students are different.  Some like being entertained, some like working quietly by themselves.

4. I'm all about student-centered classrooms.  An Edutainer is all about a teacher-centered classroom, which is something that I think is really bad for students.

5. I consider myself a "real" teacher.  I actually want my students to take my classes seriously and learn something.  I think this is probably best achieved by taking myself seriously as an educator and not falling into the Edutainer trap.

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Relative Clauses- Student-Centered Style

Relative clauses are important and we use them all the time in the English language.  Of course Native English speakers just use them naturally and rarely make mistakes and even use reduced relative clauses all the time without even noticing it.  The problem comes when teaching them to students because while important, it's also something that most students aren't really confident in, and it's also very heavy on the grammar and metalanguage (language used to talk about language-"reduced relative clause" for example).

So what to do? 

1. Skip that chapter in the book and save yourself a headache?  No! It actually is important and useful (for intermediate and advanced level students-I'm not sure I'd attempt this with beginners). 

2. Become a Powerpoint warrior?  No!  It goes against everything good and holy student-centered teaching.  It's the least effective teaching method and students usually just end up sleeping.

3. Attempt to teach it in a student-centered way?  Yes!  It seems like the best solution to me.

I made this Relative Clause Self-Study Worksheet in an attempt to get students to "discover" the grammar without me lecturing about it.  I'm going to point out the page in the book with the grammar explanation and direct students to refer to it if they are unsure; all of the students have studied this before so I'm hoping they can activate their prior knowledge.

After doing this worksheet, students will do a page in their book focusing on the forms (very controlled practice).  They'll compare with their partner first and then we'll check answers as a class.

Next, they'll think about 1 person-a friend or family member and write down 5 or 6 sentences about them, using relative clauses (2-3 object clauses and 2-3 subject clauses) (somewhat controlled but less than previous exercise).  They'll share with their partner who will think of some interesting follow-up questions.

Then, it's finally time for free(r)-practice!  I'll put this up on the screen: Friends and Family Relative Clause Discussion Questions and ask students to choose 2 or 3 questions to answer.  They can think of 3 or 4 sentences/ question, one of which must use a relative clause. They'll share their answers with their partner and have a discussion together.

Teacher Centered Classrooms vs. Student Centered Classrooms

Teacher vs. Student Centered Classrooms

I'm a big fan of student centered classrooms, perhaps due to the influence of my Celta trainers and the Delta stuff I've done.  The other part of it is that studies have shown that lectures are the least effective way to transmit information and that students retain very little of that information even hours later.  In a second language, I'd guess that even less is transmitted.  Which is why I strive to create student-centered classrooms for at least 95% of any given class.

What does this mean?  It means that the students are actually engaged almost all of the time, either with some material or with each other and that I quite rarely lecture.  I try to create activities that make it easier just to actively participate, than to not.  Even discovering new information or material or vocab is possible through a process of discover rather than me just telling them.  Students compare answers with each other, instead of me always giving it to them.  The teacher is more of a guide down the path of language discovery, rather than the all-knowing guru.

In a teacher-centered classroom, the teacher is more of a performer, on stage and is talking, a lot.  Students in Korea seem to love it.  And probably for good reason!  It's actually so easy just to let all these words pass you by, passively and if no response is expected, then there is really no incentive to even actively listen.  But, it's just so ineffective and really quite useful for student's language development, which in theory is what I'm getting paid to promote.

Teacher centered language learning classrooms are just so, so wrong on so many levels and yet I hear (literally with my own ears) and get told by students of so many of my colleagues who do this.  Everyone should take the Celta!  My small rant is now done :)

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How to Teach English

I remember back to my first year or two of teaching in Korea and how clueless I basically was.  Like I almost literally had no idea what I was doing and what was effective, or not in the classroom.  It didn't help that my school owners were business people and not teachers and so could offer no really helpful guidance except don't sit down and make sure you smile.

If I would recommend one book for a newbie teacher to read, it would be this one: How to Teach English by Jeremy Harmer.  It contains some theory that is very accessible and not really academic and then has a multitude of practical and helpful tips for things like lesson planning, classroom management and activities and games.  Even experienced teachers would find it useful I think.

If you want to get a University Job in South Korea, check out this Ebook.

Teacher-Centered is bad!

These days, all the current ELT research, no matter what perspective it's coming from, advocates student-centered classrooms.  And for good reason!  Teacher-centered classrooms, beyond the very, very basic level of learning a language, or for extremely young learners has largely proved to be very ineffective at creating students who can actually communicate in a meaningful way. 

Just the other day, I was teaching across the hall from one of my colleagues and could overhear his/her (identity secret!) class.  It was teacher-centered to the extreme.  Like this person basically was "on-stage" shouting out vocab words quite loudly for 20 minutes out of the 50 minute class.  There were only 1 second breaks in between the words.  It was bizarre and I couldn't quite believe that this was actually happening in a university classroom.  What did the students actually walk away with at the end of that class?  My guess is probably absolutely nothing except maybe a headache. 

Here are a few tips to help make your classroom more student-centered:

1. Groups.  It's all about partners, or groups of 3, 4, or 5.  Beyond that is often too big to be effective.  Mix them up, randomly.

2. Set-up an activity (give them a task) and let students do it.  Supervise and give gentle correction or feedback, but don't interfere if they're doing a good job. 

3. Lecture, if you must, but only in 3-5 minute intervals.  Students will not pay attention for anything beyond that.  Then, use some activities to get students to practice what you just lectured about.

4. Think of your job as more of a "coach" than a traditional "teacher."  You're guiding students to correct language use, not uploading it into their brain. 

5. Challenge students.  Give them tasks that are big and not so easy.  Encourage them that they can do it.   Support them and give help when necessary.  Praise them when they genuinely meet the challenge and do a good job. 

Authentic Materials vs. ESL Textbooks for High-Level Students

This semester, I've been teaching all high-level students.  Like high enough level that I generally just talk at a pretty normal pace, but I use somewhat simplified grammar and vocab and my students seem to always be on the same page.  When writing, I don't filter my words at all and just use my normal style.  Many of them have lived overseas, or are preparing for internships in the USA.

And, it seems that almost without exception, they want to use inauthentic material, that is stuff from ESL textbooks.  It's like a kind of crutch I guess and what they've been using for years and what they feel comfortable with.  Except when students are at such a high-level, they actually need authentic material.  Here's why I think so:

1. Students need to be challenged.  Even the highest-level ESL textbooks are actually too easy for most of these students.  And at what point do these extremely high level textbooks become somewhat ridiculous because the students should actually have moved to authentic stuff.

2. Students need confidence.  They need to be shown that they actually can read (and understand) an article from the BBC or Newsweek.  They probably won't read these things on their own, unless you show them that they can actually do it.

3. Students need strategies for when they don't understand everything.  If a student can breeze through a reading in less than a minute, or listen to something once and understand everything, it's not really helpful.  Students need to struggle a little bit, even high-level ones.  They need to adapt and use learning strategies.

4. Even the best designed textbooks are "artificial."  The grammar and vocab always has an element of not so much like real-life.  Authentic materials are real-life.  

5. Authentic materials create in interest in the class.  Which textbook has an article about the Sewol Ferry Disaster?  None of them.  What about Park Geun Hye's recent visit with Angela Merkle?  None of them.  Except these are the topics in the news these days and what students actually want to talk about.  It's actually really helpful to take what the students are talking about in Korean and do it in English, because they actually have a lot of insight and background knowledge about the topics.

IF you must use a textbook, here is one of the better ones:

Content Classes, minus the PPT and Lecture death

When I cruise by the open classroom doors of some of my colleagues, I can see the power-point screens of death.  12 point, full-sentences, no titles or subtitles.  What is the main point?  Who could possibly tell.  I'm quite sure even those fluent in Korean probably don't know either.  Combined with this is a teacher, standing at the computer, either reading word for word from said slide, or reading from the textbook.  It really, truly does seem like death.  Students are either sleeping or using their phone and maybe only 10% are actually paying attention and taking notes. 

This semester, I have the content class thing going on since I'm teaching advanced writing and presentations/interviews.  Avoiding PPT/lecture death is totally doable!  Here are my top tips:

1. Make your PPT slides simple!  Then make them even simpler.  Main points only!  Refer students to the relevant pages in the textbook for more information. Make them available online so students can just pay attention and listen and not worry about taking notes.

2. DO NOT READ word for word from either the slides or the textbook.  People can read much faster than you can speak.  If I have a page or two in the textbook I want students to absorb, I'll throw up 4 or 5 question on a slide.  Then, I'll give them 6-10 minutes (depending on density and difficulty) to read the pages and then think about answers to the question. 

Then, they close their books and do the little "test" with their partner.  Then, I will very briefly hit the main points. 

3. Use a variety of activities besides just lecturing.  I do the reading on your own/answer questions with a partner as previously mentioned.  I also use a million and one other things, such as group discussion, doing an exercise in the book and then discussing the answers, standing up and finding a new partner to talk about something, warm-up discussion question, watching a video and talking about xyz, worksheets, etc. 

4. Teach what is relevant to the tests!  If students know that they have to know the stuff, they'll have  A LOT more incentive to pay attention.

5. Make announcements/give important information each class, but at random times.  Beginning/middle/end.  That way, students will be far less likely to sneak out.

Lectures are actually one of the worst ways to teach, if you actually want students to retain any information.

RESULTS:  in my classes, nobody sleeps.  I quite rarely notice anyone sneaking out for smoke breaks, etc.  Almost nobody is on their phone.  Sure, some of them look a little bored sometimes, but that's not necessarily something I have control over.  A lot of people shut-down" with the English only thing.  When I compare that to my colleagues, I think that I'm doing pretty well :)

Teaching Writing, minus Peer Editing/Teacher Editing- the 1/2-way review

Midterms exams are done and graded and I want to give an update on how  things are going in my 3 advanced writing classes for English majors (3rd/4th year students).

My approach has been to veer away from the traditional approach to teaching writing that consists of endless cycles of teacher and peer editing.  Part of it is that I simply don't have time to do this because I have about 100 students in my writing classes, plus 3 other classes I need to prepare for and teach.  And the other part is that I simply don't think it's that effective or helpful.  Students need to become autonomous instead of just relying on the teacher to correct them.

Peer editing fills class time quite effectively, but I got beyond doing that in my first and second year of "teaching" and now actually "teach."  But, I also don't think it's so effective because it often degrades to just sharing misinformation, especially among the very weak students.  Pairing up the extremely weak with the extremely strong is just an annoying total waste of time for that strong student too.  How can students who are essentially beginners at writing judge whether or not a thesis statement or topic sentence is a good one or not?  Sure, some of my students can but probably less than 1/3 would be able to do this. 

Instead, I've focused most of my class-time on genre analysis-that is looking at quality essays and analyzing them, as well as on crafting good topic sentences, thesis statements, hooks, etc.  We've also spent time reviewing some basic punctuation (a major weakness), as well as significant amounts of time on self-editing.  Also, we do "free-writing" each class in order to get practice writing fluently. 

Results: 90% of the students in my classes have an extremely firm grasp upon the basic structure of the essay and did it almost flawlessly, including parallel organization.  The ones that don't have missed a lot of classes and/or are late almost everyday so obviously they're not so engaged in the class and getting the content.  I feel happy about this because it's a solid skill they can take with them into their lives. 

Punctuation is solid.  Basic grammar is also solid for most of the students.  But, I take no credit for that.  The students that were solid before the class have remained that way.  And the ones who couldn't put together a grammatically correct sentence before the class still can't do it.  But, I'm not worried about that.  If a student, after 1000's of hours of English language instruction can't put together a sentence, how much could I actually help them in 3 hours/week for 14 weeks? 

Vocab/sentence variety-a bit shaky for some students.  But again, I wonder how much I could actually help students in the short amount of time I have?  It's just not my priority.

Of course, for a more "professional view" of things, check out Jeremy Harmer's book on how to teach writing:

Essay Writing and Student Autonomy

One definition of autonomy (from the source of all things good: Wikipedia) is: the ability to take charge of one's own learning.

I believe that the current model of teaching paragraph/essay writing in most unis in Korea (and perhaps around the world where English is taught as a second or foreign language....I don't really know) does nothing to foster student autonomy.  This model is basically that the student writes something and gives it to the teacher, probably with very little in the way of editing.  The teacher spends ridiculous amounts of time editing something that in some cases is barely understandable, gives it back to the student and they make the changes.  Repeat the cycle endlessly.  This cycle can also be done with peer-editing, of which I am not a big fan of either.  In this model, the learner essentially takes very little responsibility for turning out a quality product on their own because they know that the teacher or friend will just make the changes they need. 

However, this is 100% unlike real-life.  When students are taking an English proficiency test that involves writing, there is no teacher or friend sitting next to them, helping them along.  Nor would they have this at any job.  They would just be expected to turn out a decent email or whatever they would need to write. 

So my system?  I'm attempting to teach students to self-edit by giving them check-lists with things like, "Check all the verbs: correct tense?"  and "What is your thesis statement?  Is it stated or implied?"  And, I'm not totally unkind.  I'll read essays and give general feedback like, "Your hook is quite weak....what about changing it to something like....."  Yes, it's challenging.  No, I'm just not lazy.  I truly think it will be better for the students in the end, even if they are not so happy about it.  Students generally hate what is not easy for them, but spoon-feeding has really never been my style. 

Teaching Content Classes, with PPT

So, I'm back in Busan after my not-so-brief semi-vacation in Thailand.  And although the chilly weather was quite a shock to my system, all is well these days and the first week of classes went very smoothly.  And, I'm EXTREMELY happy to report that not an hour of my 22 or so teaching hours/week consist of anything resembling "conversational" English.  I'm teaching 3 sections of Advanced writing to 3rd/4th year English majors, a presentation/interview class to engineering students, business English to students who have graduated and are preparing for an internship in the USA and a current events discussion club kind of thing. 

But, teaching content (especially writing) is much different than conversation classes and I'm trying to figure out my teaching style.  Previously, on very rare occasion would I use a PPT (Powerpoint for my North American friends), and instead I would focus almost exclusively on having the students interact with each other, in a student-centered to the extreme, engaging and purposeful kind of way.  And I would generally try to keep my whiteboard warrior activities to about 5 minutes out of every hour or less.  But, there is almost no way to do this for something like Advanced Writing and in fact would probably lead to extreme frustration and confusion for the students (and me too).  So, it's back to the PPT, even though it kind of kills me on the inside and I wonder if there is not a better way.  I've tried to include lots of group work/exploration within the lesson but it's still a lot of me, lecturing.

Anyway, I'm interested to see how this will all work out by semester end.  I'm sure you'll get an update or two!