Tag: Grammar

Teaching Grammar in High School

Have you ever tried marking essays with really bad grammar, syntax and non-existent punctuation? No? Right, you’re not an English teacher. For those of you who are, or at any point have to labour through the ordeal of marking any kind of writing that is painful to look at, let alone grade, you will (I am certain) agree with me when I say that grammar, nay, good grammar, is an essential ingredient to good writing. So what do you do when you have a class full of high school students who do not, I repeat, DO NOT know their grammar? Well, you teach them of course! (I mean the clue is in your title! ;))

Teaching grammar in high school is tedious, boring, daunting and let’s face it, just plain scary, but you gotta do whatchu gotta do, right? (Yes, I cringed as I typed out that line in slang). So, how do you make it fun? You use Kahoot! End of story.

Here is a link to a Kahoot! presentation I created with 25 questions that cover punctuation, grammar and sentence structure: Grammar Face-Off Kahoot! Game

This Kahoot! can work as a diagnostic at the beginning of your course to determine where students are in their grammar, or as a review class where they play the game and you stop after each question to review concepts or teach them (because many of them will have never heard of a gerund or an infinitive phrase. Really? We have those in the English language?). You can choose to play this game individually with each student answering on his/her own mobile device, or do as I did where I grouped them into teams and made them play against each other. I found this to be a more fun approach because they were competitive and participated really well!

The game itself took about 35 minutes to get through and I rounded off my class with a prepared grammar package for each student that I found online. You can use any grammar worksheets and put them into a package depending on the writing abilities of your students.

So there you are, a simple lesson to help make learning grammar fun for your students. And the best part is, you can create an ongoing competition with Grammar Face-Offs once every week. Teams can accumulate points for a final big reward of your choice at the end of the school year (I would include GRAMMAR CHAMP certificates as part of their reward ;)). By taking the time to teach your students proper grammar, you not only invest in their quality of writing, you help groom them into becoming more effective communicators (a necessary life-skill). So there! You are doing your job and making a difference in the world. Well done, you!

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A Catastrophic Epidemic. No, Seriously.

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Okay, so, I LOVE the English language. I love the way it sounds and the way it writes and reads. And yes, it may be the most “corrupted” language in the world where it has borrowed and stolen from every other language out there, but I like to look at it as being versatile. So, please take a moment then to appreciate my horror and absolute disgust at the decimation of this very versatile and universally-beneficial language. Let me explain.

There’s too many people here. 

What is wrong with this sentence?

The English language has grammar, a set of rules that dictate how a language is written and spoken. Now, over a rigmarole of years (and this is where that notion of “corruption” comes into play), these grammar rules have been poked and prodded at to tweak and change for different conveniences. Marketing Suits might come up with a catchy phrase that drops the plural in favour of the singular, or maybe an apostrophe is omitted because really you couldn’t be bothered to type out the entire thing in a text message (Your versus You’re…ring a bell anyone?). Now, while these are convenient ways to communicate, the crux of the language is scattered away to the sidelines. The bare bones that make up the meaning are shunned to make way for “the cool” or “the new”. The English language is cool as it is, and it is constantly assimilating with our changing world to include new words. Why then must we butcher it so?

Now, back to my earlier example:

Is is a conjugation of the verb To be that is used with a singular pronoun or noun.

E.g. She is, He is, The cat is, Much of the sugar is

Are is a conjugation of the verb To be that is used with mostly plural pronouns or nouns.

E.g., They are, We are, The dogs are, Many people are

Notice how the first example incorrectly matches a plural pronoun (many people) with a singular conjugation (is) of the verb To be?

The correct sentence then is:

There are too many people here.

This is truly (and no, I am not being dramatic) a Catastrophic Epidemic that needs to STOP.  Why reduce the English language to a hodge-podge of sentences lacking correctly-placed apostrophes and appropriate verb conjugations?

Why, if this continues, the English language will be nothing but a bunch of letters strung together like this:

Icantunderstandwhythisishappeningandevenifyoucanreadthisitdoesntmeanthatitmakesalotofsense.

Or like this:

LOL  TBT  TMI

What is that anyway? Code for I am so smart, I put an entire sentence together with capital letters? What if I don’t understand you? What if I don’t know that TBT means Throw Back Thursday? I mean really, someone just made it up, and then hash-tagged it (see, hash-tagged, a new verb. The English language should EVOLVE, not DEVOLVE) and then it caught on like wildfire, and if you’re standing around and we’re having a conversation and you threw in a TBT, I would just stare at you and then likely shake my head in dismay. Now, I take no issue with new words added. Like I said, English must evolve. However, could I be spared the bombardment of OMGs and 2G2BTs and 2NTEs and AAFs (If you’re wondering what these mean and are starting to come up with the notion that I am a hypocrite for knowing them, simple, I Googled them)?

Now, while this might be met with Mehs and shoulders bouncing in slow motion, and be lauded as, “Oh stop, you insufferable Grammar Police person.”, let me assure you that this is not just a personal affront to me (and proverbial Grammar Police everywhere), it is a gigantic injury to the entirety of the English language. And let’s not forget the added insult where we, the Grammar Police, roll our eyes and turn our noses up at you for misusing the language.

Honestly, how could we possibly take you seriously?

 

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