Whenever someone requests help with grammar on any of the teaching groups that I am in on Facebook, there is always a recommendation for Raymond Murphy’s English Grammar In Use. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a great series of books that goes into lots of detail and covers everything that you need to know. In fact, I’d recommend getting a copy as a reference book.
However, there are 3 major problems with merely having this book and using it.
1. It’s very dry
Reading page after page of grammar rules is not the most engaging way of teaching yourself something before you teach it to your students.
2. It’s out of context
Grammar books do not give you a context or story with which to build the grammar to make it interesting for students. You therefore have to come up with your own ideas on how to present that material to the students.
3. It doesn’t prepare you for questions
When I bought a grammar book years ago to teach myself, I would get 100% of the answers correct in the practice activities but I couldn’t explain why. Therefore, when students asked me to explain why a particular answer was right or wrong, I didn’t know and would feel stupid because I couldn’t give them a good answer (you can’t carry a grammar book into class and consult it on the spot).
So, I’ve created an online course to take these problems away. It’s called the Intermediate Grammar Getter (the other levels will follow) and each unit is structured in the following way.
1. Advice for teachers
This is a video in which I discuss possible contexts that you could use or possible ways of approaching the grammar point in question. For example, in terms of the third conditional, I would recommend the topic of crime but also have a great activity using a clip from “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. Both of these approaches have worked well for me in class and my students have found them engaging and interesting.
2. Teaching Videos
Instead of a page or two of text, each grammar point is presented in a short video (the longest one is still less than 10 minutes) and you see exactly how I would teach it.
3. Worksheets
If you prefer to read information, each worksheet has a written form of the information contained in the video. This is followed by some structured practice activities that can be either printed or taken interactively as online quizzes.
4. The answers
In these videos, I walk you through the answers as if I was doing it with my students and explain why each answer is correct.
A new teacher should not be afraid of grammar and I want to do everything I can to take away the fear and make teaching grammar fun for both teacher and student.
