Grammar Lesson Help

amother

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 7:04 pm

Hi! I was wondering if anyone here can help point me to the right resources. I’m struggling with teaching grammar to my middle school-aged students. I was always a voracious reader and never struggled with things like sentence structure because I absorbed the rules naturally. Now I am having a hard time breaking the concepts down for my students to understand. I do not have a book to work with and have been creating my own lessons from online classes. I see that my students are for the most part not catching on. How do I break down something like compound sentences into the most basic lessons? I thought my lessons were clear but so many students are still stuck on separating subject and predicate. Please advise! Any help is appreciated!

(Please note: this class is doing well in the other subject I teach. I am afraid that they don’t get the grammar because my lessons aren’t that great. They also tend to find grammar more boring and I find it harder to capture their attention during this class.)

all is good

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 8:07 pm

I also taught middle school ELA. My principal introduced me to Grammar Boot Camp, a workbook created by a frum woman, and I found it very good. Best is to implement/have them implement the rules they've learned in their writings.
Also, I have found that all these terms (subjects, predicates, etc.) are not necessary when it comes to real life grammar...The students tune out with such lessons because it's not relatable and necessary to know in real life...
What's a run-on, what's a fragment, where do commas go and where they do not go, etc. is more important and practical in my humble opinion.

amother

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 8:13 pm

all is good wrote:

I also taught middle school ELA. My principal introduced me to Grammar Boot Camp, a workbook created by a frum woman, and I found it very good. Best is to implement/have them implement the rules they've learned in their writings.
Also, I have found that all these terms (subjects, predicates, etc.) are not necessary when it comes to real life grammar...The students tune out with such lessons because it's not relatable and necessary to know in real life...
What's a run-on, what's a fragment, where do commas go and where do they do not go, etc. is more important and practical in my humble opinion.

Thank you! Yes, they are struggling mostly with the terms and to be honest, I did as well when preparing my classes. We are getting stuck on terms like coordinating conjunction and subordinate clause when my goal is for them to learn how to complete sentences. However, how do I explain that the clause “because she went to school” is not a complete sentence without them understanding subordinate conjunctions?

I’m finding many different “grammar boot camp” resources online. Do you know who the author is?

amother

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 8:16 pm

amother Linen wrote:

Many children (and adults) struggle to grasp the rules of grammar, so you shouldn’t automatically assume that your lessons are bad.

Thanks… however, I’m also not so confident because I did need to teach a lot of this information to myself this year. I don’t consider myself a grammar expert. A lot of it is intuitive to me because I read a lot.

And PinkFridge, this is a small OOT school. I was told which topics to cover but had to create my own content.

shaqued_almond

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 8:39 pm

Can you try to get your students involved somehow? Maybe each student (team) can prepare a short presentation on the grammar rules? Or maybe you can have them perform a short play showing how different conjunctions change the meaning of the sentence. They use these things all the time, they're just lacking the vocabulary. You just need to make it really practical. Or maybe imitate a gameshow or do ad-libs (insert conjunction, subject etc).

amother

Apple

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 8:47 pm

amother OP wrote:

I teach this topic, and I avoid most grammar terms as it makes the girls' eyes glaze over. Here's how I break it down.

I do teach them subject and predicate with extra emphasis on the simple subject and simple predicate. Those two make up a sentence.

A fragment is a group of words missing either a subject or a predicate, OR even if there are a subject and predicate, but it doesn't express a complete thought, it's also a fragment. There will always be a word at the beginning that you can point to and say, it's because of this word that the sentence isn't a complete thought. Using your example, "Because she went to school" has a ss and a sp, but the word "because" makes it not be a complete thought. Because, that's why what? There are many such words (notice, I'm not using the word subordinate conjunction) which can turn a sentence into a fragment. I show them many examples, using words like "if" "after" "although" and so on. Only after I explained the concept do I show them the list of subordinate conjunctions in the book and tell them that here are more words like the ones we mentioned which make a group of words with a ss and sp turn into a fragment. (If the sentence does finish the thought, then it's a correct sentence. For example, "Because she went to school, she had a great day" tells us what happened because.)

Coordinating conjunctions are taught in a totally different context, so I have less confusion between these two types of conjunctions. I explain that a cc is like glue, we use it to connect two parts that are of equal value. We use them to connect two simple subjects, or we can use them to connect two objects of preposition, or even to connect two complete sentences.

I developed this model of teaching on my own through many years of seeing what works and what doesn't for my students. I hope it helped you somewhat. Feel free to ask any more questions.

amother

Apple

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 8:50 pm

amother OP wrote:

People tend to think that good grammar is related to good reading. It's really not. Good grammar is related to math. There are rules that (mostly) make sense. Each example is different, and you need to learn which rule to apply in that situation.

If you will be holding on to this job for next year, it's worth it to invest the time in teaching it to yourself properly. It took me 2-3 years before I knew what I was talking about well enough to be confident about any random example, and until today, over 15 years later, I still tweak my lessons and the way I explain things according to the feedback I get.

amother

Apple

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 8:55 pm

shaqued_almond wrote:

IMNSHO, rule #1 to make grammar enjoyable is to make sure it is 100% clear. Getting students to teach grammar rules is definitely more fun, but it also leaves a lot more room for ambiguity and vagueness which will have the students more frustrated. Grammar is very much about consistency and clarity. It requires a teacher who knows what she's teaching and gives over the material in a succinct manner, not too much explanation or rambling.

I like doing student teamwork AFTER a topic was mastered. Using real life examples and having them come up with some of their own will show them the application of the material, but this can only happen once they already are familiar and somewhat confident with the information themselves.

amother

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 10:28 pm

Apple, thank you so much for your posts! They gave me a lot of food for thought (no pun intended 😄).
I think step number one would indeed be to try teaching the rules without the official terms… I like your idea of finding the “problem word”. In my example, I explain that a subordinate conjunction turns an independent clause into a dependent clause and everyone is confused, even though I defined all of those terms multiple times. And honestly, I agree that it’s confusing! On the one hand, memorizing the rules is key, but on the other, logical understanding is so important. The rules need to “click”.

amother

Apple

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 10:51 pm

amother OP wrote:

I don't use words like independent clause or dependent clause either. I've spoken to other grammar teachers who were horrified about how I can teach fragments and run-ons without those terms. BH I've been doing it successfully now for quite a few years, and most of my students know it. The reason is that I explain the concepts but without using heavy grammar terms. I say "a group of words with a ss and sp that can stand on its own as a sentence" vs "a group of words with a ss and sp but that cannot stand on its own as a sentence because it doesn't complete the thought". There you go, the exact definition of independent and dependent clauses without using a million unfamiliar words. The girls understand the concept without needing to memorize definitions.

amother

Apple

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 11:02 pm

amother OP wrote:

And I agree about the games- I actually played a grammar game with them on Chanukah that completely flopped. That’s when I realized that most of the class does not have a good grasp on the material.

Another point which a poster above alluded to: My goal as a teacher is to get most of the class to understand most of the material. Grammar is one of those subjects that require lots of skills including memorization, comprehension, application to varied examples. You will never have every single girl mastering every topic. It's a piece I've needed to accept over the years. As much as I will patiently answer every question and try to explain it yet again coming from a different angle or using a different example, at the end of the day, it might be time to move on. If most girls get it, you don't want to lose them by harping on the few girls who don't get and likely never will.

Of course if most of the class doesn't get it at all, you need to reconfigure and recalculate, but if half the class has a good grasp, a quarter of the class so-so, and the other quarter has almost nothing, I'd say that's pretty typical for a grammar class.

It sounds harsh when I put it down this way. I'm sharing my experience. Some girls (and you) will need to be ok with their just sailing by without that solid mastery of the material. As long as they are trying their best, that's all you can really ask for.

all is good

Mon, Jan 02 2023, 11:45 pm

amother OP wrote:

I didn't read through everyone's post thoroughly, so I don't know if others said the same, but all I would tell my students is "because she went to school....what? It's just not a complete thought. It's dependent on the second half, (or first half) that's not there."

I'm not seeing the workbook I'm talking about online when I Google it. I'll try to find out the author's name iyH and let you know.