going uphill

How can learners be helped to master grammatical accuracy?

Learning grammar is just like learning a piece of music. Both needs accuracy for effective communication. If you play Beethoven with lots of mistakes and with a wrong interpration, no one can understand what you are playing. Simiarily, how can we communicate effectively if there are a lot of mistakes that destroy the message?

How do we help our students to strive for grammatical accuracy?

We can, of course, give them a lot of grammar exercise and explain all the rules to them, but this is only the work on the outside. Teachers can provide a lot of these work but students may not absorb well.

I remembered I used to have a hard time learning to play my music accuratly. The songs were too hard, the practise was too boring. No matter how much my teacher was screaming at me, I had a difficult time playing my songs. But my teacher was patient, and she showed me the beauty of music and the joy of playing piano. Slowly, practising piano is not such a difficult thing.

I guess this is the same with teaching grammar. Teachers must explaine the rules and give them exericse, but we could also show them the beauty of good English. Only their love of good English can push them up the steep hills of learning grammar.

We could show them the beautiful lines of shakesphere; lyrics of beetles, great speeches of Martin Luther King; etc.

Students may not attain perfect English at once, we must be patient. Scolding and blaming could not help one bit, but words of encouragement and a pat on the shoulder give them support to climb on.