IWTYAL 184: My students have holes in their grammar

Ferdinand asks: “How do I repair holes in my students' grammar?”

Episode Summary:

• How holes in your grammar can develop
• Different roles for the teacher:
  • Teach what you know is right
  • Teach what the student expects
• Raising awareness is the only way to help students self-monitor and fix their own mistakes
• If students resist basic grammar exercises, look for another way…

How to raise awareness and encourage self-monitoring:

• Talk to them about their goals, and how better grammar would help
• “Stealth grammar”
• Record the student and have them listen back
• Write two sentences on the board, ask: “What's the difference?”
• Set writing tasks instead of speaking tasks – scaffold their language and highlight opportunities for better grammar

Resources Mentioned In Today's Episode:

• 19 quick changes you can make today that will make you a better language teacher

Start speaking today:

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Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.