No matter what benchmark my students have in writing (I teach levels 5-7), almost all of them need to improve three things: run-on sentences/comma splices, punctuation (mostly commas) and the use of transition words.
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We’ve all been there and heard it – “Why are these two words spelled the same but sound different?” or “Why do I need a comma there? You might have answered, “Because you don’t want to eat your mom; it’s “I want to eat, mom.””
I came across this humorous article Continue reading
Teaching grammar is a challenge. Making grammar fun is the real challenge, especially when deep questions about existence emerge during a lesson.
One of the things I do as an ESL instructor is to try to find a fun application for a grammatical point I am teaching. Recently, I came up with a great idea for teaching punctuation. After I finish teaching a class on punctuation, I ask the students to imagine that they are a punctuation mark and pick which one best defines them. I prompt them to say: “If I were a punctuation mark, I would be…” This exercise is not only fun (there are a lot of giggles when I introduce this), but helps reinforce the students’ knowledge of the role of punctuation and use of the conditional. Students say things like: “I would be a period because I like things to be clear and definite” or “I would be a question mark because I have a hard time just accepting things. I want to know why.” Although I could usually predict what punctuation mark a student would select, there were times when I was completely flummoxed. Usually, it was Continue reading