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Teaching grammar
Grammar takes up more class time than any other part of language teaching. We explain rules. Students copy them. We do gap-fill exercises. We mark them. We move to the next rule. Year after year.
But here is something many EFL teachers notice: students who can fill in every gap correctly often cannot say two sentences in real conversation. They know the present perfect tense. They cannot use it. They have learned about grammar — but they cannot use grammar.
This is the gap at the heart of grammar teaching. And it is not the students’ fault. It is what they have been taught.
In this lesson, we will look at why traditional grammar teaching often fails — and three small changes that turn grammar from something students know about into something they actually use.
Q2: Which of these are real challenges in your grammar teaching? (Tick all that apply)
- The most important point in this whole lesson: grammar is something to be used, not just understood. Many EFL classrooms test “knowing about” grammar but never give students the chance to use it
- If your students do gap-fills correctly but cannot speak, the diagnosis is clear: they have practised the form but never produced it in real situations. They do not need more rules — they need more chances to use what they already know
- If grammar lessons feel boring, the textbook is usually the cause. Most grammar textbooks were written for a generic student in an ideal classroom. Your students need grammar tied to their lives
- If students are afraid to make mistakes, that is a classroom culture problem, not a grammar problem. See the Speaking lesson for ideas on making mistakes welcome
- If the exam is grammar-focused, you can still change how you teach. Students whose grammar is genuinely active — not just memorised — do better on grammar tests too
Grammar is not just rules. It is the way we put words together to mean something.
In many classrooms, grammar is taught as something to know about: “The present perfect is used for actions that started in the past and continue now.” Students copy this. They memorise it. They fill in gaps. But they do not use it.
The shift this lesson asks you to make: treat grammar as a tool for meaning, not a set of facts to remember. The best test of whether students have learned a grammar point is not whether they can recite the rule. It is whether they can use it to say something real.
The traditional method — and what often goes wrong
Most teachers were trained to teach grammar using PPP — Presentation, Practice, Production. The structure looks like this:
The problem: the third P is the most important. It is also the one most often skipped. The lesson runs out of time. The textbook does not include it. The exam does not test it. So we move on. And students never produce the grammar in a way that turns knowledge into use.
Two ways to teach a grammar rule
- Teacher explains the rule (e.g. “add -ed for past simple”)
- Students do practice exercises
- Test or move on
Fast. Familiar. But students often cannot use the rule in real situations.
- Teacher gives example sentences (with clues like yesterday)
- Students work in groups to figure out the pattern
- Students teach the rule back, then use it
Slower. But students remember more, and start in “use” mode rather than “memorise” mode.
You do not have to choose one. The best teachers vary their approach: deductive when time is short or rules are tricky; inductive when there is time and the rule is something students can discover.
Most teachers honestly admit that production is the stage they most often skip. Naming this is the first step to changing it.
- The most common reasons production gets skipped: running out of time, worry about noise, and worry about mistakes. All three are addressable
- If time is the problem, the answer is to spend less time on presentation, not more time on the lesson. Five minutes of explanation plus ten minutes of production beats fifteen minutes of explanation
- If noise is the problem, plan for it. Production stages should be louder than copying exercises — that is what learning sounds like
- If mistakes are the problem, see the Speaking lesson for ideas on making mistakes welcome. Without tolerance for mistakes, students will not produce anything
- You do not need to do production every lesson. But if you do none for a whole term, students will leave with grammar knowledge they cannot use
Drag each task to a box, or tap a task and then tap the box. Some look like “using” on paper but really test memory of rules. Some are simpler-looking tasks that produce real grammar use.
Tasks that get students “using” grammar ask for real production: speaking about real topics, writing about themselves, doing physical activities while using the language. The grammar is the tool, not the goal.
The shift: not “stop doing gap-fills.” It is “do not only do gap-fills.” Add at least one production task per grammar lesson. Even five minutes is enough. The grammar moves from short-term memory into actual use.
Three techniques that make grammar real
These are concrete ways to add a production stage to any grammar lesson — without needing new materials.
Concrete plans are far more useful than general intentions. The same grammar topic can use any of these techniques.
| Technique | Your specific idea for one grammar topic |
|---|---|
| Substitution table | |
| Physical movement (Get in line, mime, etc.) | |
| Personalise the topic | |
| Try inductive presentation (rule discovery) | |
| Plan time for the production stage |
Example: Past simple tense. Same topic, four different production approaches:
| Technique | How it could work |
|---|---|
| Substitution table | On the board: “Last weekend I [went / visited / ate / saw / played] [my grandmother / a friend / good food / a film / football].” Pairs make sentences — some real, some funny. |
| Physical movement | “Get in line in order of when you got up this morning.” Students ask each other: “What time did you get up?” — rich past simple practice. |
| Personalise the topic | Forget the textbook story about a holiday. Ask: “Tell your partner three things you did yesterday after school.” Real lives, real grammar. |
| Try inductive presentation | Write four sentences on the board: “I walked to school. I helped my mother. I cooked dinner. I went to bed.” Ask: “What do you notice about the verbs?” Students discover -ed and irregular forms. |
| Plan time for production | Cut presentation to 5 minutes. Cut practice exercises to 10 minutes (and have students check each other’s answers). Save 10 minutes for production: students write a short personal paragraph about yesterday. |
Q6. Watch the video below. Think about which change is easiest for you to try first.
Host: We have just looked at why grammar teaching often fails — and three techniques that turn knowing into using. Now listen to three teachers. They share their problems first, then the changes they made.
Teacher 1: My students could fill in any gap-fill. Their workbooks were full of correct answers. Then I would ask them to speak about the weekend, and they froze. They knew the past simple, but they could not use the past simple. I felt like I was teaching grammar that disappeared the moment students closed the book.
Teacher 2: My grammar lessons were dead. I would write the rule. Students would copy. We would do exercises. They would mark the answers. Then we would move on. Nobody was excited — not them, not me. Year after year of the same routine.
Teacher 3: I always ran out of time before the production stage. I would explain the rule for fifteen minutes. Students would do practice exercises for twenty minutes. The bell would ring. There was never time for them to actually use the grammar. I knew it was a problem but I did not know how to fix it.
Teacher 1: I started using substitution tables. Just a sentence frame on the board with options for students to mix and match. Suddenly grammar was fun. Students made silly sentences in pairs. “I like cooking my friends. I like cleaning football.” They laughed, but the structure was correct. They were producing the grammar, not just filling it in.
Teacher 2: I added physical activities. For comparatives, students lined up by height, only speaking in English. For dates, they lined up by birthday. The room came alive. Students were moving, asking, listening, using the grammar to actually do something. The lesson stopped being dead.
Teacher 3: I cut my presentation time in half. I started giving students model sentences and asking them to find the rule themselves — the inductive approach. It was slower at first, but they remembered the rule far better because they had discovered it. And I gained ten minutes for production every lesson. Now there is always time for students to actually use the grammar before the bell.
Host: None of these teachers had different students. None of them had new textbooks. They changed three things: how they presented, how they practised, and they protected time for production. Grammar moved from something students knew about to something they could actually use.
Q7. For each strategy, choose the option that best describes where you are now.
One lesson. One grammar point. Plan exactly when and how the production stage will happen — before time runs out.
- Grammar is something to be used, not just understood. Students who know rules but cannot use them have not really learned the grammar — they have learned about the grammar
- The traditional PPP method works — but only if you do all three Ps. Production is the most important stage and the most often skipped. Protect time for it
- Try the inductive approach: give students model sentences and let them discover the rule. They remember more, and the lesson is more engaging
- Three techniques make grammar real: substitution tables for varied production, physical activities for movement and urgency, personalisation to connect grammar to students’ lives
- You do not need new textbooks or new materials. Five minutes of real production at the end of every grammar lesson changes everything — over a term, students start using the grammar they once only memorised
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