Teaching Grammar to Kids: Finding Effective Approaches

I work as an assistant teacher at a charter school in Springville, Utah, with seventh and eighth graders. The way that the students' schedules are set up means that the teacher I work with and I instruct these middle schoolers in math, English and history (both world and U.S.).

As part of our English curriculum we are responsible for teaching these students grammar. The school endorses a program called Shurley English which teaches the students through song and pneumonic devices and other catchy little jingles and whatnot the basics of English grammar. Does this work? I don't know. The students absolutely hate it (though that may not be strong enough a word) and their test scores do not necessarily improve from Day One of school to the Last Day of school. This school year (2007-2008) the teacher I work with has disavowed the teaching of grammar through Shurley English and began using worksheets out of a book of teaching grammar to high school students. She felt that this was "more on the kids' level, since Shurley English was clearly designed not for middle schoolers but kids in the first to fifth grade."

This has got me wondering if teaching grammar for the sake of teaching grammar is doing anything salutary for students. Research done by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has shown that "the teaching of formal grammar has a negligible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice in composition, even a harmful effect on the improvement of writing" and the NCTE urged "the discontinuance of testing practices that encourage the teaching of grammar" (Mulroy 52-53).

I had a Shakespeare teacher in college who, as the theme of his class, posited the question: "Why teach Shakespeare?" He called most teaching of Shakespeare in high school (and even in college) the "Shakespeare as Broccoli" approach. You learn about it and read his plays because "it is good for you." This, I feel, is much the same approach that teachers take towards "grammar": students must learn it because "it is good for them." Students, in turn, have much the same reaction to grammar as they often do to broccoli: a look of mixed disgust and revulsion. It is something to be put up with in order to get to better and more exciting topics.

So, if the NCTE is recommending the discontinuation of the teaching of grammar, and in my own experience, the students hate being made to learn it, why do teachers insist on continuing to teach grammar to students?

In his article, "Grammar. For Writing? A Critical Review of Empirical Evidence," Dominic Wyse states that "every scientific attempt to prove that knowledge of grammar is useful has failed" (415) and that research during the twentieth century indicates "that there is little pragmatic justification for systematically teaching a descriptive or explanatory grammar of language, whether that grammar be traditional, structural, transformational, or any other kind" (415). Wyse further quotes the 1991 findings of G. Hillocks, Jr. and M.W. Smith who ask

Why does grammar retain such glamour when research over the past 90 years reveals not only that students do not learn it and are hostile towards it, but that the study of grammar has no impact on writing quality? ... Until we have such knowledge, the grammar sections of a textbook should be treated as a reference tool that might provide some insight into conventions of mechanics and usage. It should not be treated as a course of study to improve the quality of writing. (416)

Grammar, in my experience teaching it, and according to the research done by the NCTE and as cited by Wyse, does not have a significant effect on either students' minds or on their ability to write properly. Grammar appears to be, to some degree, instinctual. In the eighth grade class which I assist, some of the most brilliant writers (both of fiction and nonfiction) do not do well on their grammar assignments, and conversely, those who do do well on their grammar assignments, are not able (generally speaking) to transfer that over to their writing abilities. There are, of course, exceptions on both sides of the equation, as well as a pretty healthy middle ground, but the argument stands nonetheless. For these students, the teaching of grammar has not enhanced their ability to write and reason in the English language in either a creative forum or a rhetorical forum, such as essays and short answers on tests. As a whole, the students I have interacted with perform well in both fields regardless of their scores in grammar.

This observation is backed up in Wyse's article, "Pupils' Word Choices and the Teaching of Grammar." In it, he states that research evidence has not found a correlation between the teaching of grammar and improvements in students' writing and that, in spite of this evidence, teachers are still required to teach grammar. Wyse suggests that, perhaps, a new theory is required in order to construct new teaching approaches to the subject of English grammars (34). In terms of finding a new teaching approach to the subject of grammar, Wyse quotes G. Hillocks, Jr. and W.M. Smith's recommendations

Experimental research as raised an important question that can best be answered by descriptive studies, for example, case studies of why writers make certain syntactic choices or how concern for syntax assists or interferes with planning and composing. A consideration of questions like these would be fruitful direction for future research. (35)

In regards to the students that I work with, both eighth graders and seventh graders, such an approach - asking them why they chose to write things the way they did, instead of telling them this is the way they should write would, I believe, be a much more effective approach to teaching grammar than the rote teaching (either through Shurley English, or through worksheets out of a book, or any other textbook-style method) that is currently despised and forced down by students.

If this is the case, if students roundly despise the teaching of grammar, why do we still teach it in such a way as to be seen as grammarian ogres? I would venture to say that, as with most methods in teaching, it is because we teachers were taught that way and when we, as students, challenged our teachers on why we need to learn grammar in this way, we were given the answer: "Because," which, in effect, is the same as grammar is broccoli. You need to learn it because "it is good for you."

Sources:

Mulroy, David. "Reflections on Grammar's Demise." Academic Questions 17.3 (Summer 2004): 52-58.

Wyse, Dominic. "Grammar. For Writing? A Critical Review of Empirical Evidence." British Journal of Educational Studies 49.4 (Dec. 2001): 411-427.

-. "Pupils' Word Choices and the Teaching of Grammar." Cambridge Journal of Education 36.1 (Mar. 2006): 31-47.