Six Musts For Teaching Grammar

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SIX MUSTS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR
Knowing grammar can improve our ability to think analytically and communicate
confidently and effectively.
It can also help us understand the language that shapes our world and our personal
identities.
Grammar matters, and I’m so happy that you’re here learning more about how to share
this important subject with your students!
I hope that these six musts for teaching grammar help make it an easier and more
enjoyable subject for you to teach. Here we go!
J Elizabeth O’Brien
www.English-Grammar-Revolution.com
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#1 MOTIVATE THEM
No matter what subject you teach, it’s important to motivate your students. If they don’t
already have a natural interest in something, they need to see why learning about it is
necessary.
Tips For Motivating Younger Students (Middle School Students & Younger)
If you’re trying to motivate younger students, short and sweet is the way to go. In fact, I
suggest that you don’t even explicitly motivate them before you start teaching. Instead,
motivate them through the teaching itself.
This is done by teaching clear, understandable, and engaging lessons—with a smile if

you can manage it. If students “get it,” they feel validated and they’re motivated to
continue.
Teaching grammar with sentence diagrams is helpful for this younger group because
learning to diagram is like learning a game. (This is discussed more in #6 below.) Most
children have a natural interest in learning to diagram sentences because it’s so much
like doing puzzles.
One other way to motivate this group is by encouraging them to share what they are
learning with adults. Have you noticed that younger students love to correct adults and
teach them something they didn’t already know? Students find this very motivating. (And
many of us adults find this very annoying!) However, use their interest to your
advantage. As you teach, encourage students to “share” what they are learning with
their parents or other adults. (Mom, do you know the subject of this sentence? I can
show you how to diagram it.)
Tips For Motivating Older Students & Adults (High School Students & Older)
Getting older students motivated can be a longer process if you’d like it to be. You can
engage them in a discussion of whether or not grammar matters and why. Here are
three more specific ideas to help your discussion.
• Show them our feature-length documentary about grammar instruction. You'll

hear from students, teachers, professors, linguists, and others about grammar
and grammar instruction. I promise that you'll find it interesting and inspiring! You
can stream it free on YouTube, and you’ll also find it free here:
www.English-Grammar-Revolution.com/grammar-revolution-documentary.html
• Older students are closer to the “real world” than younger students, and they
have more of an interest in their future careers because of that. You could have a
discussion about grammar as it relates to job prospects. Search online for “Kyle
Wiens grammar,” and you’ll find the article “I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor
Grammar. Here’s Why.” This article is a good way to spark a discussion.

• Many dating sites have found that bad grammar is a deal-breaker for almost 50%
of users! If you’re teaching older students or adults, this might be a good way to
motivate them since most people care about finding a potential mate. Search
online for “grammar and dating,” and you’ll find many articles that could help
spark a discussion.
If you’re uncomfortable facilitating these kinds of discussions, students can also become
motivated by your clear and enthusiastic teaching. So, don’t feel like you must have one
of these discussions before you get started. You could also just briefly mention these
facts and then start your lessons.
If you want to do that, here’s a script that you could use.
The way you present yourself to the world matters. Whether we like it or not, people
judge us based on our writing and speaking. Many employers look at a candidate’s
grammar as a reflection of his/her ability to perform a job well… and grammar even
matters in the dating world. Many online dating sites have found that poor grammar is a
deal-breaker for about half of users. Whether or not you agree with people making these
judgments, I want to prepare you for success in the world, so we’re going to start
learning grammar. Then, you can present yourself to the world in the best light possible,
and I will have done my job.
After you say that, get started with your teaching!

#2 START FROM THE BEGINNING
This one is really important. In fact, teachers breaking this rule usually do more harm
than good.
You need to make sure your students have a solid understanding of the basics before
you move to more abstract concepts.
You might teach all of the right things to your students, but if you don’t do it in the right
order, none of that matters. In fact, it’s a recipe for disaster.
If you needed to drive somewhere that you had never been before, you would probably
hop in the car and use your phone's navigational system to give you step-by-step
directions from wherever you started to wherever you wanted to go.
You would expect your phone to give you, not only the right directions, but the right
directions in the right order.
But what if it gave you all of the right directions in the wrong order? That would be less
than useless. You would have spent time and energy driving, but you wouldn't end up
anywhere near your destination. You would be tired and frustrated, and you would go to
the nearest Dairy Queen to drown your sorrows in a large chocolate milkshake.
You would probably also blame your phone for giving you the wrong information.
However, it didn't give you the wrong information. It gave you all of the right information
in the wrong order.
We all know that for directions to make any sense, they need to be given in a particular
order. Well, the same thing is true for learning grammar. It makes sense when it's taught
in a certain order, and it can be very confusing when it’s taught in a haphazard manner.
Here is a guide you can use for structuring your lessons. It outlines the order of concepts
we cover in one of our courses. (This is from our Get Smart Grammar Program.)
Lesson Topics Covered Example Sentence
1 Subjects, Verbs, Sentences Rex barks.
2 Verb Phrases, Helping Verbs Rex will bark.
3 Questions (Interrogative Sentences) Will Rex bark?
4 Review: Subjects (Nouns), Verbs, Review Sentences & Quiz 1

Parts of Speech

5 Pronouns & He barks.
Commands (Imperative Sentences) Go.
6 Adjectives Crazy Rex barks.
7 Adverbs He howled loudly.
8 Review: Subjects, Verb Phrases, Adjectives, Review Sentences & Quiz 2

Adverbs
9 Prepositional Phrases (Adjective) The girl with the blue

shirt smiled.
10 Prepositional Phrases (Adverb) The boy ran across the field.

Walk across the room.
11 Review: Prepositional Phrases The dog with the loud bark ran into the
house.
(Adjective & Adverb) Review Sentences & Quiz 3
12 Transitive Active Verbs We won the game.

Direct Objects (Noun Job)
Maria and Martha sat.

13 Coordinating Conjunctions
(Compound Subject & Verb) Maria and Martha sat and thought.
14 Coordinating Conjunctions The black and white dog ran

(Compound Adjectives & Adverbs) quickly and quietly.
15 Coordinating Conjunctions Maria will sit and wait.

(Compound Verb & Prepositional Phrases) I ran across the field
and over the hill.
16 Coordinating Conjunctions I will teach, and you

(Compound Sentences) will learn.
17 Review: Subjects, Verbs, Adjectives,

Adverbs, Prepositions, Coordinating Review Sentences & Quiz 4
Conjunctions, Correlative Conjunctions

18 Transitive Active Verbs Mrs. Jacobson taught the class history.
Indirect Objects (Noun Job)
19 Interjections & Nouns of Direct Address Wow, we won!

Elizabeth, we won.
Review: Intransitive Complete Verbs vs.

20 Transitive Active Verbs, Review Sentences & Quiz 5
Subjects, Verbs, Adjectives…
21 Transitive Passive Verbs The ball was kicked by Jack.
22 Linking Verbs - Predicate Adjectives & The soup tastes salty.

Predicate Nouns Mr. Black became a teacher.
23 Linking Verb or Action Verb? Maria tasted the soup.

The soup tasted salty.
24 Review: Verb Types & More Review Sentences & Quiz 6
25 Review of Noun Jobs: Subject, Direct Object, John baked Gerry and
Indirect Object, Object of the Preposition, Tom a cake.
Predicate Noun Tom ate the cake with glee.
John is a baker.
26 Independent Clauses vs. Dependent Clauses The kittens ran home after
- Adverb Clauses they lost their mittens.
27 Dependent Clauses – Noun Clauses I knew the students

would learn.
28 Review: Subordinating Conjunctions, Review Sentences & Quiz 7

Dependent Clauses (Noun & Adverb), Verb
Types & More
29 Dependent Clauses – Adjective Clauses The scarf that I want is black.
30 Review: Dependent Clauses (Adverb, Noun, Review Sentences & Quiz 8

Adjective), Verb Types & More

31 Gerunds Painting is fun.
32 Gerund Phrases Painting pictures is fun.
33 Participles He ate the burnt toast.
34 Participial Phrases The shoe filled with mud

was heavy.
35 Infinitive I want to run.
36 Infinitive Phrases I want to run the race.
37 Review: Everything! Review Sentences & Quiz 9
38 Bonus! Excerpts from Stay Smart : 188 Everything!

Advanced Sentence Diagramming Exercises

#3 BE PREPARED
It's a bad feeling to be standing in front of a class lecturing about a topic that you have
very little understanding of. Learn the content ahead of time so that you can confidently
teach your students.
This is easier said than done when it comes to grammar because, although many
teachers know that grammar is important to teach, they themselves don’t know
grammar. If that’s you, don’t worry.
The trick is to remember that you don't need to know everything at once. Focus only on
the content in the lesson you're giving that day. And don’t go overboard. You don’t need
to read every book chapter and blog post about each topic. Just prepare enough so that
you feel confident about the limited topic that you’re teaching that day.
If you teach in the right order and you start from the beginning, you never have to do a
bunch of scrambling because you yourself have already taught your students the
supporting material for each new concept.
For example, if you’re teaching in the right order, you would teach adjectives and
adverbs before you teach prepositions. This is because prepositional phrases act as
adjective and adverbs. However, if you try to cover prepositions before you cover
adjectives and adverbs, you’ll be scrambling to prepare, and your students will be
confused!
Here’s a more obvious example. You would be sure to cover adjectives, subjects, verbs,
and clauses before you covered dependent adjective clauses. If you did this, you (and
your students) would know the background information you needed in order to
understand dependent adjective clauses.
The only thing you would need to prepare and understand ahead of time would be the
concept of dependent adjective clauses.
happy = adjective who looked happy = dependent adjective clause
However, if you tried to cover dependent adjective clauses before you covered all of the
background information, you would have a lot to look up. Not only would that hard for
you, but that wouldn’t bode well for your students either.
Remember that if it’s hard for you to prepare, it will probably be hard for them to
understand. (Why? It means that some foundational knowledge for the new concept was
probably missing from prior lessons.)

#4 DON’T FAKE IT
Newsflash: You don’t need to know everything.
It’s easy to feel like we, as teachers, should have immediate answers to all of our
students’ questions. We’re scared that telling students we don’t know the answer will
somehow make us less credible to them (and to our colleagues).
But knowing all of the answers isn’t practical. Most subjects are wide and deep, and it
would take years to become a true expert in them. And, contrary to what your instincts
might tell you, admitting that you don’t know something can show others that you have
confidence in yourself and your ability to learn new things. If your students ask you
questions that you don’t know the answers to, you can say, “I don’t know. I’ll look into
that and get back to you tomorrow.”
You don’t need to be an expert. If grammar is new to you, focus on understanding the
concepts that you'll be teaching in the near future. You don't need to know everything
before you begin teaching something. In fact, not knowing everything can be an
advantage.
When something is new to us, learning more about it can be exhilarating. We go through
a honeymoon-like phase with the subject. This means we’re excited and passionate
about the topic, and that excitement shines through us as we teach. We genuinely have
a feeling of sharing something interesting as we’re teaching, and students pick up on
that.
For some “experts,” mustering that same energy for a subject that is old to them can be
very challenging. Embrace your rookie status as you start teaching grammar!

#5 DO FAKE IT
If you dislike grammar, try not to show it. Your students will pick up on your grudge, and
they'll start to have the same feelings about it. That will make it hard for you to teach and
hard for your students to learn.
Do your best to focus on some aspect of grammar that you find valuable and interesting.
Try to convey a sense of enthusiasm, if possible.
I like to think of this advice that Maria Montessori gave to future teachers.
You yourselves must be filled with wonder

and when you have acquired that, you are prepared.
If you're teaching grammar with sentence diagrams, you shouldn't have to fake
enjoyment for too long before you actually start to like grammar!
Speaking of sentence diagrams...

#6 USE SENTENCE DIAGRAMS
Diagramming sentences is a great way to get students engaged in what they’re learning.
Creating a sentence’s diagram is kind of like solving a puzzle. You get to be a word
detective and figure out how the words in a sentence are functioning, and then you get
to show that in a picture.
If you’re not familiar with sentence diagrams, they are basically lines and words that
show the grammatical relationships among the words in a sentence.
For example, interjections are words that are not grammatically related to the rest of the
sentence. We show that in a sentence diagram by having the interjection float on a line
above the rest of the sentence. This shows students that interjections are not
grammatically connected to anything else.
As you can see, I love sentence diagrams. But, having students who can diagram
sentences is not my goal. My goal is to help students understand language, and that's
probably your goal too.
Diagrams can be an excellent tool for developing your students' understanding of

language, but you also need to make sure that your students can explain everything
happening in the diagram.
Some students are excellent at following patterns, and they can diagram sentences
without knowing why they are doing what they are doing.
Look at this diagram. The sentence is diagrammed perfectly, but can the student explain
the grammar of the sentence?
The orange leaves slowly fell onto the ground.

If you start from the beginning, you teach things in the right order, and you use sentence
diagrams, here is an example of what should be going on in your students’ minds when
they diagram that sentence:
The best way to check for this comprehension is to ask students some why questions.
• WHY did you put the prepositional phrase under the verb?
• WHY is orange diagrammed under leaves?
• WHY is slowly diagrammed under the verb?
It would be impractical to ask students WHY questions about every sentence that you
diagram. However, it's helpful to sprinkle these kinds of questions throughout your
lessons.
In our Get Smart Grammar Program, we have students fill in charts for each sentence
diagram. This is another way to check for comprehension. Here's one for the above
sentence. Students would have to complete the chart after diagramming the sentence.
The orange leaves slowly sentence

fell onto the ground.
leaves
the
orange
verb (intransitive complete)
adverb
onto the ground

onto
the
ground
Here’s what the completed chart looks like.
The orange leaves slowly sentence

fell onto the ground.
leaves subject (noun)
the adjective
orange adjective
fell verb (intransitive complete)
slowly adverb
onto the ground prepositional phrase (adverb)

onto preposition
the adjective
ground object of the preposition (noun)
I love using charts like that because the charts hold the students accountable rather than
the teacher having to personally hold each student accountable.

#7 ONE MORE THING (IF IT’S RIGHT FOR YOU)
Follow our step-by-step program that clearly lays everything out and allows you to move
at your own pace.
Our Get Smart Grammar Program is presented in a logical sequence, so it's not an
overwhelming mishmash of information.
It includes video lessons, sentence diagramming exercises, periodic quizzes, and

answer keys for you to check work. You can teach grammar in just ten minutes a day,
and you won't have to plan a thing because it's all done out for you.
My eighth-graders are grasping grammar better than I’ve ever seen. I intend to continue
using this every year!
- Ann, Teacher
After talking to several other teachers, I do believe my students are now the grammar
gods at our school. These freshmen couldn't tell me the difference between a noun and
a verb when the semester started, and now they are feeling so accomplished! Thank you
for that!
- Meredith, Classroom Teacher
The explanations are delightfully clear and concise and your enthusiasm is
contagious! We are honestly ENJOYING grammar! Yay!
- Pam, Homeschooler
www.English-Grammar-Revolution.com/daily-diagrams.html

I hope that you found this guide helpful. If you have any
questions or comments, please send me an email. I’m always
here to help!
www.English-Grammar-Revolution.com/contact.html
Elizabeth O'Brien
I’ve been teaching diagramming and have seen an improvement in how my students
manage their sentence structures in writing essays and stories. They are beginning to
understand that knowing the mechanics of language enables them to express their
creativity accurately.
- Amy, Homeschool Teacher
Your materials are a life-saver and a confidence-booster.
- Lori
We LOVE your curriculum. I tell everyone who will listen about your program and how
they will not regret getting it for their children (and themselves).
- Mindy, Homeschool Mom
You are the one who made grammar, in all its complexity, simple for me.
- Becky, Tutor
Because of sentence diagramming, my students were 'climbing all over each other' to go
to the board. They loved it.
- A Lowe, Teacher

Six Musts For Teaching Grammar

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com Transaction: 0119524684

SIX MUSTS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR © www.English-Grammar-Revolution.com 2

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This is done by teaching clear, understandable, and engaging lessons—with a smile if

• Show them our feature-length documentary about grammar instruction. You'll

SIX MUSTS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR © www.English-Grammar-Revolution.com 3

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If you want to do that, here’s a script that you could use.

After you say that, get started with your teaching!

SIX MUSTS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR © www.English-Grammar-Revolution.com 4

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Lesson Topics Covered Example Sentence

1 Subjects, Verbs, Sentences Rex barks.

2 Verb Phrases, Helping Verbs Rex will bark.

3 Questions (Interrogative Sentences) Will Rex bark?

4 Review: Subjects (Nouns), Verbs, Review Sentences & Quiz 1

SIX MUSTS FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR © www.English-Grammar-Revolution.com 5

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6 Adjectives Crazy Rex barks.

7 Adverbs He howled loudly.

8 Review: Subjects, Verb Phrases, Adjectives, Review Sentences & Quiz 2

9 Prepositional Phrases (Adjective) The girl with the blue

10 Prepositional Phrases (Adverb) The boy ran across the field.

12 Transitive Active Verbs We won the game.

Maria and Martha sat.

14 Coordinating Conjunctions The black and white dog ran

15 Coordinating Conjunctions Maria will sit and wait.

16 Coordinating Conjunctions I will teach, and you

17 Review: Subjects, Verbs, Adjectives,

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19 Interjections & Nouns of Direct Address Wow, we won!

Review: Intransitive Complete Verbs vs.

21 Transitive Passive Verbs The ball was kicked by Jack.

22 Linking Verbs - Predicate Adjectives & The soup tastes salty.

23 Linking Verb or Action Verb? Maria tasted the soup.

24 Review: Verb Types & More Review Sentences & Quiz 6

27 Dependent Clauses – Noun Clauses I knew the students

28 Review: Subordinating Conjunctions, Review Sentences & Quiz 7

29 Dependent Clauses – Adjective Clauses The scarf that I want is black.

30 Review: Dependent Clauses (Adverb, Noun, Review Sentences & Quiz 8

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32 Gerund Phrases Painting pictures is fun.

33 Participles He ate the burnt toast.

34 Participial Phrases The shoe filled with mud

35 Infinitive I want to run.

36 Infinitive Phrases I want to run the race.

37 Review: Everything! Review Sentences & Quiz 9

38 Bonus! Excerpts from Stay Smart : 188 Everything!

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happy = adjective who looked happy = dependent adjective clause

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Newsflash: You don’t need to know everything.

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You yourselves must be filled with wonder

Speaking of sentence diagrams...

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