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What is the best way to teach and explain some basic English grammar rules for a 6 year old kid?

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Question added by Samar Saleh , Community Manager , Bayt.com
Date Posted: 2016/03/28
Martha  Alvarez
by Martha Alvarez , Spanish Teacher , ETON Institute

1. Use actions

‘Children often learn best with a mutly sensory  approach, so we teach a different action for each part of speech,’ says Sara Wernham, teacher and co-founder of the Jolly Grammar scheme. For example, children touch their forehead with all five fingers for a common noun (such as ‘chair’ or ‘car’), and pump their arms backwards and forwards as if jogging for a verb (such as ‘walk’ or ‘listen’) – you’ll find the full list of actions on page 11 of the free online Jolly Grammar Guide. ‘Play games where you call out a word and get your child to do the correct action; it can get very silly, but it makes him think about what words are doing,’ Sara suggests.

2. Get your sentences in order

For younger children, write the words of a simple sentence – such as, ‘A duck swims on the pond.’ – on individual slips of paper, and get them to put the words in the correct order, with a capital letter at the beginning and a full stop at the end.

3. Keep it simple

‘Grammatical terms can be confusing, so it helps to simplify the terminology,’ says literacy consultant John Bald, who provides free advice to parents. ‘I refer to articles (a, an, the) as “companion words” – because all words need a little friend – and group adjectives and adverbs together as they both “add” something to a noun. Another thing to highlight is that not all verbs are “doing words” – it is confusing to say that they are, as the verbs to be and to have, the most common, don’t "do" anything! My way of explaining this is to think of things that obviously don’t do anything – for example, the dog is dead, my shirt has a hole in it – and to practise picking verbs out. It causes a lot of confusion later if children think all verbs have to do things.'

4. Read what’s around you

‘Grammar is all about pattern, and patterns are everywhere in the world, so use them as a starting point to talk about grammar,’ suggests education consultant Geoff Dean. ‘For example, the names of hairdressers’ shops and the slogans on the sides of lorries can teach children a lot about language and meaning.’

5. Be colourful

Montessori teachers – and the Jolly Grammar scheme – both allocate a colour to each specific part of speech:

    • Nouns: black
    • Pronouns: pink
    • Adjectives: blue
    • Verbs: red
    • Adverbs: orange
    • Conjunctions: purple
    • Prepositions: green

 

‘To help your child get to grips with parsing – analysing a sentence in terms of its parts of speech – type some sentences on the computer and get him to highlight each part of speech in the correct colour,’ says Sara. You can also do this on paper with felt tips.

6. Get the stickers out

‘One parent I worked with came up with the idea of getting her child to write out sentences and then stick a sticker at the end of each as a full stop,’ says John – instant reinforcement as your child learns.

7. The opposites game

Help your child understand antonyms (opposites) by calling out words like hot, big, slow, easy and getting him to shout out the opposite. Alternatively, get your child to shout words that mean the same as the ones you’re calling out (synonyms).

8. Three-course sentences

‘A good analogy to help children with sentence construction is to think of sentences in terms of eating out,’ says John. For example:

    • Main course: a simple sentence with a subject and a verb
    • Starter + main course: include a starter phrase, such as ‘yesterday’ or ‘one day’
    • Main course + dessert: include a link word (a conjunction or connective like ‘then’ or ‘because’) or strong punctuation, like a semi-colon or colon

 

Your child can then build up sentences with starter, main course and dessert, and so on…

9. Silly sentence makers

Appeal to your child’s silly side by encouraging him to make up funny sentences which still make grammatical sense. Write a selection of subjects, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, connectives etc on individual flashcards and get your child to compose crazy sentences, such as, ‘The hairy baby rode to the moon on a purple banana.’

10. Tense tents

To help your child understand verb tenses, draw some ‘tense tents’ on pieces of paper. Write down some verbs in their various tenses – present (e.g. play), past (played), future (will play), future continuous (will be playing) and so on – and get your child to move the verbs into the correct tent.

11. Take control over sentences

‘A good activity for older children is to challenge them to write sentences of at least 25 words that only contain one verb,’ suggests Geoff. ‘This exercise helps them to understand how to control a sentence, rather than overcomplicating it.’

12. Dictionary corner

‘Learning to use a dictionary is an important part of mastering grammar,’ says Sara. Build familiarity with the dictionary by playing games with it: for younger children, write down a mixture of correctly and wrongly spelled words (‘toothbrush’ and ‘toofbrush’) and get them to find the right spelling, or challenge an older child by calling out unfamiliar words and timing how long it takes him to find the definition.

13. Use online resources and games

There’s a wealth of interactive games that can make grammar fun. Try:

Luai Alazzam
by Luai Alazzam , MYP Language and Literature Teacher , Gimnasio Femenino

make sure to use to a lot of Visual Aids, this way you will smooth the learning process for the learner and you have to make sure to use a story with ur visual Aids so that can serve as an instruction the learner needs to follow.

ahmed abdallah
by ahmed abdallah , Language Instructor , King Saud University

You don't. You just make him deduce and / or drill dialogues.

Teaching grammar is absurd at this point.

Even for native speakers it is tough.

 

Rami Khoury
by Rami Khoury , Guest House Manager , Theodor Schneller School

I would give a few simple examples about an interesting subject to the kid, then I will show him the difference with the correct way and wrong way.

Pradeep Sharma
by Pradeep Sharma , English Language Training Instructor , King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah (KSA)

Through action. Better don't teach him/her the rules; let him/her learn the rules naturally through deductive learning. For example, play nursery rhymes and let them act it out:

Jack and Jill went up the hill.

To fetch a pale of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown.

And Jill came tumbling after.

Now the child will naturally learn that (i) went / fell / broke are used to show past actions, (ii) To fetch (to+verb) can also be used to begin a sentence, (iii) tumbling can be used without is/are/am, etc.

No need to explain past tense, infinitive or gerund or participle to a 6 year old kid.   

MED AMINE
by MED AMINE , Topographe , Soroubat

the best way to make your course easy and understood

make sure to use visual aids like pictures because it makes subject looks easy and the kids can get the point.

with play way method a child can learn more easly and frequently

Abdul Jabbar  Abbasi
by Abdul Jabbar Abbasi , Associate Professor and Head of English department , Gov. Degree College Kotri, Sindh Pakistan , College Education Gov of Sindh Hyderabad

Kids are apt in  learning English Language , in other words , they are in the right age to own a foreign language . A teacher needs to be friendly to them and transmit langual activities in most effective methods as:

Showing gestures in English then telling them the activity

telling them small attractive stories 

telling them his own esperiences 

telling thwm something exciting as, you know,,,,,,

Telling them daily routine and asking them thires riutine,,,

Mohammed  Ferdous
by Mohammed Ferdous , Faculty, English , Pledge Harbor International School; Bhuiyan Academy; The Aga Khan School, Dhaka & Scholastica

For a 6 year average leaner the Inductive Method is more suitable that the Deductive Method while teaching grammar. As children prefer the application than the rules of a language, therefore, a language teacher should approach Inductive methods first. It would be more conducive for children to learn grammar if there are pictures and colourful materials in their lesson so the teacher should heed on it while preparing resources. After making the concept clear of a topic to the students or to make a topic instill into the heart of the learners a  teacher may show or explain the rules i.e deduction.   

Good instruction is good instruction, regardless of students' racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic backgrounds. To a large extent, good teaching—teaching that is engaging, relevant, multicultural, and appealing to a variety of modalities and learning styles—works well with all children

 

ahlem cherni essoussi
by ahlem cherni essoussi , Early Childhood institute owner and director , ( ATFEL AHLEM kindergarten

The best way to teach basic grammar rules to  a 6 years old child is via games, as kids show a great potential for having leisure time, so I think the best way to implement any rule is to teach them while they are playing. That is to say to look for creative ideas and good warm ups to introduce your lesson and get your student's attention and motivate him or her at the same time.

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