People are often under the impression that grammar makes the language even more complicated when in reality building vocabulary is really important for understanding the language better. They can communicate, comprehend, and process situations better when they can construct proper sentences. It helps them to come up with ideas or even absorb knowledge effectively.
The meaning of grammar
Grammar is an organized set of rules that gave the idea of how words can be grouped together to form sentences, and how sentences are grouped together to convey thoughts and ideas. children learn it from a very young age because it gives them the basis off further form in which they can receive knowledge. It comes in three levels
Word formation: It requires the basic learning of English alphabets, understanding vowels, consonants, and sounds of each alphabet.
Phrases: Children form phrases after learning how they can group up words to have a complete meaning.
Sentences: Another group of phrases can make up a complete idea in the form of sentences.
Importance of grammar
A child’s linguistic development lies in how they learn to use rules of grammar. It can;
- Allow children to respond and communicate better
- Help them understand content by building a better vocabulary
- Develop social skills and narrative skills
- Improve learning capacity through an understanding of the concept
- Translate other languages
- Help transform complex sentences into simpler words
Functional grammar lessons
- Parts of speech: This includes nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions. Learning how every part of speech works can help children to build their sentences.
- Direct and indirect speech: People are often required to convert something that has been directly said to them into indirect speech. Keeping this practical application in mind, students learned from an early age with a different level of complication in each class.
- Transformation of sentences: Besides converting sentences from active and passive to direct and indirect, sentences are transformed when there is a need to limit the word count or make something sound more professional or friendly. This is why learning the different formats of sentences can be useful in real life.
- Comprehension and composition: Although this is not functional grammar, comprehension paragraphs where students have to answer questions from a scene essay are needed to build language familiarity and thinking process. Composition writing usually consists of story writing, picture essay, argumentative topics, and narrative essay.
Classroom activities to improve functional grammar skills
Teachers can motivate students by introducing interesting activities in live classes.
- Noun hunt: Known as one of the first parts of speech that children learn. To teach them effectively, teachers can make use of easily available ABC templates that differentiate between a common noun and proper noun, and categorize different places, things, animals, and names for better understanding. With everyday practice, children at the kindergarten level become easily familiar with different sets of nouns. Once they use them in daily life, they learn with practical activity lessons.
- Sorting nouns, verbs, and adjectives: Commonly taken up to test how much every student has learned, sorting out adjectives nouns and verbs can be really fun if the teacher allows students to engage. They love the simplicity of this grammatical activity. Teachers can read out a story to them which are later assigned for a sorting activity.
- The capital game: The letter ‘I’ is capital no matter where you put it in a sentence, and proper nouns are capitalized in a similar manner. Children often have difficulty in perfecting how they write the alphabet after they learn it. A good way to teach online is by allowing them to write four different types of sentences;
- Interrogative: These are the question asking sentences, that usually start with how, why, when, where, is, was, and so on as we move up to higher grades.
- Declarative: A statement, fact, or realized information
- Exclamatory: Exclamatory sentences are used to express really strong emotions, or as a sudden remark that needs immediate attention.
- Imperative: A sentence that makes a request, or gives instructions.
Because the pandemic does not really call for offline classes, life classes are the only way to go. To teach online effectively, educators can use the above-provided ideas for a better online learning experience. If the children are happy and learning, they understand grammar better because of developing interests and curiosity. These activities build their curiosity and innovative powers.
