Challenges of Studying Grammar and an Approach to Help ESL Students

Every ESL student struggles to comprehend English grammar and its application. Understanding 12 types of verb tense (I go to the store; I went to the store; I am going to the store;  I have gone to the store; I will go to the store; I will have gone to the store; I was going to the store; I had gone to the store; I will be going to the store; I have been going to the store; I had been going to the store; I will have been going to the store) and the subtle differences in their usage is made more difficult by the fact that most native English speakers aren’t able to consistently use the correct verb tenses when they communicate. The presence of modal verbs (I may go to the store); adverbs (Oftentimes, I may go to the store), the fact that adverb position doesn’t matter sometimes (I may go to the store often), and other fun idiosyncrasies in the language make it basically impossible to learn in a logical way. 

An additional problem that comes with studying grammar is knowing where your mistakes lie. You can spend a lot of time reading grammar textbooks, learning rules, doing exercises, and memorizing, but still make mistakes when you speak. 

One approach to dealing with English grammar problems is to speak, record and transcribe your speech, take the transcript and use AI tools, editing software, or peer feedback to identify errors. This approach provides you with very specific feedback. If you mix up articles, prepositions, or don’t know rules about verb tense, you will see that come up in your transcriptions. You can then focus attention on studying those specific rules and doing those specific exercises to cement in your understanding of those grammar rules. 

Other approaches to studying grammar include online exercises (Google specific grammar problems and check out websites like Owl of Purdue’s punctuation exercises), textbooks (there are plenty of different grammar textbooks for all different levels, just Google a textbook, a grade level and add “pdf” for some quick options), YouTube channels (plenty of good ones just search by key terms), or learn by just reading and producing creative writing.