Teaching Grammar to High School ELA Students: What

Works?
Sarah Fadlaoui
Independent Research I G/T
4/19/16

Advisor: Amy Comberiate

Dr. Melissa Kiehl

Abstract
There are several methods for teaching grammar being used, but not all of them are
effective. Ineffective methods do not bring out students full potential and can waste class time,

while effective methods increase retention and student performance, since they do not deliver
information in a way that best suits student learning styles. The goal of this project is to show
which methods are effective and explain what makes them effective. A literature review showed
that lectures were fairly ineffective because they neither engage nor promote interest in students.
My data collection further proved that engagement and interest are important factors in how
much one retains information and that methods need to involve the student, since those who
completed a game or a video improved more than those who read an article, which did much
more to attract the participant's attention than an article.
Literature Review
Grammar instruction is an important part of English language arts (ELA), but there is
plenty of debate as to which methods work the best. Research has shown that traditional lectures
are an ineffective way to teach, but newer methods have also drawn criticism for being too farfetched and difficult to use. This paper will compare three different methods of teaching
grammar to high school ELA students, identify the most effective method for teaching grammar,
explain what makes a teaching method effective, and prove that games are the most effective
method.
Student-based learning, where students are responsible for learning the material, tends to
work better than passive methods of learning, where students merely receive information. In
these methods, students are engaged and listening. Their attention is required in order for the
lesson to work, so it is far less likely they will doze off or start daydreaming. In 2010, a study
was conducted that tested college students attention spans in three introductory courses which
were each taught in a different way. Students were given clickers to report their attention lapses
and tapped one of the three buttons that indicated how long each lapse was.

There were fewer attention lapses reported during demonstrations and questions
than during lecture segments. There were also fewer reported lapses in attention
during lecture segments in the period immediately following either a
demonstration or a question, when compared to lecture segments that preceded
the active learning methods. (Briggs, 2014)
In student-based learning, attention lapses are less frequent. Students focus more and for longer
on the lesson and therefore learn more of the material in a shorter period of time. Engagement
also helps students become more interested in what theyre learning. Children do not enjoy
sitting for an extensive amount of time listening to someone drone on about a topic and would
rather be doing something hands-on. Children are inherently excited about learning. They learn
because they are engaged (Jawaharlal, 2015). It is much easier to be excited about an interesting
class where one feels like they are taking an active part in learning, which engagement does. For
example, very few people look forward to a science class where they usually receive lectures,
while lots of people are excited to go to a science class where theyd likely do a lab.
Experiencing the joy of discovering something is much preferable to being told information, and
students are more likely to want to learn more after having discovered something themselves.
Games for grammar, such as a race between teams to see who can identify a grammar concept in
a passage the quickest, are much more fun and engaging. Students are more likely to enjoy and
pay attention to this activity than they would a lecture since they need to learn the material in
order to fully participate in the game. They also could be more likely to ask for help if the people
in their group are their friends and they feel comfortable talking to them. Passive learning does
not offer a very good chance to ask questions, and some students might feel uncomfortable

asking their teacher a question in front of the entire class or going up to them after school to ask
them themselves.
Students tend to remember more of what they do as opposed to what they hear. Lectures
have a 5% retention rate (the percentage of information students remember after being exposed
to this type of learning method), while learning by doing has a 75% retention rate (National
Training Laboratories, n.d.). Student-based learning requires students to actively take part in the
lesson and discover for themselves what needs to be learned. Lectures require very little
engagement and therefore have a low retention rate. The most a student will do during a lecture
is take notes. Its better than listening, but they are being handed information and are therefore a
lot less likely to remember it. A study showed that undergraduates in lecture classes are 1.5 times
more likely to fail than students in classes whose professors use student-based learning (Bajak,
2014). Scott Freeman, a biologist from University of Washington, said classes that used studentbased learning got students to stay who wouldve dropped out or failed a lecture-based class
(Bajak, 2014). He and his colleagues conducted a meta-analysis that gathered that student-based
learning decreased failure rates and increased exam scores by nearly one half of a standard
deviation. Additionally, methods that require students to come to the correct conclusion will help
that information stick. Getting the students to think about what the correct answer might be and
figure it out for themselves will leave a longer lasting impression in their brain and result in
better retention. (Joseph, 2014) The fact that they are actually doing the learning themselves and
have experienced an aha moment makes these types of lessons much more likely to be
remembered and are much more interesting for the students.
Lectures have been proven to be an ineffective method of delivering information to
students. Contemporary neuroscience has confirmed that children's learning is largely

dependent on inherent interest, emotional engagement, social interaction, physical activity and
the pleasure of mastery (Bettelheim, 2010). Lectures involve nearly none of these things. Unless
the lecture is on something a student is particularly interested in and the student answers
questions, if the teacher asks them, they are hardly learning. The listening and note-taking way of
teaching with lectures scientifically does not work well.
Additionally, if a student is not already interested in the topic of the lecture (for this
purpose, grammar), they will not become interested after hearing a lecture. This is not ideal since
interest plays a huge role in learning. [...] interest can help us think more clearly, understand
more deeply, and remember more accurately. Interest has the power to transform struggling
performers, and to lift high achievers to a new plane (Paul, 2014). When people are learning
something that interests them, they pay closer attention, are more likely to think critically, and
make connections. They are more likely to work harder and longer to understand something or to
complete a task. In a study at the University of Wisconsin, students interest in an introductory
psychology course predicted whether they would enroll in more psychology courses or major in
it, and, even more accurately, their grades in the course (Paul, 2014). Another study found that
students who did not do well on achievement tests but were interested in reading/math were
more likely to understand the meaning of a passage or complete a math problem than students
who did well on achievement tests but were not interested in reading/math (Paul, 2014). Since
students are not interested in lectures, and because they are not engaged, lectures are linked to
lower tests scores. Games, unlike lectures, engage students and can get them interested in a topic.
Students are much more likely to want to do a game than simply learn about grammar, which
most people consider to be a boring topic. While they are playing the game, they will most likely
learn about the grammar concept being taught and even become interested in learning more.

In terms of giving information, they are no better or worse, but when it comes to
promoting thought, teaching values, inspiring interest, or adjustment, they are not very good
(Bligh, 2000). They do not do much to motivate (energy directed toward a task or goal) students.
Additionally, students level of arousal, or, general level of activity, is not very high wither
during a lecture. One factor that increases arousal is the variation of stimulation. Lectures
provide virtually none- the only stimulation there is is whatever the lecturer is saying. Very small
changes such as change in volume are the only differences there are, and students are not very
likely to notice or care. Unless the lecturer writes something on the board or uses excessive hand
motions, no visual stimulation is present. Additionally, students attention gradually falls during
lectures. They are at the peak period of arousal for only a short amount of time, and, towards the
end of the lecture, are paying practically no attention to the lecture. One method of measuring
arousal is heart rate and is used in a study as such. The heart rate of students went down steadily
during a lecture. When a student asked a question, heart rates went up. During a discussion,
students heart rates went down, then up, but were higher than heart rates during most of the
lecture. Discussions, therefore, engaged students much more than the lecture did.
Adjustment is very important when teaching grammar. The aim is to get students to
realize that they are making mistakes and give them the knowledge they need to fix such
mistakes in future writing. They need to be able to practice new grammatical concepts in order to
improve. Lectures alone provide no room for this. The student simply listens and takes notes, and
might ask a question for clarification. Questions should be asked often, as they engage students
and promote discussion. Unfortunately, teachers sometimes discourage questions since they take
up too much time and students may not want to look stupid in front of classmates so they may
not ask a question about something they do not understand. They have only been told how one

uses whatever concept has been taught. They may or may not have actually learned, and they
may or may not be able to apply what they have learned. Practice, such as a worksheet, game, or
activity during or directly after students have been exposed to a concept, is necessary in order to
measure students skills and see where they need to improve. Lectures dont offer that- teachers
have no way of gauging how well students have learned the material right then and there and
thus are not able to explain until students understand. Students may actually have learned
nothing and the teacher wont realize until they turn in assignments with the same grammatical
errors, which renders the lecture useless.
There is also a disagreement among teachers as to what the purpose of grammar
instruction is.
Teachers may agree with Safire (1984), who argued for a pristine version of the English
language such as his own; or with Delpit (1995), who maintained that although language
variation is inevitable, students must learn the codes of power that give them access to the
benefits of the economy; or with Smitherman (2006), who found the notion of standard
English to be discriminatory; or with Noguchi (1991), who believed that errors carry
different degrees of status for their users, and that the trick to language instruction is to
eliminate errors that welleducated readers find most egregious (e.g., subjectverb
disagreement); or with Shaughnessy (1977), who believed that deviations from textbook
English are developmental and suggest that writers are taking risks; or with Hymes
(1974), who argued that all language use is situational and that the key for speakers is to
develop communicative competence; or with others who have opined on the topic in
many and varied ways. (Konopac, et. al., n.d).

This could cause students to be confused as the teachers attitude on grammar changes year to
year. For example, one year a student may be taught that it is okay to end sentences with
prepositions, and then the next year, they are taught that it is not. They may not know what they
are actually supposed to do, and if they ask different teachers, they will have different answers.
Even if students perfectly remember the grammar concepts theyve been taught and are ably to
apply them, they can still get marked off on papers and such for grammatical errors they didnt
know they made. It is useful for teachers to see examples of writing with the grammar concept
being taught. Teachers have different opinions on the place of grammar instruction, as do writers,
so it can be beneficial for students to see examples of varying uses of grammar. Examples can
help them put the variance in what they've been taught into context and help them understand the
different perspectives of their teachers. If grammar is taught in isolation, however, they will
remain confused and will keep making errors in their writing
Engagement and interest level have a huge effect on how much a student remembers. As
the level of engagement increases, interest level goes up. Lectures, the most passive method, start
with a retention rate of five percent. Reading has ten percent, audiovisual twenty, demonstration
thirty, discussion fifty, practice by doing seventy-five, and teaching others ninety (National
Training Laboratories, n.d). Games could be considered as practicing by doing, so participants
would likely retain around seventy-five percent of the information covered. Additionally, games
often are very interesting to students. hey play games in their own time for amusement and many
love the competitive aspect. In order for the game to work, it is required that students are
engaged and paying full attention. Students who wouldnt normally care to understand and learn
from their errors would be more likely to do so since, in order to win, they must have mastered

whatever concept is being learned/reviewed. For example, students playing Jeapordy! are
encouraged to know material so that they will win.
Being engaged helps students remember information a whole lot easier. The very act of
being engaged also adds to the foundation of skills and dispositions that is essential to live a
productive and satisfying life . . . (Carini, M., Kuh, G., Klein, S., 2004). It is considered to be
one of the best predictors of learning and development, as the more time a student focuses on a
subject, the more they tend to learn about it. There are different concepts of engagementindividualistic (individuals develop while working to achieve educational standards) and social
(engagement is an intrapersonal thing) (Konopac, et. al., n.d). Grammar instruction has never
been considered to be very engaging or even useful, and several studies have proven that
traditional methods, which employ very little engagement, are not useful and do not teach
student grammar rules and how to use them effectively; it has even been found to be
counterproductive and lead to an increase in grammatical errors in student writing (Konopac, et.
al., n.d). With traditional methods of grammar instruction, students are unable to apply what they
are learning as they are learning it and have no opportunity to check if they have mastered the
concept or not. When writing, students will often remember what they are supposed to fix but, as
they have been unable to practice and see how well they understood the concept in question, may
not do so correctly. Games enable students to put the things theyve been learning into context
and to practice what they've been learning. It is also a good way for teachers to evaluate their
students progress. Games will likely not be graded and just for practice, and if teachers see that
students keep getting answers on wrong on a particular topic, they will know to go back and
teach it again and to offer more assistance and practice on that particular concept.

Grammar instruction is an integral part of high schoolers education, and, in order for it to

be useful, it needs to be taught in a way that students understand and will remember. If students
do not apply the grammatical concepts theyve learned, their grammar and writing will never
improve. There are several methods out there, and ones that put students in charge of their own
learning, rather than having facts handed to them, tend to be the best, especially games. It is
important that students are engaged and interested, and, while not always possible, having fun.
Lectures accomplish none of this, and should be replaced with methods that do, such as games. If
games do not work with the concept being taught, teachers need to present information in a way
that students will be able to clearly see what it is, why it is used, and how they use it.
Additionally, there needs to be a way of measuring progress that isnt a test or major writing
assignment. Students will remember more and for longer, making their grammar education as
useful as it can be.

Data Collection and Analysis

Data collection was comprised of a pretest, lesson, and posttest. The participant first took
a pretest to serve as a baseline, then used a random number generator to determine which lesson
they were to complete (the options were an article, a game, and a video). Upon completing the
lesson, participants completed a posttest to assess their new knowledge. Percent increase was
calculated by subtracting the percent the participant received on the posttest from their original
score on the pretest. Percent increase of each entry of each data collection was averaged to judge
methods on effectiveness and put in a table (Appendix) Most of the participants were females in
English 10 G/T.

The research question, What method of teaching grammar rules to high school ELA
students helps them master concepts the quickest? was tested in this experiment through three
different methods to see how much people improved on a test about a concept immediately after
completing a lesson of these methods, thus determining which ones got people to improve their
knowledge best in a short amount of time. It helped determine which one worked the best and
provided valuable evidence to support the hypothesis that games work the best for teaching
grammar. However, since the average percent increase for game and video only had a tenth of a
point percentage difference and in fact video had a higher percent, my hypothesis is not very well
supported. Another trial may be necessary to get better results.
The data helps answer the research question. It shows which of three methods have better
results in posttests, which answers the question of which methods work the quickest for teaching
grammar. The results show that videos actually work the best, since this method has the highest
average percent increase from pretest to posttest. It is closely followed by game, and article is the
worst since its average percent increase was much lower than the other two methods. These
findings provide more insight into what the most effective teaching methods are and what makes
methods effective, since comparisons can be drawn between three two best ones, video and game.
For one, they involve the participant by making them use their senses, utilising surprises and
humor to keep the participant engaged, and, in the case of the game, requires the participant to
actually complete a task. The limitations with this study were, of course, in the participants. There
was not a wide variety, since everyone was female and all but one were taking English 10 GT.
These results are not representative of the general population of high school students. Males,
people in honors or regular English, and freshmen, juniors, and seniors were underrepresented in
this study. The results may not be able to fully describe my question, in this case. Since it applies

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to all high school ELA students, a larger sample size with greater variety would be required in
order to use this study to draw conclusions on how these methods affect high school ELA students
as a whole as opposed to a specific group of people (in this case, female English 10 GT students).
Additionally, only three methods were tested- videos, articles, and games. Lectures, a key method,
was not used. Since it is such a common method, the fact that this study does not cover it could
definitely provide a limitation. There are even more methods out there and the fact that this study
only covered three makes it rather broad. The conclusions drawn from this study may be
overextended to other methods that were not represented. A different study similar to this one
could be conducted with a greater variety of high school students and with more methods. This
would decrease limitation and increase representation, which would allow much more sound
conclusions to be drawn. However, this information could still be used to support the argument
for student-centered learning since the methods that required greater student attention appeared to
increase student performance.

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Appendix:
Percent Increase:

Averages:

Game

Article

Video

50%

25%

25%

50%

25%

-12.5%

12.5%

12.5%

37.5%

12.5%

12.5%

37.5%

0%

25%

25.5%

22.5%

20%

22.6%

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References:
Bajak, A. (12 May 2014). Lectures arent just boring, theyre ineffective, too, study finds.
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved from
http://news.sciencemag.org/education/2014/05/lectures-arent-just-boring-theyreineffective-too-study-finds.
Bettelheim, R. (2010, November 9). Outdated teaching is failing our children. USA
Today. Retrieved September 17, 2015.
Bligh, D.A. (2000). Whats the use of lectures? San Francisco, California: Joey Bass
Publishers.
Briggs, S. (28 June 2014). The science of attention: How to capture and hold the attention of
easily distracted students. InformED. Retrieved from
http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/30-tricks-for-capturing-studentsattention/
Carini, R.M., Kuh, G.D., Klein, S.P. (April 2004). Council for Aid to Education, 19-21.
Retrieved from:
http://cae.org/images/uploads/pdf/07_Student_Engagement_and_Student_Learning_Testi
ng_the_Linkages.pdf
Jawaharlal, M. (2015, February 17). Engaging students: online and offline. Huffington Post.
Retrieved September 16, 2015.
National Training Laboratories. (n.d.) The pyramid of learning. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/files/2013/02/pyramid.png.

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Joseph, L. (2014, February 3). How to teach grammar: what methods are quickest and
easiest? Udemy blog. Retrieved from https://blog.udemy.com/how-to-teach-grammar/
Konopak, B., Murphy Augustine, S., ODonnell-Allen, C., Smagorinsky, P., Wright, L.
(n.d.) Student engagement in the teaching and learning of grammar: A case study of an
early-career secondary school teacher. California Polytechnic State University. Retrieved
from http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1002&context=coe_dean
Paul, A.M. (4 November, 2015). How the power of interest drives learning. Mindshift. Retrieved
from http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/11/04/how-the-power-of-interest-driveslearning/

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