How to teach English grammar for kids

As everyone knows, the easiest time to learn a new language tends to be during childhood – ideally as early as possible.

Though there is some debate about the exact neurobiology that makes children more receptive to acquiring new languages, and better able to adjust to different accents and pronunciations, language teachers have known for a very long time that childhood is something of a “golden time” for developing language skills.

At the same time, it’s obvious that in order to master a language and communicate in it effectively, in a way that native speakers will understand and relate to, it’s necessary to have a good innate understanding of the grammar and linguistic rules of that language.

Part of the issue, however, is that kids tend not to enjoy sitting around for hours, reciting grammatical tables over and over again.

Here are a few general tips and suggestions on how to teach English grammar to kids.

Sign them up for language classes with a teacher who specialises in teaching children

Teaching a second language to a child requires a specific approach, patience, and an awareness of child psychology and the best practices to utilise in order to keep them engaged with the educational process.

Keeping all this in mind, signing your child up for English language classes with a well-known and respected teacher who specialises in teaching children, is likely to be a great way to get them to learn the rules of English grammar in an accessible format.

Of course, any language class will involve some work and focus – but when taught well and in a child-friendly manner, your kids should be able to acquire a good understanding of English grammar without feeling exhausted by the teaching process.

Expose them to grammatically correct English speaking media, including books and TV shows

One of the best ways for children to learn the grammar of a language, is to pick it up implicitly.

In other words, one of the best ways for kids to learn the grammar of a language is for them to figure out what proper speech sounds like, and which words are used in which context, without consciously memorising grammatical rules and lists.

After all, this is how we all learn our own mother tongues in the first place.

One great way to give your child some of this implicit understanding of English grammar, is to expose them to grammatically correct English speaking media, including books and TV shows.

At first, programs with subtitles in your native language will likely be necessary. 

Over time, however, your child will likely come to understand more and pick up some of the grammatical rules of the English language almost subconsciously.

Take advantage of games, apps and services that “gamify” the process of learning grammatical rules

One of the great things about the world today, is that there are so many games, apps, and services out there right now that exist in order to “gamify” the process of language learning – including the learning of grammatical rules.

Find some games and programs that fit in this category, that your child may enjoy – and then see how well they take to them.

Ideally, this approach will help your child to brush up on their grammatical understanding while having fun.