Episode 397: Why Your Grammar Lessons Keep Falling Flat (And the Fix That Actually Works) Part 1

If your grammar lessons feel like they’re going in one ear and out the other… You are not alone.

In today’s Teaching Middle School ELA podcast episode, we’re breaking down why traditional grammar instruction just isn’t sticking—and what’s actually happening in your students’ brains during those lessons. More importantly, we’re diving into a simple, practical shift you can make that gets students engaged and applying grammar in their writing.

If you’ve ever thought, “Why aren’t they getting this?!”—this episode is for you 

Transcript

The Grammar Struggle Is Real

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Well, hello, teachers, and welcome back to another episode of the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. Before we dive into today's episode, I would like to try to paint a picture for you really fast. And perhaps this relates to you. We're in March, it is the end of March, and you are still teaching parts of speech to your seventh graders. Again, for like the fifth time. Or maybe you're in eighth grade and you are still reminding your students to put a capital letter at the beginning of sentences and a period at the end. Or maybe you just handed back a set of essays and you found yourself staring at a paper with absolutely no periods. Not one. And the worst part is that for you it's like, no, par for the course, not even surprising anymore at this point. Or how about this one? You ask your students which type of describing word adds to a verb and they say adjective. And you're just like, I can't. It's adverb. It's literally the name. It adds to the verb. If any of that felt a little too familiar, then today's episode is for you. So we're gonna be talking about why grammar instruction isn't sticking and what you can do instead. And this is part one, and part two will air later this week. All right, let's dive into today's episode. Hi there, ELA teachers. Caitlin here, CEO and co-founder of EB Academics. I'm so excited you're choosing to tune in to the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. Our mission here is simple: to help middle school ELA teachers take back their time outside of the classroom by providing them with engaging lessons, planning frameworks, and genuine support so that they can become the best version of themselves, both inside and outside of the classroom. And we do this every single day inside the EB Teachers ELA portal. This is a special place we've developed uniquely for ELA teachers to access every single piece of our engaging, fun, and rigorous curriculum so that they have everything they need to batch plan their lessons using our EB Teacher Digital Planner that's built right into the app. Over the years, we've watched as thousands of teachers from around the world have found success in and out of the classroom after using EB Academics programs. And we're determined to help thousands more. If you're interested in learning more, simply click the link in the podcast description. And in the meantime, we look forward to serving you right here on the podcast every single week. So, first, I just want to say this. If grammar instruction has been a struggle in your classroom, it is not because of anything that you're doing. I mean, maybe it is, but most likely not. And it's not because your students are incapable either. It's because grammar is genuinely just harder to teach. And most of us were never really shown a really quality way to do it, right? We see random things online, we test things out, it doesn't work. And think about what makes grammar so challenging in middle school specifically. Right? We have the terminology, adverb, preposition, gerund, verbal. These are all like foreign words to a 12-year-old. And then there are all of the rules. And English has a lot of them. Rules that often feel like arbitrary and confusing. And because honestly, they kind of are confusing. English was heavily influenced by other languages over centuries, which is beautiful, but it also means we are left with exceptions to every single rule and rules that contradict each other. Right. And then there's the biggest challenge of all, and that's getting students to actually care about grammar. Most middle school students are not sitting in your class thinking, oh man, like I really hope we dig into subject-verb agreement today. Like, no one is thinking about that. They're thinking about their friends, they're thinking about whatever's happening on their phone the second they walk out their door, right? So you're fighting terminology, you're fighting confusing rules, and a room full of distracted preteens. So of course, grammar is going to be an uphill battle. But here's what I've learned after years in the classroom and working with thousands of ELA teachers it's that the problem isn't usually the students, the problem's not usually you as the teacher. Typically, it's the approach to teaching the content. So I want to talk about the approach that we teach inside of our EB teachers ELA portal inside of our membership. And we teach grammar using what we call the EB Grammar Framework, very original name I know. And it's built on three separate pillars. So pillar number one is direct instruction, pillar number two is engaging hands-on games, pillar three is application to writing. Now, here's the thing about these three pillars. They only work when you use all three of them together. If you just did direct instruction alone, that's not enough. You could explain a grammar rule clearly and thoroughly, and your students are like, yep, got it, got it, got it. And then they hand you an essay that shows absolutely zero evidence that they even retained a single thing that you taught, right? So director instruction alone doesn't work. Well, games, hands-on engaged in games, great, super fun, also not enough. Right? They're incredible for engagement and practice, but if students don't have that foundational understanding first, they're just playing a game, right? The learning doesn't go as deep as it needs to. They might not even know how to actually answer the questions. And then jumping straight to application and writing without the first two pillars in place is crazy. That's like asking someone to run a race before they've learned how to walk. It's too much, too fast, and students shut down. But when we put all three pillars together, we put them in order, that is when things start to click for our students. And that's when students stop making the same mistakes over and over again. And that's when grammar stops being something you dread teaching and starts being something that actually moves the needle in your students' writing. So today we're gonna dig into the first two pillars of direct instruction and engaging games. And in part two, later this week, we're going to dive deep into the third pillar, which is application to writing. So make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast so that you don't miss this two-part series. So for now, let's start with pillar number one. So pillar number one is direct instruction. And I want to be really clear about something here because I think that there's been a shift in education away from direct instruction specifically for grammar. And when it comes to grammar, I think that that's actually done us a disservice. Direct instruction, especially with grammar, matters a lot. Students cannot apply what they don't understand. They cannot play a game with a concept they've never been introduced to. They cannot weave a grammar skill into their writing if no one has ever clearly taught them what that skill is and why it matters. Students can't do mentor sentences on a specific grammar concept if they have no freaking clue what a gerund is, right? So sorry, that was a little intense. But I feel strongly about this. Direct instruction is a non-negotiable foundation, but how you deliver that direct instruction can make all of the difference. And so here are three things that I want you to kind of take note of that make direct instruction actually work. So number one is you can make it interactive, right? Direct instruction does not have to mean that you talk and students sit there passively. In fact, the more that you can actually get students actively participating, the better the learning is going to stick to them. So one of the best and easiest ways to do this is guided notes, but not just any style guided notes. We at EB do like a mad lib style guided notes. So while students are listening, they're listening for specific keywords to fill in as you teach. They're not just copying what's on the board, they're listening for the information. And that act of engagement can make a huge difference in their retention. And those notes become a resource that they can actually use later when they're practicing the skill or applying it to their writing. Number two is scaffold the learning, right? Grammar can feel overwhelming for students and for teachers, especially when we try to do too much all at once. And the solution really is to break it down. So start with your grade level standards. This is really important because when you actually dig into what grammar concepts you're responsible for teaching at your specific grade level, it's usually much more manageable than it feels. And you can use those standards as your guide and build from there. So before you introduce a new concept, think about what students need to already understand for that concept to make sense, right? If we're teaching verbals to eighth graders, they're probably gonna need a quick refresher on verbs first. And you wanna set that foundation before you layer on the new learning, and that makes everything click so much faster. So a lot of our EB teachers at the beginning of the school year will do a whole unit on like the foundational principles of grammar, verbs, nouns, adverbs, all of those basic things before they dive into those grade level standards. Then last but not least, we want to connect it to real life, right? This one is huge. And I think it's one of the more underused tools, especially with grammar instruction, but teaching ELA in general. Students are so much more motivated to learn anything and more motivated to learn grammar rules when they understand why those rules matter outside of your classroom. So talk about it, right? Have students brainstorm situations where standard English grammar actually matters. Job applications, college essays, social media campaigns, business emails, legal documents, right? There are so many instances in their lives where they are going to need to understand standard English grammar. And a quick note here is when we talk about quote unquote correct grammar, we're talking about standard English for specific contexts, right? Many of your students probably speak different dialects of English that are rich and valid and beautiful. And this isn't about saying one way of speaking is better than the other by any means at all. It's simply about giving students the tools to communicate clearly with a wide audience when the situation calls for it, right? That framing matters and it helps students engage with grammar in a way that feels empowering rather than corrective. Okay, so that is part number one, direct instruction. Now we get to the part that I think transforms grammar instruction more than almost anything else, and that is engaging hands-on games. Now I know what you might be thinking, and a lot of our EV teachers thought this at first. Sounds fun, right? But are games actually effective? And the answer is genuinely yes. And here's why. When students are playing a game, their guard is completely down. They're engaged, they're competitive, they're laughing, they're focused on winning. And in the process of trying to win, they are practicing the grammar skills over and over and over again without it feeling like work, right? And that repetition is everything. And that is how grammar rules move from something students sort of remember to something that they can actually internalize. So games also give you something that worksheets never can immediate feedback. That's huge. When a student answers incorrectly during a game, they find out right away. They know immediately. So they adjust, then they try again. And that feedback loop accelerates learning in a way that a graded worksheet that's handed back a week later simply cannot. Or a worksheet that's never graded and never handed back and sits in their grammar book. That's never gonna be able to give them that feedback loop at all. And the best part is that you don't need like elaborate, complicated games. Some of the most effective grammar games are incredibly simple. So I want to give you some of our favorite low prep activities. And I actually think that we have a bunch of podcast episodes. Let me, before I say this, just double check, all about different types of grammar games that you can use. And I'm almost positive. Let me just type this into my project board. Yes, in February, I aired one, two grammar games that replace worksheets without losing rigor. That's episode 388 that you guys can go do. So that or go listen to. I think that's a fantastic one to get started with. So definitely make sure that you go listen to 388. I will put that in the show notes for you guys as well. Um, so a couple of other favorites are tic-tac-toe. So students take a turn and a student has to correctly answer a grammar question, identify a grammar component in a sentence, or fix a grammar error. And once they do, they get to use that space as their X or their O. It's simple, it's fast, very easy. Um, another one is digging for treasure. I talked about this on that podcast episode. It's like Battleship, but it's played on graph paper. So students answer a grammar question before they guess the coordinates where their partner has hidden a treasure trust on the grid. That's it. Surprisingly, competitive, like highly competitive. And really at the end of the day, the game format is almost secondary. What matters is that students are actively engaging with the grammar concept repeatedly, but in a way that feels fun rather than tedious. And that brings me to the most important thing that I want you to take away from this part one of our little grammar series that we're doing right now, is to rinse and repeat. One round of a grammar game is not enough. Playing the same game or a different game that targets the same skill multiple times over days or weeks, that's what builds true mastery. It's what creates retention. It's what moves a grammar concept from a one-and-done lesson into something students actually remember months later. So I don't want you to be afraid to bring a game back. Students are not going to be bored by it. And the beauty of AI that we have nowadays is you can just have AI come up with new sentences for you to use. So it's the same game, but with new sentences that students are using with that particular grammar concept. So they'll be better at it. And that feeling of getting better at something, that's its own kind of motivation that, quite frankly, our students really need. So here's what I want you to hold on to from today. Grammar instruction isn't sticking for most students because direct instruction alone or worksheets alone or teaching out of a grammar workbook, it's simply not enough. Students need to understand the rule, they need to practice it in an engaging way, and then they need to apply it. And that last part, that application to writing, is exactly what I'm going to be diving into later this week in part two of our series. So make sure that you come back for that one because that's where it all starts to come together. And if you want all of our EB stuff when it comes to direct instruction, the games, application to writing checklists, all already built for you. That's exactly what lives inside of our EB Teachers ELA portal, which is our monthly membership for middle school ELA teachers. Everything is done for you and ready to go. You can add your name to the priority list by going to ebteacher.com forward slash portal, and I will include the link in the show notes for you as well. All right, thanks so much for joining me for today's podcast, and I will see you a little bit later this week for part two.