9 Best Grammar Resources for Teachers

How do teachers motivate students to embrace good grammar 365 days of the year and not just on World Teachers’ Day? These ten grammar resources might be just what you need.

1 Visual Aids

If students visualize how grammar works, they will be able to understand sentence structure. For example, an infographic on Copyblogger.com explains what a dangling participle is. Here’s their example sentence: “After rotting in the cellar for weeks, my brother brought up some oranges.” The illustration of a zombie holding an orange helps students see that sentence structure matters. In fact, it’s the difference between life and death! If you don’t have wall space for a poster, take advantage of the following grammar resource.

2 Online Courses

According to its website, the Grammar Challenger helps students “master fifty of the trickiest . . . grammar, punctuation, and word usage” concepts. A pictorial explanation accompanies each grammar point. There are also four hundred practice questions. Whether you choose this online course or another, make sure that there are plenty of opportunities for students to practice what they learn.

3 Interactive Whiteboard Activities

Interactive whiteboards project your computer screen on a dry-erase whiteboard. Students can view and interact with the images, play games, type, or do other computer tasks. According to the National Education Association, “The technology allows teachers to integrate multiple information streams into a coherent lesson individualized for their students. Interactive whiteboards provide an extraordinary opportunity to create classroom environments where students with different learning styles can engage and learn from each other.”

4 Games

What if students could learn and play at the same time? One game on the British Council website teaches how to form sentences using present simple and present continuous tenses. A ticking timer measures students’ speed as they attempt to put a sentence in logical order. Teachers take note: Some British English grammar conventions are different from American ones.

5 Lesson Plans

If you are looking for an effective way to teach a grammar point, other teachers are happy to share what works for them. Ask around at your school or search for lesson plans online. One website where teachers share ideas is TeachersPayTeachers.com. Though some teachers sell their lesson plans and worksheets, there are many free items.

6 Gap-Fill Activities

Did you ever do Mad Libs? A partner tells you the part of speech missing from a paragraph. You provide a noun, adjective, etc. Because you don’t know what the text is about, your random verbs and nouns make for funny reading when your partner reveals the paragraph you completed. Gap-fills help students to identify parts of speech and understand how vocabulary works in different contexts. You can find gap-fills on ESL websites, such as ESL-Galaxy.com, or make your own.

7 Songs

Songs make excellent mnemonic devices. Mr. A, Mr.C, and Mr. D are teachers who use modern tunes to teach grammar ideas. The official story on their website is that a giant shoe-shaped spacecraft crashed near their home. They used songs to teach Bertram, the confused alien pilot, about Earth and the English language. Fortunately, they are willing to share their music with human pupils as well, so you can find their catchy melodies on iTunes and SoundCloud.

8 Online Grammar-Checking Software

The brief grammar explanations that Grammarly provides reveal the “why” behind mistakes. Teachers can also use the tool to make sure the handouts and emails they share with their students are error-free.

9 Reference Books

If you are a native English speaker, you may know the right word to use without understanding the grammar behind it. Reference books provide explanations that you can share with your students. The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need by Larry Shea is one of the top-selling titles in its genre on Amazon.

 

Which of these resources will you use on World Teachers’ Day? It might be fun to do a gap-fill activity, sing a song together, or play a game. Whatever you do, help your students to see that grammar can be as fun as it is useful.

7 Reasons to Love the English Language

Isn’t English grand?

Even if English has been called “a bastard tongue” by many, I still love it. Complex, creole, and occasionally confusing, English is a language that has borrowed and stolen some of the best elements of other languages to make something all its own. Who couldn’t love the language that gave us hilarious-sounding words like “wabbit” and “nagware”?

And with 1.5 billion active speakers, it’s also one of the most widely adopted languages in history. Because of this, I want to take a moment to honor all of the quirks that make English the cutie nerd of every English-speaking logophile’s dreams. Here are some fun facts I’ve cultivated over a twenty-six-year love affair with everything English.

1 The English language is always growing.

Yes, it’s true. The English language continues to grow at a breakneck pace. Don’t believe me? Check out the OED’s Twitter account to see how many words are added to the dictionary each year.

2 Shakespeare had a hand in its development.

April 23 is Shakespeare’s birthday, as well as the UN’s English Language Day. What a coincidence! It’s almost like Shakespeare is the father of the English language.

3 English spelling is a glorious mystery, even to its native speakers.

Irregular, inconsistent spelling is one of the things that separates English from many other languages. Languages like French and German, which are closely related to English, generally follow a set of rules when forming different verb tenses, for example. English has so many irregular verb forms that they are almost a rule all on their own.

4 English has some pretty long words . . .

via GIPHY

Generally speaking, English is a very efficient language that takes fewer characters than many other Roman-alphabet languages. However, that doesn’t mean English is devoid of lengthy words! Some of the longest words in English might surprise you. For instance, did you know “strengths” is one of the longest monosyllabic (one-syllable) words in English?

5 . . . and some short ones, too.

via GIPHY

On the flipside, English has many one- and two-letter words. Often, these “little words” are articles or conjunctions, but once again, there are a few suprises!

6 There are multiple dialects.

Another spelling conundrum English presents is its obsession with creating different spelling rules for different dialects. Just ask any British, Canadian, American, Australian, Indian, or Nigerian English speaker how to spell “city center.” You’ll get at least two different answers (due to different allegiances to British and American spellings), or possibly three!

7 English is old. Ancient, in fact.

Although Shakespeare is credited with coining a large number of words we now use in English, the language predates him by hundreds of years. In fact, researchers have found that some words in English have remained completely unchanged for thousands of years! Even though it has kept some of these very old words, English has also added new ways to express emotion, meaning, and scientific facts. Clearly, the English language is like a fine wine—it gets better with age.

Did I miss one of your favorite anglophone facts? Let me know below!

This Is Why It’s Important to Track Your Writing Stats

Writing is like going to the gym—you’re excited for the end results, but it takes a lot of hard work to get there! You know daydreaming won’t get you the perfect beach bod or the next New York Times bestseller, so how do you reach your goals?

Just as tracking your fitness progress is a healthy way to stay focused and motivated to work out, tracking your writing stats is a fantastic way to take your writing to the next level!

Here are four ways that tracking your writing stats will help you improve your writing and reach your goals.

1Realistic Expectations

Proudest moment of my life #Grammarly pic.twitter.com/I1iYDlIM6d

— Miguel O’Keefe (@miguelokeefe) April 24, 2017

Have you ever been a little too optimistic about your writing speed?

Sometimes we writers tell ourselves crazy things like “This blog post should only take half an hour!” or “Writing my thesis will take two weeks, tops!” or “I’ll finish the first draft of my novel in a single month!”

Turns out it’s helpful to have realistic expectations about how much you can accomplish. When you know your current writing pace, you’ll be able to plan ahead and give yourself the time you need to produce your best work.

For every writing session, record your start and end time and how many words you wrote. As you track your work, you’ll begin to see how long it takes you to complete a project or meet a word count.

You’ll know the optimal writing time to schedule so you can finish your essay or post. This can also help you set realistic long-term goals if you’re working on a big project like a thesis or a novel.

If you’re starting to charge for your writing, knowing your average writing pace will help you calculate the best price for your clients’ projects so you’re making a profit and not a loss.

2Motivation and Accountability

It’s nice when the #stats support your feelings. Felt #productive last week. Back at it! ������ #ReadWriteRepeat #Grammarly #ManuscriptLife pic.twitter.com/3fVVcYVivr

— Michael S Williams (@DrMikeWill) March 28, 2017

“Write a thousand words a day and in three years you’ll be a writer!” —Ray Bradbury

Tracking your word count is like using a pedometer to track your steps. Getting to watch your progress is exciting, motivating, and keeps you accountable.

Many writing projects take multiple days (or weeks, or months) of work, and it can be demotivating if you feel like you’re not making progress. When you track your daily word count you’ll know exactly how much further you have to go, and it feels great to see what you’ve accomplished so far.

If you’re trying to develop a daily writing habit, shooting for a certain word count—whether that’s 200, 750, or 1,000 words (as Ray Bradbury recommends)—will help you stay on track.

3Goal Achievement

Happy with my weekly #Grammarly stats. Clearly room for improvement which you will see in the weeks ahead! #Croydon #CompleteMarketingMix pic.twitter.com/pRg9HjONhu

— Smallbiz-emarketing (@smallbizemarket) April 1, 2017

A powerful method for staying motivated and making progress is setting clear, achievable goals so you know exactly what you’re working toward.

With fitness, that might be losing a certain number of pounds or inches or lifting a particular weight. With writing, that could be a goal of X words per day, or posting to your blog twice a week, or finishing a short story by a certain date.

Just like you would weigh yourself at the gym, you should track your writing progress so you know how close you are to your goals—and whether you need to adjust your strategy.

Apps like Pacemaker and Ink On are great for helping you meet your goals through planning and tracking your writing projects.

4Increased Quality

Wow, #Grammarly says I’m a #Vocabulary Superhero �� pic.twitter.com/rWPMNeMgI6

— Nikola Danaylov (@singularityblog) May 3, 2017

Tracking your health and fitness goes beyond the scale and can involve multiple measurements, like resting heart rate, blood pressure, cholesterol, and BFP.

Likewise, writing stats can go beyond quantity (word count) and speed (writing pace), and can help you track the quality of your writing through metrics like

• vocabulary diversity
• grammar mistakes/accuracy
• sentence length
• words per paragraph
• pronouns
• clichés
• most used words
• readability

Check out Count Wordsmith to dive into tracking these more detailed stats.

You can also get a regular stats update delivered right to your inbox through Grammarly’s Weekly Progress Report. Simply stay logged in to your Grammarly account while you write and Grammarly will track your key stats for you. This personalized report records your word count and vocabulary usage, and reveals your top grammar mistakes—so you know exactly what to work on going forward.

Has tracking your writing stats helped you improve your writing? Let us know in the comments below!

Is It Honor or Honour?

The notion of honor varies greatly from one culture to another. Ideas about what it means to have it, how to obtain it, and how to preserve are studied by sociologists and anthropologists. But here we’ll be studying how to spell it. Here’s the deal: you can write honor in your college paper, or honour in your university test, and in both cases you’d be correct. But some might frown if you do it the other way around, because there is a slight difference between the two spellings that has nothing to do with the meaning of the word itself: Honor is the preferred spelling in American English and is pronounced ˈä-nər; Honour is the preferred spelling in British English and is pronounced /ˈɒnə/.

The -our / -or Dilemma

There is a group of words in the English language that have the same dual spelling option as honor. They all have in common the same ending: -or in American English and -our in British English. Not every word with an -or ending in American English is spelled -our in British English—words like governor and meteor are spelled the same in both variants of English. It goes the other way around as well—tour and troubadour are spelled with -our on both sides of the Atlantic ocean.

But words like color, favor, and honor—spelled as such in American English—are colour, favour, and honour in British English. The person who receives the most credit for this dropping of u is Noah Webster, the American lexicographer, whose dictionaries were very influential on American English. He wasn’t the first person to favor the shorter spelling—Benjamin Franklin advocated spelling reform years before the lexicographer became interested. But when he did, he made history. Years before that, Webster’s British counterpart, the equally influential lexicographer Samuel Johnson, came out in support of the longer spelling. And that’s how it has stayed to this day . . . sort of.

Exceptions:When Even British English Speakers Prefer -or

There are certain cases when British writers drop that u. Words like honorary and honorous are spelled the same way in American English and British English. That’s not the end of it, though—honorific, honorial, and honoration are also always spelled the same.

Examples of Honor and Honour

I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on. —Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

They gathered together at the site of the Battle of the Somme, 100 years after the bloodiest day in British military history, to honor the dead. —NPR

Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. —Winston Churchill, Never Give In!: The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches

The ‘Grand Vermeil’ is regarded as Paris’s most prestigious honour and has been awarded to Nobel Prize in literature winner Toni Morrison, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. —BBC

Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award. —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

David Spearing, Wimbledon’s senior honorary steward, believes he has Sir Terry Wogan to thank for turning him into a cult figure. —The Telegraph

Nine Tips for Writing the Perfectly Professional Sales SMS

By Sophorn Chhay

Just because you have room for 160 characters in your texts doesn’t mean you should use them all.

In fact, texting experts seem to agree that an ideal text should be short and sweet, especially in a business environment, where the name of the game is brevity. Essentially, focus on quality, not quantity.

This can sometimes be a challenge for people who enjoy being verbose. But keeping your message under 160 characters can be good practice—and it’s still easier than beating Twitter’s 140-character limit.

For those interested in crafting professional messages that get to the point but are also well written, try these strategies:

1 Figure out a reason. To directly promote a sale or event? Build your database? Ask recipients to join a loyalty club or complete their membership profile? Alert your audience to something new in your company or site? Unlike social media, where it’s OK just to say hi or put up a fun picture, professional texts need to have a purpose. Since people are likely to check out a text within a few minutes of it arriving, it needs to get their attention and justify them taking the time to read it.

2 Identify yourself. Even if someone has given approval to receive texts from you and your business, they may not recognize your phone number or name and could immediately reject it as spam. So in the first few lines, identify yourself, either personally or by your company name. It also can help your recipients decide if they want to keep reading or go on to the next text, based on their past experience with your texts.

3 Make it personal. You may be sending the same note to thousands of subscribers, but you can still make it sound like you’re talking directly to each recipient. Try something like “We have a deal we’re sure you’ll enjoy” or “You need to come check this out.”

4 Extend an invitation. If you want customers to come buy from you, invite them to your store or your site. It could be more meaningful for recipients to read “We have a sale we’re sure you’ll enjoy” rather than a general “We’re having a big sale.”

5 Include a link. The link could send people somewhere on your site or to a special landing page for this particular promotion. But send them somewhere—they can receive more details, and you can get useful info about click-throughs.

6 Vary your voice. You can have a general voice for your “everyone” list of recipients. You also can have different categories in your database—maybe “users who like ___ product,” “members of our loyalty club,” or “super shoppers.” If you send separate notes to these groups, use slightly different language—maybe something more casual or informal.

7 Be enthusiastic but professional. You’re not a fifteen-year-old and your audience probably isn’t either, so there’s no reason to go bonkers with exclamation points!!!!! But you can throw in adjectives like “exciting,” “very cool,” or “amazing” to convey how appealing your message or special offer is.

8 Appeal to your customers’ need to improve their lives. You may already be including this lure in your marketing materials, but do it faster here. “Come and save money!” “Get a haircut and look your best!” “Plan ahead!” “Prepare to fall in love with our new dessert menu.” Various studies show that saving money is a prime reason that people join loyalty clubs —supporting a brand is nice, but what’s nicer is helping the budget.

9 Be direct. Sound confident and convincing in your invitation. Instead of saying, “We think you’ll like this,” try “We know you’ll love it.”

Looking at this list, it might seem like quite a lot of instructions and suggestions to keep in mind when you have only 160 characters to work with. The good news is that you’re allowed to practice—the more you write and the more your database grows, the more opportunities you’ll have to nail these.

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Sophorn Chhay is an inbound marketer specializing in attracting targeted visitors and generated sales qualified leads. Through Trumpia’s SMS and marketing automation solution, he helps businesses and organizations communicate effectively with their customers or members. Trumpia is offering a free Mobile Marketing Success Kit, so don’t forget to grab your free copy.