Quick answer: Teach English grammar in a meaningful context, not as isolated rules. Present a new structure through a clear situation, check that students can both form it and understand when to use it, then give plenty of practice moving from controlled to freer tasks – the classic Present, Practise, Produce (PPP) approach. Below are practical tips, an example lesson, a deductive-versus-inductive comparison and answers to the grammar questions new teachers ask most.
English grammar doesn’t have to be boring. Present it well and both you and your students might just begin to love lessons on gerunds, infinitives and beyond. Here are some tips for teaching English grammar.
Should you teach grammar deductively or inductively?
There are two broad ways to introduce a grammar point. With a deductive approach you give the rule first, then have students apply it; with an inductive approach you give examples first and guide students to work out the rule themselves. Neither is “correct” – the best teachers switch between them depending on the class, the time available and the structure. This table sums up the trade-offs:
| Approach | How it works | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deductive (rule first) | Explain the rule, then practise it | Complex rules, exam classes, short lessons | Can be dry; low student involvement |
| Inductive (examples first) | Students spot the pattern and form the rule | Discovering patterns; motivated, higher levels | Slower; needs well-chosen examples |
How to present a new structure (with example lesson)
Whichever approach you choose, a dependable lesson shape is Present, Practise, Produce. Here it is as a step-by-step, using the present perfect simple for experiences as the example:
- Create a context where the grammar occurs naturally. We remember best when things are organised around a theme – for the present perfect, run an “experience survey” (“Have you ever…?”). For the past tense, talk about holidays; for the present, mime daily routines.
- Help students get their mouths around the form. Before any pair or group work, check they can form it. Put prompts on the board (ski, swim with dolphins, eat snake) and elicit “Have you ever eaten snake?” and the answers “Yes, I have” / “No, I haven’t.”
- Help students get their heads around the meaning. Check they understand when and why to use it with concept questions: “Do we know exactly when this happened?” (No – if we did we’d use the past simple.) “Am I asking about experiences up to now?” (Yes.)
- Set controlled practice. Reinforce the form with jumbled sentences to reorder, spotting further examples in a text, and gap-fills to complete with the correct tense.
- Move to freer production. Have students run their own experience survey around the class, or complete a dialogue with appropriate responses, so they use the structure to communicate real information.
How to correct grammar without killing fluency
The fastest way to silence a class is to pounce on every error. During controlled practice, correct promptly so mistakes don’t bed in – a questioning look or a repeated word with rising intonation often does it. During freer, fluency-focused stages, hold back: jot errors down and deal with them in a short board-based correction slot afterwards, praising good language as well as fixing mistakes. The rule of thumb is accuracy stages get on-the-spot correction; fluency stages get delayed correction, so students learn to take risks with the language.
Which grammar points cause the most trouble?
A few structures trip up learners across almost every first language, and it helps to know them so you can slow down and give extra practice:
- Present perfect vs past simple – “I have been” versus “I went”; the finished-versus-unfinished-time distinction.
- Articles (a / an / the / zero) – especially for learners whose language has no articles.
- Conditionals – matching the right form to real, unreal and past situations.
- Gerunds vs infinitives – “I enjoy swimming” but “I want to swim”, with few reliable rules.
- Word order and question formation – getting the auxiliary in the right place.
For a reliable reference to check your own answers, the free Cambridge Dictionary grammar is excellent, and BBC Learning English has clear grammar explanations you can adapt for lessons.
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See a short, three-minute explainer video below on the present perfect simple versus the past simple for experience, taken from our 20-hour Essential English Grammar course.
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Frequently asked questions
What grammar do I need to know to teach English?
Less than you might fear to start, and more than you think over time. Most Global English trainees begin with limited grammar knowledge and build it up alongside their teaching. You need to stay one step ahead of your class: know the form, meaning and use of the structure you’re teaching, and have a good reference to hand. A dedicated grammar course closes the gaps quickly.
What is PPP in grammar teaching?
PPP stands for Present, Practise, Produce. You present the new structure in a clear context, give controlled practice so students can form it accurately, then set freer production tasks where they use it to communicate. It’s the most common lesson framework for teaching a grammar point and a reliable default for new teachers.
How do I teach grammar to complete beginners?
Keep it implicit and functional. Don’t explain rules with metalanguage beginners can’t follow – instead, teach the structure inside a useful phrase (“I’d like…”, “I’m from…”) using pictures, mime and lots of repetition. Beginners absorb patterns through meaningful use long before they can name a tense.
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Most of our Global English TESOL trainees have limited knowledge of grammar when they start, so if that’s you, don’t worry. Get to grips with the basics on our 20-hour Essential English Grammar course, step up to the 20-hour Advanced English Grammar course, or go all-in with the 40-hour Total English Grammar course.
* Want a desk reference? Our Big Grammar ebook is a handy classroom companion.
* Working on pronunciation too? See polish your phonetics.
* Alternatively, put your question to our grammar guru in our Facebook grammar group.