“Teacher, why is past participle here?”
I stared at my student, then at the textbook, and then back at my student.
I had no idea what a past participle was. I hadn’t heard that term before…and I was supposed to answer a question about it?! Yeah, welcome to adult ESL, where you’re one page ahead of your students (and that sometimes feels lucky!).
At my first adult language school, we got our course assignments the day before the new term started, which happened every four weeks. And the classes we were assigned could be any of ten levels of grammar, reading, writing, speaking/listening, plus TOEFL prep and academic essay writing. And we never knew until the afternoon before the first class just what we’d be teaching!
So there I was, still frantically flipping through grammar textbooks at 11 pm, trying to figure out what the heck a gerund was before I had to teach it at 9 am.
My students knew more grammar terminology than I did. Many of them had studied English grammar explicitly in their home countries and could recite rules without a second thought…though maybe not in English. But, they needed help applying them and recognizing which rule was needed where and when.
Me? Well, I could feel when a sentence was wrong, but explain WHY? Ha! I was lost.
The Problem with Being a Native Speaker
Here’s what nobody tells you when you take your first ESL teaching job…growing up speaking English does not prepare you to teach English grammar.
You know it’s “I have been working” not “I am being working.” You just… know. You can’t explain why. And to be fair, until now, you’ve never had to.
Your students don’t have that luxury or that innate feeling of what’s right and what’s wrong, so they need the rules. They need the patterns, and they need to understand the system.
And you? Well, there you are, standing in front of them with a grammar book full of terms you’ve never heard before, pretending you know what you’re doing.
I sure was.
How I Stopped Faking It (Mostly)
I had two choices: quit my dream job or learn grammar like my life depended on it.
I chose option two.
- I read grammar books. Not the ones for native English speakers in high school. Those assume you already have an intuitive sense of what’s correct. I read the ones written for ESL students and ESL teachers. The ones that explain everything explicitly.
- I read grammar nerd blogs. I googled everything. I found English teacher forums where I asked dumb questions. I screwed up in front of my students, gained a red sweaty face, and then went home and figured out what I’d gotten wrong.
- I did the exercises. Yes, those dry-as-dirt, boring fill-in-the-blank exercises in the textbooks. I did them myself before assigning them. Sometimes this helped me understand the concept. More often, it helped me realize how mind-numbingly dull they were.
The sentences were bland and lacked creativity. There wasn’t a connection to real life. And worse, the explanations were scattered across different chapters, different units, sometimes different books entirely. I’d have to flip back and forth just to understand how the present perfect related to the simple past.
If I was struggling with this, I knew my students definitely were.
So, I Started Making Cheat Sheets for Grammar Survival
I started creating cheat sheets just for me to survive teaching particular concepts. These were one-page guides that laid out a grammar concept clearly, showed the patterns, explained when to use it, and compared it to similar structures.
So, for example, before teaching conditional sentences or the passive voice, I’d review my guide..not just the night before (because that was when I was still making it), but literally moments before opening my mouth to teach it! I’d glance at my charts, and because the information was still fresh from the night before, I didn’t have to memorize it all. I just needed it accessible.
Then one day, a student saw my cheat sheet.
“Teacher, can I have a copy?”
Then the whole class wanted one. Then the new teachers who were just as clueless as I’d been wanted copies for themselves and their students.
I realized something: if this helped me, it would help them.
So I kept making more. I made worksheets that didn’t bore students to tears. I created activities where students could actually investigate the grammar themselves instead of just filling in blanks. I designed materials that synthesized related concepts in one place instead of forcing students to hunt through twelve different chapters.
I wasn’t doing this because I was some altruistic saint. I was doing it because my students had limited time and limited money to pass their English proficiency exams and get into university. They deserved better than me winging it with a boring textbook. And I didn’t want to look like a useless face in front of a group of people.
No, You’re Not a Fraud if You Don’t Know the Answer…
If you’re teaching ESL grammar and you don’t know grammar…you’re not a fraud. You’re just a new teacher.
The difference between staying a new teacher and becoming a good teacher is whether you’re willing to learn alongside your students.
Read the books. Do the exercises. Google everything. Make your own materials when your mandated textbook fails you (and it will). If you don’t have the time, look for ready-made resources. They’re out there.
And here’s the thing: you don’t have to know everything before you start teaching. You just have to stay one step ahead. Read the chapter before you teach it. Do the exercises before you assign them. TRY to anticipate the questions your students will ask.
Will you still get stumped sometimes? Yes. That still happened to me even after I’d revised my cheat sheets a few times.
But now when a student asks me about the past participle, I can explain it. And if I can’t, I tell them I’ll find out and bring the answer next class.
That’s not faking it. That’s being honest about what you know and what you’re still learning.
But What If They Get Mad That You Don’t Know?
Most of the students will respect you more for admitting when you don’t know, but I’ll be honest here…there will be some who get upset because they are paying for a professional to teach them, and suddenly, you don’t sound like one to them because in their culture, a teacher would NEVER admit not knowing something.
Here’s how to get around that…tell them that they are asking a question that is above their level, and they’re not quite ready to hear the answer. Then you’ve bought yourself a little time to learn how to teach it to them. And, chances are that if you honestly prepared for that class, the question IS above that student’s readiness to learn it. And when it comes up a couple days or weeks later, bring it up. “Hey class, remember when Sanja asked about why that verb was singular instead of plural? Today is the day we talk about it!”
I also familiarized myself with exactly when which concepts were taught in which levels. Then I could always say, “Wow…that’s a level five question, and you’re in level two! It’s impressive that you came up with such a question. We’re not ready for it now, but you’ll learn all about it when you’re in level five.”
But yeah, when you’re brand new to teaching grammar, where do you even begin to learn it all?
The Bottom Line
Pick one grammar concept you struggle to explain. Read about it, and do the exercises. Make yourself a one-page guide that makes sense to YOU. If it makes sense to you, chances are it’ll make sense to your students too.
Then tackle the next concept. And the next. You don’t have to master all of English grammar overnight. You just have to start.
That’s it from me. See you in the next post!
Need some ready-made grammar materials?
Take a look at these bundles available in my TpT store:
grammar guides . . . | | | . . . linguistic investigations . . . | | | . . . task cards . . . | | | . . .activities.
Read more about teaching adult ESL grammar
3 Fun Speaking Activities for Comparative Adjectives
Conditionals Worksheets: 6 Quick Ways to Make Them FUN!
I Don’t Regret Letting YouTube Teach My Grammar Class That Day
2 Fun Activities for Reviewing Prepositions of Time
How to Teach Coordinating Conjunctions to Adult ESL Students (Discovery Lesson Method)
FREEBIE ALERT!
Now I’d like to share a grammar guide with you. It’s concise, ink-friendly, and you are free to share it with YOUR students if you’d like.
