Learner Challenge

A response to the Learner Challenge Activity
created by Ivan Chow (@chowivan)

Number of views: 250

I teach university-level French grammar. My classes generally consist of students with little or no French background, with students who had studied French in high school. Both groups tend to have a weak understanding of grammar and have trouble seeing the value of communicating using grammatically correct sentences. For me, the challenge is to help students understand why they need to learn grammar. Focusing on this challenge, I start by defining French grammar in concrete and tangible manners. For each grammar topic, I represent the thought process by listing steps in a flowchart. Each step consists of asking relevant questions to gather the information needed and defining rules based on data. Students find this helpful. It changes their idea of “grammar” from a bunch of superfluous concepts into an organized process of actionable decisions.