What’s stopping you from starting your English-teaching business? Is it because you don’t know the basics of how to teach? I’ve written a post about that here. Unsure where to get your first students from? Listen to this. Don’t know how much to charge? I gotcha covered here.
So what’s really bothering you? Is it that you fear students’ questions you might get about grammar that you won’t know how to answer? Be honest: you don’t know your split infinitives from your dangling participles, do ya? Fear not. You’ll get better at answering grammar questions with experience, but until you have that experience, here’s my cheat sheet of the dozen basic grammar rules of English. Think of it as a reverse 80/20 rule: these are 20% of the grammar rules that will allow you (and your students) to speak English in 80% (or more) of situations. You can do this, really. Let me elaborate:
Grammar terms: Don’t obsess about the correct grammar terms for all parts of speech. Just know the basics, which are all here in this sample sentence in italics with basic grammar terms (in brackets) after the relevant words:
A (indefinite article) nervous (adjective) teacher (noun) stared (verb) unhappily (adverb) at (preposition) the (definite article) student (object).
The verbs are the key to understanding most grammar problems because they have different tenses, and you (and your students, eventually) should know the main ones and when we use them in English. Here goes:Present continuous: Used for what is happening right now: I am writing a blog post while my wife is sleeping. Can also be used to talk about the future as if in a diary entry: My wife is seeing her lawyer tomorrow at 9am.
Simple present: Used to express habitual actions: I speak English every day. Remember third person (he/she/it) uses an extra ‘s’: She usually speaks Japanese to the cats.
Simple past: Used to show something that happened in the past and is totally finished now: I went to America last year. I lost my credit card in San Francisco.
Present perfect: Present perfect is used to show experiences and things that started in the past but still have an effect on the present. She has eaten natto. I have lived with her since 2007. Have you ever been to Mito, home of natto? By the way, all verbs have three parts — eat/ate/eaten (irregular verbs) or play/played/played (regular verbs). Just to confuse you, “been” is the past participle for the verb go — go/went/been and the verb to be — are/were/been.
Future with “going to”: Used when there is a plan for the future, or there is something about now that has an impact on the future. I’m going to see my pals in Roppongi tonight. It’s going to rain, according to my phone. Usually pronounced “gonna”.
Simple future (future with will): Used for anything that there’s no plan for, or you are making a prediction. Is that the phone? I will answer it. There’s no way that I will ever run for President of the USA.
Enough of the tenses. There are more, but they are rather nuanced and less useful, so can be avoided in lessons most of the time. Let’s move on to articles (“a” and “the”): The basic difference is that “a” is for unspecified things, and “the” for specified things. I saw a dog in the road. (It’s one of any number of dogs, it’s not important which one). The dog didn’t see me. (We know that I’m talking about the same dog from the first sentence). There are many more nuanced differences and usages that seem contradictory. Frankly, it’s rarely worth going down this grammar hole because if the students can’t grasp the differences, being told a bunch of long-winded grammar rules won’t help them. Best to say it all becomes clearer the more you use them, a bit like the differences between wa and ga in Japanese.
Countable and uncountable. Every noun is either countable or uncountable. If you can make a plural of it then it’s countable, eg, dogs, pineapples, textbooks. You would use words like many, few and fewer for countable nouns. Uncountable nouns are those you can’t make plurals of, eg, freedom, pineapple juice, money (you can count yen or dollars, but you can’t count money — 1 money, 2 moneys?). You would use words like much and less with uncountable nouns. Some, a lot and lots of can be used with countable and uncountable nouns. It all gets a bit confusing as we often break these rules (Go get three coffees from the shop, I have less cups than you) but the rules are still there for anyone who wants to apply them.
Passive voice. Most language is in the active voice, but passive is used when we don’t care so much about who or what is doing the action. Natto is eaten in Japan. Dutch was taught in Nagasaki. Japanese has been spoken in Hawaii since the 1980s.
Comparatives and superlatives. Short adjectives (of two or fewer syllables) generally follow this pattern: cheap, cheaper, the cheapest. Longer adjectives use more/less for comparatives and the most/the least for superlatives: Cheeseburgers are less expensive than sushi. Yaki soba is the least expensive junk food.
The apostrophe. Used to show missing letters I’m so hot, but she’s so cold or to show possession. The rule for where to put it is before the “s” if the subject is singular, or after the “s” if the subject is plural. Doesn’t matter if the object is singular or plural, so: The cat’s toys. (Only one cat, many toys) The cats’ toys. (Many cats, many toys) The cats’ toy (many cats, only one toy). There is one exception: its = possession despite no apostrophe (Its toys are on the table) and it’s = it is (It’s a crazy cat, for sure).
Do you have to teach your students these grammar rules explicitly? You could, but I don’t think most students (or teachers) need to know all the grammar terms. You should have a grasp of how these dozen work and think through your own examples to have the confidence to do your thing in the classroom. But the important thing is now you know the basics, go do your thing.