"Grammar anxiety" is certainly a problem. It's important to find ways to 
make the work interesting for students. Group work is a good start -- 
getting students working together, with each other, takes the center of 
the instruction away from the teacher and gives the students a chance to 
make their own contribution. Many of us are recommending exercises  in 
which students use their own intuitive knowledge of grammar to identify 
various grammatical units. These are precisely the sorts of exercises 
that help students gain confidence in their grammatical abilities, 
because they are making decisions about grammaticality themselves. And 
most kids from 5th onwards would undoubtedly be able to do this (and 
much younger ones might be able to handle some of such exercises).

I use group work as much as I can in my classes, and it really changes 
the class atmosphere. You have to monitor that the students stay on 
task, but if you keep the time spent on each exercise short, that helps. 
  One should also mix the group members in order to be sure that you 
don't get groupings of all weak and all strong students. That happens 
often in my classes. This also leaves the teacher free to circulate and 
handle individual problems. This, for me, is very important -- it helps 
me relate to the students on a more individual basis. (Of course, I 
don't see my students as often as K-12 teachers see theirs).

Another kind of exercise that can get students' attention is 
"translations" between formal and informal language. They love their own 
language, and it reduces their confidence to believe what teachers and 
older people so often tell them -- that their language is incorrect, 
debased. It's simply not true that people need always to speak and write 
formal English. Have students analyze text messaging and informal 
e-mails to see what can be left out when you know a person well. 
Encourage them to compare that kind of language with the formal language 
in news media and textbooks. Etc., etc.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •      Home page: 
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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