What do you do when you have to edit a Tweet down to just 140 characters? Removing all your punctuation is one tactic. Or take out a verb here and there. You must do whatever’s necessary to get your message across in 140 characters or less, grammar be damned.
For English teachers, students’ heavy reliance on communication via Facebook, Twitter, and text messages can make for a nightmare in the classroom. Across the country, English test scores and proficiencies have dropped. Students just aren’t learning and practicing their grammar like they used to. How can teachers get a handle on the problem and reinforce basic grammar rules to this generation of social networkers and tech junkies? It’s simple: start speaking their language.
A Grammar App for the Classroom
No, teachers don’t have to start revising their grammar rules to accommodate Tweet speak. They just need to take a new approach to teaching basic English skills. The perfect way to do that is by integrating students’ love for gadgets with grammar training. While there may already be a lot of online grammar quizzes and lessons, there’s nothing on the market like the new app designed by Chicago-area
English teacher Jeff Scheur. It’s called NoRedInk, and it has the potential to change and improve grammar instruction in every classroom.
Personalizing Grammar and Making It Fun
The key difference between NoRedInk and other grammar tools is the level personalization it provides. Scheur and all teachers realize that every student is different. They require help in different areas, and they have different interests. With NoRedInk, teachers can assign their students grammar lessons based on the areas where each individual student needs improvement. So far those areas include apostrophes, sentence fragments, comma issues, subject-verb agreement, and run-on sentences.
Beyond that, students can personalize their own lessons according to their interests. The sentences that students are asked to correct come in a variety of themes. Some interests that students can choose from include the NBA and Superheroes. Their grammar problems will then include appropriate characters, celebrities, terms, and subjects. Because students are interested in the material and
associate well with the themes, they’ll retain more of the grammar rules and lessons. It’s also a lot more fun than standard, average sample sentences that are the same for everyone and kind of boring.
App Tools for Teachers
NoRedInk is also a great program because it’s designed for teachers and makes it easy for them to monitor each student’s progression with their lessons. Teachers can view “heat maps” for each student and the entire class. The heat maps use color-coding to mark proficiency levels and improvement in each area of grammar. Based on this information, they can make additional assignments for areas where each student needs help, and they can tailor their lesson plans to benefit the entire class better. With NoRedInk, teachers will find an excellent way to get their students away from prevalent-yet-flawed social networking languages and more interested in real grammar.