1. Now, I love Physics, but my Freshman year I was having a huge amount of difficulty with a particular concept. I asked my teacher to explain it, but I think he viewed my problems with that particular material as just argumentativeness. I finally got it when I asked a friend of my parents for an explanation, and he listened to my complaints, and used a metaphor.
When I understood it, there wasn't really an 'aha' moment, even though I'd been struggling with the concept for a week, it was more of an 'oh, I guess that makes sense'.
2. I'm not sure. I remember drawing out the sentences with sentence diagrams in middle school, but I don't remember if it was that effective or not, honestly.
In terms of what makes grammar more interesting (certainly this is what I used to do when learning a foreign language) is using nouns that aren't usually used. For instance, instead of "I ride a bike to school," "I ride my camel to school" just had more appeal to me.
I don't know how applicable that would be to learning grammar and all, but I do remember that many of the sentences we dissected in Language Arts were science fiction in nature.
3. I've always found grammar incredibly boring, but I think that's more the subject than how easy I found it to pick up. Keeping all ability levels engaged is another serious problem. I don't have much advice on that front, other than the possibility that skits, written out ahead of time, much the same way we do with a foreign language, would work.
4. Good luck. I think that when some of your enthusiasm comes across, it may well help the students to like the subject better, and you have a huge opportunity to help some of these students.
1. Now, I love Physics, but my Freshman year I was having a huge amount of difficulty with a particular concept. I asked my teacher to explain it, but I think he viewed my problems with that particular material as just argumentativeness. I finally got it when I asked a friend of my parents for an explanation, and he listened to my complaints, and used a metaphor.
When I understood it, there wasn't really an 'aha' moment, even though I'd been struggling with the concept for a week, it was more of an 'oh, I guess that makes sense'.
2. I'm not sure. I remember drawing out the sentences with sentence diagrams in middle school, but I don't remember if it was that effective or not, honestly.
In terms of what makes grammar more interesting (certainly this is what I used to do when learning a foreign language) is using nouns that aren't usually used. For instance, instead of "I ride a bike to school," "I ride my camel to school" just had more appeal to me.
I don't know how applicable that would be to learning grammar and all, but I do remember that many of the sentences we dissected in Language Arts were science fiction in nature.
3. I've always found grammar incredibly boring, but I think that's more the subject than how easy I found it to pick up. Keeping all ability levels engaged is another serious problem. I don't have much advice on that front, other than the possibility that skits, written out ahead of time, much the same way we do with a foreign language, would work.
4. Good luck. I think that when some of your enthusiasm comes across, it may well help the students to like the subject better, and you have a huge opportunity to help some of these students.
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