Teaching Swedish Grammar

Ever since I had learnt Esperanto and realised the beauty of a Human Language, I became fascinated by grammar. Geeking out on Noam Chomsky’s linguistic theories or getting over-the-top excited about a newly bought Japanese language textbook – that’s how bad it is, folks…

My typical day at work

So naturally, my favourite part of being a language teacher is to get to explain grammar to my students. I do it with gusto and oftentimes I manage to infect the course participants with my enthusiasm for the beauty of a grammar system. I try to make my explanations accessible, streamlined and fun. I find the use of colours especially helpful, when trying to illustrate grammatical relationships in a language.

Why wouldn’t anyone get excited over this?!

I am especially fond of tables to represent different grammatical categories and the rules that govern them. Sometimes I even draw simple pictures on a whiteboard:

…sometimes it gets out of hand:

Seriously, don’t leave me alone in a classroom with a whiteboard and a couple of colour pens during the recess!

If my students reach for their smartphones and take photos of the things I drew on the whiteboard – I know I did my job well. If I later see my silly scribbles being shared on social media – I couldn’t be happier.

I firmly believe that a secret of succeeding at any job is to love it and do it with passion. Even a seemingly boring and dry subject – hey, not for me! – like grammar can be a source of inspiration and delight. What are your thoughts on this? Please share them in the comments!

(All the photos used in this post were my own)