Teaching Grammar Beyond Rules: Methods for Business Writers

The Research Problem

The central research problem concerned which instructional approach would best help students acquire a grasp of English grammar. Researchers criticized the conventional rule-based approach, which requires students to memorize grammatical rules by rote, and sought a more effective alternative.

More specifically, written English is an important skill for business professionals. Many of them have a poor grasp of the written language, and this affects their communication and, accordingly, their impact on clients, colleagues, and students (when they teach). To investigate better and more effective ways of teaching grammar, the article analyzed different instructional methods and assessed which were most effective.

The Research Question

The guiding question was: which of the various grammar methods developed over the years taught grammar in a more effective and memorable way than the traditional rule-based approach? Which methods did students find easier to grasp, and which helped students acquire an effective command of the English language?

Methods and Approaches Tested

Different researchers created and tested alternatives to the rule-based grammar approach. The five models examined were as follows.

The sentence-based approach, developed by Hillocks and Smith (2003), gave students a series of short sentences in a set — ranging from two to as many as eight or nine — and asked them to combine all of the ideas in those sentences into a single, more structurally complex sentence.

Correcting errors: some researchers believed that having students search for and mark grammatical errors would improve their grasp of the language. Johansen and Shaw (2003) created their glossing approach, which uses five steps: (A) the teacher evaluates students' writing and identifies errors; (B) the teacher highlights the errors she wants students to address; (C) the teacher asks students to correct those errors; (D) the student writes the grammatical rule that applies to each identified error; and (E) the student resubmits the composition.

Error-based grammar instruction, created by Feng and Powers (2005), involves the teacher analyzing the most common grammatical mistakes students make and structuring lessons around those specific errors.

Sentence diagramming was used by Sams (2003) to teach grammar fundamentals. This technique helps students differentiate between parts of speech and recognize their meaning and function within a sentence. More information on this approach can be found through resources on sentence diagramming.

The error-labeling technique requires students to identify and label errors in writing samples. Quible (2004, 2006) asked students to identify and label errors in provided writing samples. In a follow-up method, he used remediation exercises — most of which were 100–120 words long — designed to focus on errors commonly found in student writing. Students were asked to identify each error by its label and then correct it.

Conclusion

The sentence-based approach: sentence-combining exercises not only failed to improve the writing of Basic English students but achieved the same level of success as the traditional rule-based grammatical approach — offering no measurable advantage.

The error-labeling technique: Quible (2004) found a strong correlation between error labeling and error correction, suggesting that the error-labeling technique can help students eradicate sentence-level errors. In his subsequent remediation study, Quible (2006) found significantly fewer sentence errors among students who completed the exercises than among those who did not.

Overall, researchers found that students can improve their grammar by using certain techniques — such as in-context writing, sentence combining, glossing, and error labeling — that help them apply their learning in practice. These approaches offer more meaningful engagement with grammatical concepts than rote memorization of rules, particularly for business writers who need to communicate effectively in professional contexts.

Source: Quible, Z. K., & Griffin, F. (2007). Are writing deficiencies creating a lost generation of business writers? Journal of Education for Business, 32–36.