Grammar =
simple
purposeful
hands-on
fun
easy to teach
discovery-based
practical
relevant
linked to the Australian Curriculum
Sound impossible?
Find out how.
“Finally, a way to teach grammar that makes sense. Thank
you for a very informative day and the beginning of ‘making
a difference’ to our school.”
Mark Powell, Principal, Matthew Gibney Catholic Primary School,
April 2014
The Australian Curriculum asks you to teach it
5.2.6 Attention should be given to the teaching of grammar across
all the years of schooling to help students meet the demands of
schooling and their lives outside school. These demands include
reading, understanding, speaking, writing, and creating texts that
describe, narrate, analyse, explain, recount, argue, review, and so on.
Shape of the Australian Curriculum: English, p.7
But how well do you know it?
Inquiries into Australian teacher education and literacy have
highlighted concerns about the preparedness of teachers to teach
literacy effectively. In the international literature, ‘knowledge about
language’ has been identified as an important factor in successful
literacy teaching.
Helen Harper & Jennifer Rennie
Charles Darwin University & Monash University, 2008
To successfully implement the functionally oriented model of
grammar proposed by the Curriculum, many teachers will need to
expand their expertise in grammar.
Pauline Jones & Honglin Chen
University of Wollongong, 2012
And how do you teach it?
If we are teaching grammar, but the students are not learning
grammar from us, then there is something wrong with the way we
are teaching it.
Mary Ehrenworth
Literacy Staff Developer
New York City Public Schools
Columbia University, 2003
The Solution ?
The foundational principles of English grammar are ridiculously simple.
You can learn how to teach grammar effectively, powerfully and with
nothing more than . . .
. . . lead your students to discover these principles . . .
. . . by themselves . . .
. . . and then show students how to use them in their writing.
Shoebox is . . .
Simple.
The Shoebox System shows students that grammar is not complex, fuzzy
and full of strange exceptions. Instead, it uses discovery, stories and
graphic charts to reveal some very simple principles, As one assistant
principal said, it’s “a whole new approach, easy as 1-2-3.”
Relevant.
It is pointless to teach grammar unless it has a practical purpose. Since life is
built on education, which is built on language, which is built on grammar,
students really need to understand the language that they are educated in,
and that they write in. The Shoebox System prepares students for writing
better sentences, stories, recounts, narratives, expositions. Students who
know how sentences work write better.
Engaging.
Shoebox teaches by discovery. Students discover how sentences work
with nothing more than laminated cards, textas and discussion. As one
teacher said, her “students responded exceptionally well to the idea of
the three parts of a sentence. They caught onto the principles a lot more
quickly than the staff did!” It never ceases to delight me when students,
after one hour of a Shoebox demonstration lesson, realise how sentences
work. Their eyes light up and they say words like awesome.
Whole school
Shoebox works from the time a child can speak a sentence, so teachers
can use it from kindergarten onwards. Indeed, a pre-primary teacher
wrote that she was “absolutely blown away by how engaging grammar
could be and how an effective teacher can make it all so fun and simple
to understand.” While a school can run Shoebox in one class or year
level as a pilot scheme for a year, it is best run across the whole school
for the sake of continuity and so that every teacher and student speaks
the same grammatical language.
Aligned to the Australian Curriculum.
Demonstration lessons
It’s always good to see if something works before you commit
to it. I agree. If you would like to see what all the teachers,
principals and assistant principals are talking about on the
Testimonials page, arrange a demonstration lesson. These lessons
are free of charge and obligation, and are a great way to see
how Shoebox can engage your students and help them to learn
grammar better.
Demonstration lessons are simple.
•
•
•
•
You choose the year level/s for the demonstration lesson/s to
a limit of three lessons in a day.
Arrange a time and date. You will need up to an hour for
each lesson.
Arrange classroom textas and baby wipes for the students,
and organise the students into pairs. (Year 1 and 2 classes will
also need three playground hoops, coloured yellow, green and red.)
Ask other teachers to come and watch if you like.
I have had extensive classroom experience so classroom control
is usually not an issue. However, your classroom teacher should
be in the classroom at all times.
If you like what you see, the next step is the Shoebox System,
a complete resource in two parts
that both trains and equips your staff.
The Shoebox System
Part One / Training
The Professional Development Workshop
The workshop comprises six hours of content, delivered with
visual materials, a discovery based methodology identical to that
used in Shoebox lessons, and a great deal of hands-on discovery
for teachers. You can schedule this in two ways.
•
•
on a Professional Development day at the beginning or end of term.
as three regular after-school workshops of two hours each.
Using nothing more than the same laminated cards, textas and
baby wipes that students use in Shoebox lessons, your teachers
use collaborative, discovery-based methods to learn how to make
grammar simple, relevant and fun.
They then use this same collaborative, discovery-based
methodology to translate their knowledge into practice and
teach students how to write better stories - mystery, action, epic,
suspense - functional writing - persuasive, descriptive, narrative,
exposition, report - or anything else. Grammar underpins
everything.
Do you need to learn all the arcane grammatical terms? No. The
Shoebox System carefully avoids overcomplication, and instead
allows you to choose the traditional, grammatical terminology in
your teaching or the more user-friendly Shoebox terms. It’s up to
you.
The Shoebox System
Part Two / Equipping
The Members Library
This is the online resource that contains the complete Shoebox
teaching system. Everything needed for teaching grammar is
included, so that teachers only need to log on, download the
resource, print it, laminate it (where necessary) and use it.
The Members Library contains
The Teachers Book. This is a 158 page document that contains
everything a teacher needs to know about grammar, as well as
some interesting extra information. It is colour - coded, written
in user-friendly language, with a wealth of examples and aligns
with the Australian Curriculum.
Quick Reference Cards. A set of colour - coded cards that
contain key content and teaching points for easy reference.
Lesson Cards. Each one of these self-contained, sequenced,
colour - coded cards contains a single lesson, which can take
anywhere from 10-30 minutes, with teaching points and focus
questions included.
Resources. These are all the extra resource cards a teacher will
need to teach effectively.
Teaching videos. Planned for the near future.
When your teachers conclude their training, you will receive your
access codes for the Members’ Library.
The Shoebox System
Prices
Ideally, and for the benefit of your whole staff, the Shoebox System is best
implemented in its entirety. This has three benefits.
•
•
•
All staff speak the same grammatical language and use the same
classroom methodology. This means that . . .
Students can be assured of consistency of content and methodology
throughout their school lives. Students don’t then have to unlearn or
relearn grammatical content from year to year.
Ongoing costs are greatly reduced (see the table below.)
Prices
Staff size
1-29
30-39
40-49
First year
$1800
$2000
$2200
Future years
$720
$800
$880
However, you might like to introduce the Shoebox System as a pilot
program in one or more classrooms for the year and then consider its whole
school implementation for the following year. This costs $200 per teacher
for the Members’ Library and $100 per teacher to join an existing PD
workshop (where available). Contact Greg to discuss.
Testimonials
Principals and Assistant Principals
“Finally, a way to teach grammar that makes sense. Thank you for a
very informative day and the beginning of ‘making a difference’ to our
school.”
Mark Powell, Principal, Matthew Gibney Catholic Primary School, April
2014
“Thank you, Greg, for a dynamic and inspiring workshop. Shoebox
Grammar simplified the process of teaching grammar for our staff. Your
expertise was unsurpassed and we thoroughly enjoyed the novel handson approach.”
Noriel Crosby, Deputy Principal, Millen Primary School, June, 2014
“A difficult concept that you managed to engage us and even got us
enthusiastic about. I appreciate the hands-on, fun and realistic approach
to the topic, The level of chat and the sharing of ideas is testament to the
way people received this learning. A whole new approach, easy as 1-23.”
Julie Kay, Assistant Principal, Our Lady of Mt Carmel School, March 2014
“Greg’s presentation was, as the subtitle of his handbook claims, practical,
relevant and fun. His passion for language is evident through the clear
and easy to understand structures and patterns which build up teacher
knowledge. Greg’s approach to grammar is based on problem solving.
He does not talk about a meta language or a grand repertoire of grammatical
terms but uses examples and metaphor. The staff members were impressed
and appreciative with the opportunity to re-engage with grammar and
the teaching of grammar in a comprehensive and relevant manner.”
Margaret Dove, Principal Swan View Primary School
Testimonials
Staff
“I was absolutely blown away by how engaging grammar could be and
how an effective teacher can make it all so fun and simple to understand.”
Michelle Wenzel, Pre-primary teacher, Swan View Primary School
“A great deal of content presented. I loved the 1-2-3 approach. It will
make writing and grammar much easier for all children. Thanks!”
Jane Short, Year 3 teacher, St Brigids, Collie, January 2014.
“Thank you, Greg, for your passionate presentation on grammar. As
a school, we will take away many practical and hands-on activities to
implement in the classroom.”
Staff of St Mary’s, Northampton
“After the presentation Greg made at our whole school professional
development day, I was inspired to get going with Shoebox Grammar
straight away. I felt confident that I could immediately work it into my
established Literacy Block sessions and found that the students responded
exceptionally well to the idea of the three parts of a sentence. They caught
onto the principles a lot more quickly than the staff did!”
Katrina Prodger, Year 6/7 Teacher, Beckenham Primary School
“I actually enjoyed learning about grammar, which I didn’t think was
possible! Excellent ideas and structure to help students make their writing
more interesting and their sentences more varied. I feel like I have a much
better grasp of main and dependent clauses.”
Kate Price, teacher, Our Lady of Fatima School, March 2014
Greg Byrne
A passionate fan of words and stories since he knew what pencils
were for, Greg began as a primary teacher (together with a term as
a primary principal) and worked in the State, private and Catholic
systems.
Following this, he extended his interest in language into teaching
overseas students our baffling but beautiful language in several ESL
schools across Perth, writing a text for them called ‘English is Stupid
. . . but Beautiful’, learning (in part) Japanese and Italian, and
presenting the ‘Renovating Grammar’ workshop at the 2012 CSA
Perth conference .
Now, as well as his Shoebox Grammar consulting practice, he also
teaches undergraduate B.Ed (Primary and Secondary) students at
Edith Cowan University School of Education, writes grammar texts
for primary, university and ESL students, teaches ESL to adults, is
working at a Masters at UWA, and writes novels in his spare time
(his debut novel, Nine Planets, was released in November 2014).
And he would like to share all this knowledge and experience with
you.
Contact and Information
Enquiries for demonstration lessons, workshops or
the Members’ Library to
P: 9450 3555
M: 0411 715 712
E: [email protected]
For further information about the Shoebox System, please go to
www.shoeboxgrammar.com.au