Ibrahim Farooqui (Fawa'id)

Teaching Grammar: Why Eliciting Answers Beats Simply Telling One of the most effective techniques in teaching grammar is also one of the most underused: making students 'think' their way to an answer rather than simply handing them the answer. Let me be clear from the outset. There is nothing wrong with the lecture style. Grammar is, at its heart, a theoretical discipline. A lecture-based class has real value: the teacher can lay out concepts systematically, the student can take notes, and where recordings are available, the student can return to them and revise. This is a perfectly legitimate and beneficial way to deliver the theory. But theory alone does not build skill. For a student to actually develop the ability to apply grammar, something more is needed: activity, engagement, and a steady supply of practical examples drawn from the living language. And one of the simplest, most powerful ways to achieve this in the classroom is to ask relevant questions and elicit responses, rather than telling students what the answer is. An example In an earlier post, I discussed the first skill of teaching grammar: identification. Imagine a teacher working through Ājurrūmiyya (or an equivalent text) with students. They've been given a set of examples, lines from the Qur'an, or lines of poetry, and asked to identify which words are ism, which are fiʿl, and which are ḥarf. Now a student claims that a particular word is an ism. The temptation is to say "correct" and move on. Don't. Instead, ask: Why? Why is it an ism? This single question does two things. It forces the student to connect the theory to the example in front of them, and it shows you, as the teacher, exactly how much of the earlier theoretical discussion the student has truly absorbed. Working it through There are two ways to determine whether a word is an ism, fiʿl, or ḥarf: 1. By way of the technical definitions (the standard definitions found in al-Kāfiya, Hidāyat al-Naḥw, and other grammar texts). 2. By way of the ʿalāmāt, the distinguishing signs unique to each. Suppose the student is looking at al-ḥamdu lillāh and you ask about al-ḥamd. They say it's an ism. Good. Now push further. The complete answer is twofold: First, the definition applies. An ism is a word that denotes a meaning in itself and is not, by its very structure or coinage, tied to a time frame. Al-ḥamd fits this exactly. Second, the signs apply. There's an alif-lām on al-ḥamd. Remove it and you can say ḥamdun with tanwīn; it can also take a kasra, and so on, all signs that mark it as an ism. Why this matters: When a teacher takes a student through this process across several examples, two things happen: First, any lingering doubts in the student's mind are cleared. They stop guessing and start reasoning. Second, the teacher gains certainty, not hope but certainty, that the student has genuinely understood the definitions and the signs, and has learned to apply them successfully. Telling gives a student an answer for today. Eliciting gives them a method for every example they'll ever meet.