You do not need to restart English grammar from page one. The errors that cost you marks are a small set that keeps repeating, and finding that set is the fastest way to improve.
This page shows how to find your own short list and fix it, and when one-to-one English tuition may help.
What does it feel like?
You may be thinking: “My English is bad, so I must start over.” “I do not even know where my mistakes are.” “There are too many rules, and I will never finish them.”
Many students feel this way, and it makes the task seem bigger than it is. You already get most of your daily grammar right, which is why people understand you.
Why does starting from the beginning not help?
A full grammar course covers rules you already use correctly, so most of your time goes on things you do not need. The few rules that cause your errors are buried among them.
Starting from your own writing works the other way round. It finds the rules that cost you marks and skips the rest.
A worked example: one piece of writing, two priorities
A student writes five sentences in a practice task and a teacher marks them. The errors are: “He go to school”, “She have a dog”, “I see many bird”, “We eat nasi lemak yesterday” and “They was happy”.
| Error type | Count | Sentences |
|---|---|---|
| Verb agreement (go, have, was) | 3 | He go, She have, They was |
| Tense (eat for ate) | 1 | We eat yesterday |
| Plural (bird) | 1 | many bird |
Verb agreement is wrong in three of the five sentences, so it comes first. Tense is second. The student does not need to study articles, prepositions or conditionals yet, because none of them caused an error here.
The plan is short: two rules, practised in the student’s own sentences, before anything else.
A small-step plan
- Collect. Gather one or two marked pieces of writing, or write a short paragraph and read it slowly.
- Sort. Group each error by type, as in the table above.
- Choose two. Pick the two biggest groups.
- Practise. Write five correct sentences of your own for each rule, about your own life.
- Check. Write a new paragraph a few days later and count the errors of those two types again.
The mistake log and paper-error review gives you a place to keep the tally. When a group shrinks, pick the next one.
What if the errors look random?
They rarely are. Even if your mistakes seem to be everywhere, group them anyway. A long list usually comes from a few causes, such as forgetting the verb ending or mixing up tenses.
If you cannot see the pattern, a teacher can help.
When might one-to-one tuition help?
Sorting your own errors works when you can spot them. If everything looks correct to you, or you fix a mistake and still cannot tell why it was wrong, a teacher’s eye helps.
In an online one-to-one lesson, the teacher reads your writing, names the two or three points costing you most, and starts from what you already do well. You do not need to go back over what you already do well.
You can begin with the one-hour trial class (from RM50), a real lesson. The fee is agreed before the trial, and afterwards you decide whether the teacher is a good fit.
Where to go next
For focused repair, see grammar repair, starting with subject-verb agreement or present and past tenses.
To go through your own writing with a teacher, see online one-to-one English tuition.