It has been 2 months since I first tested the concept of using eJOY Phrasebook to learn grammar. And I must say that it has made me addicted to grammar learning. In this post, I’m going to share with you in detail about how I do it and what good the new update from extension can help you learn grammar.
How do you study English grammar?
Do you study English grammar by opening a grammar book and doing all the exercises in it? Or you just search for a grammar topic on the internet and do any grammar quiz that sounds interesting to you? Or maybe learn with Grammarly Pro? I have tried them all and none of them is interesting enough to keep me working on it until it’s finished.
When I took a TESOL training course and read through many researches about learning and teaching grammar, I ended up agreeing with the conclusion that learning grammar in context is the best way. It’s not only interesting, but also relevant. Because it’s relevant to the content you are watching or reading, it becomes challenging and interesting enough to make you want to discover it.
With this in mind, my sharing below will follow exactly how I learn a new grammar item in context. Before we start, make sure you have installed eJOY extension.
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INPUT – How to save a grammar item from context
When I read an article relating to psychology, and I came up with this sentence: “People can do funny things when they’ve experienced something terrible.” From the context, I understand that “can” here means “sometimes”. This sentence can be restated as “People sometimes do funny things when they’ve experienced something terrible.” This is one of the many cases when we can use “can”.
So I select the whole sentence and click on the eJOY icon to show up the advanced translation.
I double check the translation version to see if the meaning makes sense or not. Then I insert my own explanation for this case of “can”. Highlight the phrase that I want to eJOY to test me (the orange one). Then hit Done to add to my phrasebook.
OUTPUT – Play games with the phrase on eJOY Game center
As you may have known, eJOY uses spaced repetition to calculate when you should review your words or phrases. This allows you to study the ones you haven’t learned more frequently than those you have already memorized.
To review the phrase I added to phrasebook, open Wordbook from the dropdown menu. Choose phrasebook. The newly added phrases would be among the new words (the grey ones). Choose play games to start.
Before you start doing the quiz, you’d better review the phrases with flashcards first. This helps you recall the grammar items that you may have already forgot.
Next, complete all the quiz within the time limit. If you get it wrong, that’s perfect. That’s why you need to review it now. If you get it 100% correct, well, eJOY will increase the time interval of the next study session.
With the new version of eJOY extension 5.0.4 updated on 19th Oct 2020, you can choose to show hint if you find the Fill-in-the-blank question challenging. And when the hint is shown, you can read your grammar explanation again. This helps the grammar item ingrained into your brain once more time. And by the time you recall it successfully, you can complete the sentence by yourself. Sound awesome, right?
And when you complete the study session, you can see how the fluency of your phrase increases and when you will be reminded to review it again.
I have found myself learning so many interesting structures that had made me stuck in daily conversations with my team. I’ve already had nearly 200 phrases up to now, how about you?
I would love to hear your story about how you learn grammar, how you use eJOY to help you speak and write more fluently and accurately. Please share with me and other learners via eJOY community. And start learning grammar with eJOY now.
