For many students in Australian schools, grammar is something that an early primary school teacher touched on, and then never returned to. You might remember that verbs are doing words, adjectives are describing words and nouns are things, places and names. But beyond that? Most students are largely unaware of grammar, and instead prefer to use language intuitively. This is normal when English is your first language. You can get through life without knowing much about grammar, but it can be a great advantage to have a better understanding than others.

Why is learning about grammar relevant to you?

1. 1. Having a better grasp of English grammar will help you to communicate better. Understanding grammar terms will give you the confidence to write strong, convincing prose. Here are some examples of areas which, if worked upon, can dramatically improve your communication skills:
      • Consistency of tenses
      • Subject-verb agreement
      • Avoid run-on sentences and sentence fragments
      • Correct use of commas
      • Correct use of apostrophes
      • Avoid misplaced modifiers
      • Know the words you commonly confuse (e.g. effect vs affect)
   2. Get better grades in school. In school, everyone has to take English as a subject, and correct grammar is a key component of fluent, effective writing. Knowing the difference between ‘effect’ and ‘affect’ might seem like a small thing, but little things like this all add up – poor use of grammar will drag your grades down.
      By the way, ‘effect’ is generally used as a ‘noun’, and ‘affect’ is generally used as a verb. Let’s look at this in practice: ‘What are the effects of this medication? The last medication affected me a lot.’
   3. Knowing the rules empowers you to be a better writer. There are a bunch of grammar myths, and if you don’t know what they are, you might unnecessarily limit your writing. For instance, many people believe ending a sentence with a preposition is ungrammatical, but this simply isn’t true! In fact, the very first sentence of this article ends with a preposition. Another area of controversy is split infinitives, which means placing an adverb between ‘to’ and a verb: for example, ‘to casually walk’. Grammar dinosaurs will argue that split infinitives are just incorrect, but this is simply a myth – many skilled writers employ split infinitives.
   4. Good grammar is essential after you finish school. When it comes to applying for jobs in certain industries, poor grammar is an instant red flag for employers. It’s important you are able to communicate in grammatically correct English to convey professionalism and credibility. This is a skill which continues to be relevant when you enter the workplace.
   5. It will help if you ever want to learn another language. If you have ever started learning another language, many of the grammatical terms can be confusing, to say the least. What’s a past participle? Who knows how to use the pluperfect tense? What does a gerund have to do with my life? If you already know what these terms represent in English, it will make the learning experience much easier.