Grammar Police

I've been realizing that my memory of the rules of grammar is woefully inadequate.

Teaching English (American) conversation is one thing; but when my kid-students bring their schoolbooks so that we can work on their newest lessons, I suddenly start to panic! How do I explain the difference between definite and indefinite articles?? Why should I care? Why should they??

So, I've been doing some online research and purchasing a few extra ESL/EFL books to use to help me out. Believe it or not, I still have my old grammar and composition book from Seventh or Eighth grade, and that has been helpful. Of course, there's always good, old Strunk and White as well as several other useful books that I have lying (NOT laying) around.

But, I do feel that I need to understand these things clearly myself so that I don't teach the little critters the wrong thing. Therefore, I suppose that this is all quite useful for me as well. I have always known what seems right when I write, but I never really thought about why it seemed that way.

I never would have thought that, at my age, I would be back to hitting the books to study something like this. Still, learning (and, sadly, re-learning) is never a bad thing.

Ciao for now!

Randy