Your child's teachers likely don't know how to teach grammar or essay writing. Where will your child learn these critical skills?

A student who joined my writing tutoring class recently had gotten 97% in grade 9 English, yet the writing she showed me had many grammar problems and was difficult to follow in places.

I asked her how it was possible to get 97% in English with such problems.

She replied that she knew she had lots of grammar problems and that she had asked her teacher for help. However, her teacher replied that in her class, “we only focus on big ideas – we don’t worry about little things like grammar.”

I asked another student in grade 11 - whose writing also had many grammar problems - whether any of her teachers had gone over grammar with the class. 

She replied, "We spent half of one class talking about grammar, and this is the 1st time we’ve ever talked about grammar." In other words, before grade 11, she had NEVER received a grammar lesson in school, and then in all of grade 11, she receive a single, half-class grammar lesson.

These are not unique situations. I went to teacher's college at University of Toronto and I can assure you that out of roughly 60 teacher candidates in my cohort, only two of us could teach grammar. None of the professors could teach grammar either, though by their own admission, the ability to write properly should take precedence over subject matter knowledge. As one of my professors said (he had been a History and Politics teacher), "If I found out one of my students couldn't write a proper sentence, I would scrap the History lesson and focus on grammar. The only problem is, I wouldn't know how to teach grammar."

With this kind of education, is it any wonder our kids can't write well?

Why I started AEM Academy

I started AEM Academy to help students learn the fundamental writing skills that are rarely taught in school these days.

The unfortunate truth is that English teachers are not required to know how to teach grammar or essay writing. In fact, most have no idea how to teach grammar or essay writing, so they don't. 

They cover up for this fact by focusing on novel studies, where they can chat about themes, conflict, and character development, and by handing out high marks to keep students and parents quiet.

As a result, we have rampant grade inflation. Whereas an "A" in English was a rarity when I went to school, today many students get an "A," so it means nothing. Universities know this and employers know this. However, students and parents have a false sense of confidence that will hurt them in the future.

AEM Academy teaches what school doesn't or can't teach

My mission is to help your child master the rules of grammar, a wide variety of complex sentence structures, and writing conventions for paragraphs, reports, and essays. 

As a result of this training, your child will be far ahead of their peers in writing skills, and will get much higher marks in elementary, high school, and university.