How to Use Grammarly in Your ESL Classroom (2025 Guide)
If you’ve ever spent hours marking the same grammar mistakes over and over, you know the frustration. Students submit essays with “their” instead of “there,” missing articles, and comma splices that make you want to cry. You write the same corrections in the margins, hoping they’ll finally stick.
They never do.
There’s a better way. Grammarly can handle the repetitive grammar checking, freeing you up to focus on what actually matters: helping students develop their ideas and voice.
What is Grammarly?
Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant that catches grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors in real-time. Think of it as a super-powered spell checker that actually understands grammar rules - it underlines mistakes as students type and suggests corrections with explanations.
🎯 What Grammarly Offers:
✅ Real-time grammar and spelling correction ✅ Punctuation and style suggestions ✅ Explanations for each correction (not just highlighting errors) ✅ Browser extension works in Google Docs, email, and web apps ✅ Desktop app for offline writing
The free version catches most grammar errors, spelling mistakes, and basic punctuation issues. The premium version adds style suggestions, tone detection, and vocabulary enhancement. For ESL students specifically, it’s like having a patient grammar tutor available 24/7 who never sighs when they ask about articles for the tenth time.
Why Grammarly Works for ESL Students
Here’s what I’ve noticed after using it with adult learners for the past two years: students actually pay attention to the corrections.
When I write feedback in red ink, they glance at it and move on. When Grammarly underlines something in real-time while they’re writing? They stop and fix it immediately. The instant feedback creates a learning moment right when they’re thinking about that sentence.
Plus, Grammarly explains why something is wrong. It doesn’t just say “incorrect” - it shows the rule and gives an example. That’s gold for ESL students who are still building their grammar intuition.
💡 Pro Tip: The explanations are the real value. Train students to read WHY Grammarly flagged something before clicking accept. That’s where the learning happens.
The other huge benefit? Independence. Your students can write at home, at midnight, whenever inspiration strikes, and get immediate feedback. They’re not waiting for you to return their essays three days later when they’ve already forgotten what they were trying to say.
5 Practical Ways to Use Grammarly in Your ESL Classroom
1. Student Essay Feedback
This is the obvious use case, but here’s how to do it effectively:
Have students write their first draft in Google Docs or Word with Grammarly’s browser extension installed. Tell them to accept or reject each suggestion deliberately - not just blindly clicking “accept all.” They should understand why Grammarly flagged something before they change it.
Then they submit the Grammarly-reviewed version to you. Your job shifts from catching “its vs it’s” errors to focusing on argumentation, organization, and idea development. You’re freed up to write meaningful feedback about content instead of grammar minutiae.
The Results:
I’ve cut my grading time by about 40% this way. Not because I’m doing less work, but because I’m doing different work - the kind that actually helps students become better writers.
One of my intermediate students (B1 level) told me she finally understood when to use present perfect because Grammarly explained it three different times in three different sentences. She got it on the third try. I’d been explaining it for weeks.
2. Peer Review Training
Grammarly makes excellent training wheels for peer review. Here’s the approach:
Pair students up and have them review each other’s work twice - once with Grammarly on, once with it off. With Grammarly on, they can see underlined errors and check if the suggestions make sense. With it off, they practice identifying errors themselves.
This builds their editing skills gradually. They start to internalize the patterns Grammarly catches: “Oh right, we need a comma before ‘but’ when it connects two complete sentences.”
After a month of this paired approach, my students’ editing accuracy improved noticeably. They started catching errors Grammarly missed (like incorrect word choice that’s technically grammatical but makes no sense in context).
💡 Pro Tip: Have students keep an “error log” of the mistakes Grammarly catches most often in their writing. Pattern recognition is powerful for language learning.
3. Grammar Explanation Tool
Sometimes students ask you grammar questions in the middle of class. You could launch into a 10-minute explanation of conditional sentences, or you could pull up Grammarly’s article library.
Grammarly has clear, simple explanations of most grammar rules, with examples that actually make sense. When a student asks “When do I use ‘the’?” you can show them Grammarly’s article on articles (yeah, that’s meta) and let them read it at their own pace.
I keep a list of Grammarly’s grammar handbook links bookmarked. When questions come up repeatedly, I share the relevant link in our class chat. Students can review on their own time, and I don’t have to explain subjunctive mood at 8 AM before I’ve had coffee.
4. Academic Writing Prep
If your students are preparing for university or professional writing, Grammarly Premium is worth considering. The tone detector helps students understand if their writing sounds too casual or too formal.
I’ve had students write the same paragraph three times - casual tone, neutral tone, formal academic tone - and then use Grammarly’s tone detector to check their accuracy. It’s eye-opening for them to see how word choice completely changes the tone.
Example:
- “I think the data shows…” (casual)
- “The data suggests…” (academic)
Same idea, completely different formality level.
The plagiarism checker (Premium feature) is also valuable. Students can check their own work before submission, catching unintentional plagiarism from forgotten sources. Better they find it themselves than you find it later.
5. Self-Editing Practice
Here’s my favorite assignment: Give students a paragraph full of intentional errors. Have them paste it into a document with Grammarly running, then screenshot every suggestion Grammarly makes.
Now have them explain each suggestion in their own words. Why did Grammarly flag this? Do they agree with the suggestion? Why or why not?
This forces students to think critically about grammar rules instead of blindly accepting corrections. Some of my advanced students started catching Grammarly’s mistakes this way (yes, it does make mistakes occasionally with idioms and stylistic choices).
One student found a sentence where Grammarly suggested changing “got to” to “have to,” which completely changed the meaning. She was so proud of catching it. That’s the kind of critical thinking we want.
Free vs Premium: What ESL Teachers Actually Need
🎯 Free Version Features:
✅ Subject-verb agreement errors ✅ Verb tense mistakes ✅ Missing or extra articles ✅ Spelling and basic punctuation ✅ Commonly confused words (their/there/they’re, affect/effect)
For most beginning to intermediate ESL classes (A2-B1 level), that’s plenty.
🎯 Premium Features:
✅ Tone and formality detection ✅ Vocabulary suggestions (finding better words) ✅ Plagiarism detection ✅ Genre-specific writing style checks ✅ Full-sentence rewrites for clarity
If you’re teaching advanced academic writing or business English, Premium might be worth it. For general ESL classes? The free version does the job.
💡 Teacher Hack: Get Premium for yourself (it’s about $12/month), use it to demonstrate features in class, but tell students the free version is fine for their work. You can show them what Premium catches, but they don’t need to pay for it unless they’re writing at an advanced level.
Getting Started with Grammarly in Your Classroom
Week 1: Introduce Grammarly in class. Show students how to install the browser extension or desktop app (takes about 5 minutes). Write a sample paragraph together and watch Grammarly’s suggestions appear. Let them see it’s not magic - just pattern recognition.
Week 2: Assign a short writing task (250 words). Require students to screenshot their Grammarly suggestions and submit those along with their final draft. This ensures they actually used it and didn’t just write everything perfectly the first time (spoiler: they didn’t).
Week 3: Start peer review exercises comparing Grammarly’s suggestions with human suggestions. Which are more helpful? Which miss the mark? This is where students start developing critical judgment.
Week 4: Students are now using it independently. Your grading time drops, and students are catching their own errors before submission. You get to focus on higher-level feedback like “this paragraph doesn’t support your thesis” instead of circling missing commas.
Common Questions
Will students become dependent on Grammarly?
Maybe, but that’s not necessarily bad. Native speakers depend on spell check - why shouldn’t ESL learners have similar tools? The key is teaching them to understand the corrections, not just accept them blindly. That’s why the screenshot assignment matters.
Does Grammarly catch all errors?
Nope. It misses contextual errors, cultural references, and sometimes makes weird suggestions with complex sentences. That’s why human review (yours or peers) is still essential. I’ve seen it suggest changing perfectly good idioms because it didn’t recognize them.
Can students use it on tests?
That’s your call. I allow it on homework and drafts but not on timed in-class writing. Treat it like a calculator - useful tool for practice, not always allowed on assessments. You’re testing their writing skills, not their tool-using skills.
The Bottom Line
Grammarly isn’t going to replace you as a teacher. It can’t explain why a paragraph doesn’t flow or help a student develop their thesis statement. But it can handle the tedious grammar checking that eats up your grading time.
Your students get instant feedback, you get more time for meaningful writing instruction, and everyone’s essays have fewer “their/there/they’re” mistakes. That’s a win all around.
Ready to try it? Head over to Grammarly’s tool page to see more features and pricing options. Or browse our complete directory of AI writing tools to find other options that might fit your teaching style.
Have you used Grammarly in your ESL classroom? What worked (or didn’t work) for you? I’d love to hear your experience - especially if you’ve found creative ways to use it I haven’t thought of yet.