Module  - Some Great Grammar Activities

 

Teaching English grammar can be a lot of fun.

 

There are many great activites and games you can use to encourage your students to think about English and how it is put together. It will also encourage them to work out different patterns and constructions without you having to tell them everything. In this way, grammar activities become part of a process of 'guided discovery'.

 

Doing grammar puzzles and games is also a lot of fun for your students, and will motivate your students to learn and use what could otherwise be both a difficult and dry area of language.

 

Below are some examples of activities which have proven successful in classrooms all over the world. Some of these take a little time to prepare, but they are usually well worth it, and once you have a document ready to go you can use it in a lot of classes.

 

Many of the activities can be done in pairs or small groups. Each pair or group can receive points for correct answers, so making the activities more competitive and fun. Just make sure the pairs and groups are fair, so a good mix of levels, for example.  Also, give deadlines - this speeds up the activity and makes it more exciting. Somewhere between 3 and 10 minutes depending on the activity.

 

As you go through the answers, always check that everyone understands why the answers are as they are. Ask students to articulate their ideas and explain them. - to each other, to the class, to you.

 

 

1. Comparison Exercises

 

a. Describe the Difference: Ask your students to describe differences between pairs of sentences, for example:

 

I wear black trousers.

I'm wearing black trousers.

 

He saw this film yesterday.

He's seen this film before.

 

I think they'll have eggs for lunch

I think they're going to have eggs for lunch.

 

 

b. Which One is Correct? Ask your students to choose the correct sentence from 2 similar sentences, for example:

 

I often wear black trousers.

I'm often wearing black trousers

 

Where are you going tomorrow?

Where will you go tomorrow?

 

If I went to New York yesterday, I would have taken many photos.

If I had gone to New York yesterday, I would have taken many photos

 

 

2. Matching Exercises

 

Ask your students to match split sentence halves

 

Eg.

I go to the cinema                                                     yesterday                         

I'm going to the cinema                                            every Saturday

I went to the cinema                                                  now

 

And then explain why.

 

 

3. Rearranging

 

a. Ask your students to rearrange jumbled sentences

 

Eg.

never seen film this have before I

met James week I last

having for dinner evening what this you are?

 

 

4. Inventing sentences

 

Ask your students to make sentences using the words that you write on the board

 

Eg.

time expressions - write 'last year', 'now', 'tomorrow', 'in 1980', 'yet'...etc

auxiliary verbs - write 'did', 'have', 'is', 'will', 'can't', 'should'...etc

verbs - write 'doing', 'gone', 'saw', 'put', 'done'...etc

 

 

5. Categorising words and sentences

 

Put a list of words or phrases or sentences onto the board, which contain a mix of different forms or ideas, for example tense, regular/irregular verbs, or countable/uncountable nouns.

 

Ask students to separate them into different categories. You can ask them to identify what the categories are as well.

 

 

6. Drills

 

Eg. Ask your students to follow particular prompts with particular responses:

 

eg.

• Give a positive sentence, and ask students to respond with a negative sentence or question: 'I walked to school' → 'I didn't walk to school' or 'Did you walk to school?'
• Say an infinitive, ask students to give the 2nd or 3rd form: go →went, push → pushed, become → became, etc 
• Building sentences: you start with a simple clause, then students add a clause - 'I woke up at 6.00' → 'I woke up at 6.00 and drank tea' → 'I woke up at 6.00, drank tea and put my clothes on, etc.'. This is also a good fun way of testing memory!
  

 

There is a separate module on drilling in Classroom Management

 

 

7. Cloze (gap-fill) exercise, focusing on particular structures

 

Eg. Telling a story in the past simple - just ask the students to change the infinitive into the correct form, so the story makes sense

 

'I __________ (go) up Mount Everest yesterday. It __________ (not/be) too difficult, and we __________ (have) a nice picnic at the top. What __________ (you/do)?'

 

Students can write their own cloze exercises for others to do.

 

 

8. Questionnaires

 

These can be written either by you, the teacher, or be generated by students. They can practise specific structures, such as the Past Simple, or contain a mix as in the example:

 

Ask your partner the following questions

1. What did you do last night?
2. Do you have any brothers or sisters?
3. Have you ever seen an elephant?
4. What are you going to do this evening?
5. What are your parents doing atthe moment?

 

Questionnaires can be personal, as in the example, or they can be about other subjects, such as history, your country, the area, famous people, sports, etc. Questionnaires can also be roleplays, for example, students can, in pairs, pretend to be a famous person and a TV interviewer (who asks the questions).

 

After students have asked each other questions, they can then report some of the answers back to the class, as you instruct. Listen for the grammar, and ask them why that particular verb form has been used.

 

 

9. '20 Questions'

 

This is a simple but effective game for practising questions demanding Yes/No answers.

 

You, or a student, think of a word, name or phrase. Students have 20 questions to ask in order to find out that word, name or phrase. You can only say 'Yes' or 'No' in reply. 

 

You can restrict what the word etc might be, for example by limiting it animals, food and drink, famous people, things connected with your country, and so on.

 

Another way of doing this which involves everyone is to have students walking around the class with words on their backs. They have to ask questions to find out what their word is. they can ask no more than 2 questions to each individual student, and no more than 20 questions in total.

 

 

10. Practising Mixed Question Forms

 

Here are some more activities for students:

 

• Students break into small groups of 3 or 4. Two of them are policemen and have to interteview the others who are suspects for an imaginary crime (you tell them what it is). This is good for practising past forms.
• Students role play a fortune teller in pairs. One student asks the fortune teller questions about what life will be like in the future - for him, his classmates, his country, etc. This is good practice for future forms.
  
• Students are given statements ('My life has changed', 'I met an alien yesterday') which they read out. They then answer any questions other students throw at them. This can be done in small groups or in a whole class where numbers are small.
  

 

 

11. Miming

 

Using mime is a great way to get students laughing and provides a good break to any lesson.

 

Here are two examples of what you can do:

 

1. Verbs: write 'What am I doing?', 'What did you do yesterday?', or 'What are you going to do tomorrow?' on the board. Then act out various scenarios. Students write down or shout out answers. Listen for their grammar when you go through the answers
   
2. Adverbs: write a verb like 'walking' or 'eating' on the board. Then act the verb in a number of different ways and ask students which adverbs are being mimed. This could be slowly, sleepily, comically, angrily, etc.

 

You can also ask students to mime as well - to a group, the whole class, or you.

 

 

12. Dialogues

 

Give your students a situation, a picture, a headline from a newspaper, etc. They then must write a dialogue about that. Do this in groups of 3 or 4, as they can then perform it to the class at the end. This can be free writing, or using specified verb forms.

 

While the students are performing, make notes on their language for feeding back to the class at the end. You could also ask students to listen for grammatcial mistakes when listening.

 

This exercise can also be used for writing stories or newspaper articles.

 

 

Conclusion

 

These are just some of the many grammar activities you can use to make teaching grammar more fun. They are fairly simple for the most part, so try them out! If you work with other English teachers, try to compare notes, exchange ideas and discuss how to adapt activities for your particular classroom.