Grammar Activities

PROFESSIONAL PAPER

GRAMMAR PRACTICE ACTIVITIES

Contents Grammar Practice Activities Introduction ..................................................................... 3 1. Guidelines ................................................................... 4 1.1. Success orientation .................................................. 4 1.2. Heterogeneity .......................................................... 4 1.3. Interest...................................................................... 5 2. The task ....................................................................... 5 2.1. Clear objective ........................................................ 5 2.2. Active language use ................................................ 6 3. Interest ........................................................................ 6 3.1. Topic ....................................................................... 6 3.2. Visual focus ............................................................ 7 3.3. Information gaps ..................................................... 8 3.4. Personalization (Involving the personality) ........... 9 3.5. Entertainment ......................................................... 10 4. Learner activation ...................................................... 11 4.1. Reception with minimum response ........................ 11 4.2. Teacher-student exchanges .................................... 14 4.3. Student-teacher exchanges .................................... 14 4.4. Brainstorm .............................................................. 14 4.5. Chain ...................................................................... 14 4.6. Pairwork (Fluid pairs) ............................................ 15 4.7. Group discussion ................................................... 15 5. Performance of grammar practice activities in the classroom ........................................................... 16 5.1. Supplementary materials ...................................... 18 Conclusion ................................................................... 21 References ................................................................... 23

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GRAMMAR PRACTICE ACTIVITIES INTRODUCTION There have been many dilemmas regarding necessity for elaborate planning of the foreign language study process. The idea that the process should follow “natural learning“ and thus avoid preparing the programme of study, consisting grammar as one of its essential parts, was very popular for a while. It turned out that going to extremes in either direction would not lead to the satisfactory result of any foreign language study course. However, the learning of grammar has not regained its traditional position as a key part of the learning process; it is now considered one of the means of mastering a foreign language. It is a broadly accepted opinion that grammar learning involves 4 phases: • presentation • isolation and explanation • practice and • test. During the first stage, the students perceive the grammatical structure, both orally and in writing. Isolation and explanation imply focusing on the structure itself, regardless of the context. Grammar practice is considered the essential stage of grammar teaching process. It aims for thorough acquiring of the grammatical structure and transferring it into students’ long-term memory. The fourth stage is supposed to provide both the teacher and his/ her students with a reliable proof of the progress they have made during the course.

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This stage implies that the language material has already been introduced during the first two stages. Its function is to make students confident in using it. One of the most common mistakes that a teacher can make is to omit the presentation, i.e. introduction and thus make practice activities ineffective and incomprehensible. 1. Guidelines There are certain rules which a teacher should follow during this stage adapting them to the specific requirements of each task and each group of learners. 1.1. Success-orientation This aspect of the learning process sets some demands on the part of teachers’ general attitude toward their students as well as the essence of the acquiring process. They should be able to harmonize the necessity for building up self-confidence in each student and an encouraging atmosphere with keeping up a constant challenge of aiming for better results and creating a competitive spirit in the classroom. This demand is related to a very delicate problem of correction techniques which should not by any means hinder learning process. A teacher could solve this problem by correcting an error in a number of implicite and inobtrusive ways, such as facial expression (surprise, raised eyebrows); gestures combined with facial expression (worried look and hands outstretched to “hold“ the sentence – you will not let the class move on until they deal with the sentence you are holding); finger correction (hold on to the “error“ finger, e.g. the second word); repeating the sentence up to the error (e.g. They looked for a ........?); drawing a time line on the board; indicating which word is the problem (e.g. He ...............?) or writing the problem sentence on the board for discussion. 1 None of these techniques should in any way undermine students’ selfconfidence.

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Harmer, Jeremy, Teaching and Learning Grammar, Longman, 1986, p. 112

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1.2. Heterogeneity This feature implies practice talks which may be done at various competence levels. A “homogeneous“ exercise is not suitable for all students – it may discourage both those who will find the task too difficult ant the more advanced ones (those who need to be challenged i norder to be motivated enough). A typical example of such an exercise is a multiple choice exercise: •

If you ever were in trouble, I would give you all the help you needed. A) will

B) shall

C) ought

D) would

On the other hand, a “heterogeneous“ task should present a model sentence which may be creatively varied by the students: Student A: If you were ever in trouble, I would give you all the help you needed. Student B: What exactly would you do for me? Student A may respond with a simple sentence: I would lend you (the) money (you needed), or with a lexically and grammatically more complicated one: I would side with you in any conflict you had with others, or think of more than one sentence, including more difficult ones. 1.3. Interest By interest in grammar practice activities most linguists mean so-called intrinsic motivation, i.e. the challenge and appeal of the activity itself. This

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is considered an essential feature of successful grammar practice. Boredom results in lack of concentration, absent-mindedness and discipline problems. 2. The task A good grammar practice activity should have a clear objective accompanied by active language use. Activity implies not only the production of various examples of the grammatical structure but understanding and interpreting it as well. The essential features of all these types of exercises should be a high degree of learners’ activation stimulated by the interest of the activity itself. 2.1. Clear objective The obvious task resulting from this activity feature is that a teacher should have the objective in mind while preparing the lesson and during the learning process. If this demand is not met, it will be impossible to lead students toward the completion of the task. The ideal kind of the task objective is the one which combines language manipulation exercises (such as Yes/ No questions practice) with a non-linguistic result which may be to solve a problem such as following: Feargal McDonald lived on the twentieth floor of a block of flats and every morning took the lift down to the ground floor and caught the bus into town. When he came home he took the lift to the seventh floor and then climbed the stairs all the way to the twentieth floor. Why? Students ask questions to which a teacher can only answer yes or no. (Answer: He was a schoolboy and could not reach the lift control buttons higher than floor seven.) In any case, the objective should be a simple one so that students are clear at all stages what the point of the task is. 2.2. Active language use A teacher should always insist on using language instead of spending too much time on other activities, e.g. mime or solving a logical problem in 6

silence. By involving “information gap“ as the essential feature of the task, we can be sure that maximum language use will take place. The following exercise includes oral work (both interrogative and affirmative forms) based on an already introduced grammatical structure: Ask the students to write on a blank piece of paper four sentences that are true about themselves and one that is false using the structure: I have got a (colour) (noun). e.g. I have got a blue bike. I have got a red book. I have got a green radio. I have got a white cat. I have got a black camera.

Collect the pieces of paper and redistribute making sure no one receives their own piece of paper back. The students then stand up with their new piece of paper and mix and mill in a given space trying to find the owner of the piece of paper by asking questions like: Have you got a black camera? (Yes, I have.) Have you got a white cat? (No, I haven’t). When they find the owner they must decide which is the false statement. 2 3. Interest One of the most intriguing questions for a foreign language teacher is: 2

Booklet for Montenegro State School Teachers, Level 1, Longman, p.8

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What is it within itself that arouses students’ interest and motivation for studing? 3.1. Topic It is very important for teachers to distinguish topics which might stimulate their own imagination from those which arouse learners’ interest and curiosity. The latter implies a careful choice of language material regarding age, personal interests, previous knowledge and presumable positive or negative reaction of the class. I seriously doubt that the next monologue could be useful for practicing interrogative short answers (auxiliary verb + pronoun; Past Tense) with a teenage students’ group: (Task: Rewrite this as a conversation putting in interrogative short answers. Example: “It was a lovely wedding.“ “Was it?“ “Yes. Though ..... ) It was a lovely wedding. Though I didn’t think much of Maggie’s dress. That colour doesn’t suit her at all. Anyway, I don’t really go for church weddings. The service went on for ages. The music was nice, though. I must say I didn’t enjoy the reception much. The food wasn’t very good. And the bride’s father made such a stupid speech. And I got one of my headaches. And I was sitting next to that Mrs Foster from down the road. I can’t stand that woman. She’s always criticising. Anyway, I must go. Nice to talk to you. It really was a lovely wedding. 3 It might be a highly amusing exercise for an adult learner but it could hardly hold a teenager’s attention. The following lines, however, have never failed to stimulate my teenage students’ imagination and curiosity (the use of modal Shall I/ we in asking for instructions and decisions): What shall I say when our neighbours 3

E. M. Delafield, Modern Humour, Everyman’s Library LTD, p. 225

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want us to come to tea? They don’t know you’re not with me What shall I say? What shall I say when the phone rings and someone asks for you? They don’t know I ask for you too. What shall I say? How can I hide the tears inside? How can I face the crowd? I can make lips of mine be still, but my heart sighs too loud. I could explain that you’re gone for only a week to shop. But after the week is up What shall I say? 4 Peter Tinturin (Task: Write three questions asking for advice for yourself.) However, there is always a possibility of an absolutely unexpected reaction of the students to a certain topic. That is why varying topics upon grammar practice is based is the best way for maintaining attention and interest in the classroom. 3.2. Visual focus It is well-known that grammar practice activities which include visual aids sucs as posters, magayine cut-outs or diagrams help learners (especially younger ones) to concentrate on the task. Teachers who use various facial expressions, physical movements could be a perfect visual aid. Some of 4

International Music Publications Ltd, extract from the lyric “What Shall I Say?” by Peter Tinturin, 1973, p. 121

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them use hands and fingers to demonstrate a grammatical structure. The contracted verbs can be visually demonstrated in this way: The teacher models a sentence: She will arrive tomorrow and holds up four fingers saying the sentence and pointing to a finger for each word. The teacher then puts fingers 1 and 2 together and says (pointing to the fingers): She’ll arrive tomorrow. 3.3. Information gaps Learners may find practicing the interrogative by taking an answer and reconstructing the question a useful exercise; but if they interrogate each other in order to get necessary information, to fill out a form or win in a competitive structured game, they are asking questions the answers to which they do not know in advance. Their interest in performing the latter exercise is likely to be much greater. The following activity might be performed with the younger learners: The teacher draws on the blackboard a cat, a mouse, a table, a chair and a hat. The students must draw a room that contains these things but they can be arranged in any way they like, e.g: The cat can wear the hat, or The hat can be on the table, or The mouse can be inside the hat, or The hat can be on/ under the chair, etc. The students work in pairs. They must not look at each other’s pictures but must try to draw the same picture as their partner. They ask each other questions which can only be answered by yes/ no.

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3.4. Personalization (Involving the personality) A well-planned grammar practice activity should involve students’ personal experiences, ideas and feelings. A non-personalized practice of Present Perfect Formes could be based on supplementary material such as pictures and posters. A personalized one should result in the conversation about the things the students themselves have done or have been doing. For example, the students may practice Present Perfect tenses by taking part in a highly personalized chain activity Crimes and saying: I am (name) and I’ve never (crime): e.g. I am Maria and I’ve never robbed a bank. Some think that this degree of personalization is too high and may cause embarrassment. 3.5. Entertainment Pleasure created by listening to songs, watching films and plays or by the students’ own contribution is highly effective in performing grammar practice activities. Various games have been used in order to create this effect for a long time. One of them, which is called Dilemmas, could be an entertaining homework assignment: Students are asked to write a few sentences responding to a given situation or problem. The title of the assignment indicates the modal which should be used, for example: What should I do? What might happen?

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Dilemmas: 1. You have noticed your best friend cheating in an end-of-term exam. A lot of kids cheat, but you and your friend have always been against it, up to now. 2. Your parents prefer your younger brother to you; they buy him more new things, and generally discriminate in his favour. If you protest, they get angry. 3. Your boyfriend/ girlfriend said he or she could not come out with you this evening because of work; but you’ve just seen him or her coming out of a cinema hand in hand with another girl/ boy. General knowledge quizzes can be used in practicing various grammatical items such as the comparative forms of adjectives or past tenses practice, or both of them: Answer the questions: Who was the first man on the Moon? Which is heavier: an elephant or a whale? A highly amusing game is Election campaign which can be used for practicing future passives to express promises: The class should be divided into groups each of which is supporting a different candidate; they work out a programme of what will be done if their candidate is elected, and write it out, for example: The main road in this town will be widened. A new school will be built. More jobs will be provided for young school-leavers. (Finally, one of the candidates may be selected by the class in a democratic election.) Adult learners may find the following exercise both useful and amusing (modal must reflecting the hearer’s wishes):

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In a dream, Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard is talking to her two dead husbands, Mr Ogmore and Mr Pritchard. Mrs O-P: Tell me your tasks in order. Mr O: I must put my pyjamas in the drawer marked pyjamas. Mr P: I must take my cold bath which is good for me. Mr O: I must wear my flannel band to ward off sciatica. Mr P: I must dress behind the curtain and put on my apron. Mr O: I must boil the drinking water because of germs. Mr P: I must dust the blinds and then I must raise them. Mrs O-P: And before you let the sun in, mind it wipes its shoes. 5

4. Learner activation 5

Thomas, Dylan, Under Milk Wood, I. M. Dent, 1954,1955, p. 112

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One of the main problems during the grammar practice activities is to get as many students as possible to speak. Silent listening or reading can be boring and therefore is suggested as an acceptable activity during the initial presentation only. 4.1. Reception with minimum response During the minimum response activities the students react to a written or spoken text by physical gestures, mime or silent problem solving. One of the most popular activities of this kind is Simon says game which is used in simple commands practice. The teacher utters simple commands such as: Stand up! Sit down! Turn around! Open you books! etc. If the utterance is preceded by the phrase “Simon says“, the students are obliged to follow the command. If not, they mustn’t follow it, otherwise they “lose a life.“ They have three lives, after which they are “out“. 4.2. Teacher-student exchange This activity is frequently used at an early stage in practice, since the students need some time for repetition in order to gain self-confidence and proceed without teacher’s direct help. 4.3. Student-teacher exchanges During this activity the student is the one who takes the initiative. The fact that students are usually much more careful in listening to their classmates than to the conventional T-S exchange is a precious advantage of this technique. It is particularly suitable for practicing interrogative forms. 14

For example, students might be asked to interview a teacher for a TV “chat“ programme and prepare 10-20 questions. They have 10-15 minutes to do so. Then they interview the teacher. They may later describe to the class some of the questions they asked or write them up for homework. 4.4. Brainstorm The practice of providing the students with a stimulus to which they provide as many answers as possible is very challenging and may result in maximum students’ creativity. It implies a high degree of learner activation, encouraging originality and creating amusing situations. For example, practicing the first or second conditional can be done in the form of finishing conditional sentences the beginnings of which have been provided. Finish conditional sentences: First conditional 1. If I go away on holiday this year, .......... 2. If we get too much homework, ............. 3. If my friend gets into trouble, ............... 4. If we finish early today, ........................ Second conditional 1. If I were a millionaire, ....................................... 2. If I went to live in another country, ................... 3. If you came to visit me, ..................................... 4. If we were all geniuses, ..................................... 4.5. Chain The difference between the previous activity and this one is that during the first one all the responses relate to the original stimuluswhereas in a chain activity each learner’s utterance responds to the one before. It can be used while practicing the Past Tense for narrative: Each student is given a single past form (“lived“ or “gave“ or “slept“); The teacher begins a story, for example: 15

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess. Student 1: She lived in an old castle. Student 2: One day her stepmother gave her a poisonous apple. Student 3. The princess fell asleep. Student 4: She slept for many years... 4.6. Pairwork (Fluid pairs) This activity can be performed either in the form of a prescribed dialogue or in the exchange which is based on individual tastes or opinions. In the latter exercise the same question will produce various answers with different people. Learners go from one to another of the classmates and ask them the same question. This activity can be used in practicingverbs that take following verb + ing (e.g. I enjoy swimming.) The teacher prepares brief questionnaries such as: 1. Do you enjoy listening to pop music? 2. (If so) at what age did you start enjoying it? 3. Do you mind other people listening to loud pop music near you? 4. Do you like singing pop songs yourself? 5. Do you prefer listening to pop music to watching TV?

YES

NO

The class is divided into groups, each of which gets a different questionnaire. The groups then re-form and participants take turns to ask all other members of the new group the questions from their original groupings to pool the answers they have collected and formulate their results, such as: 40% of our population likes listening to pop music. 4.7. Group discussion

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This activity can develop from a relatively controlled exercise during which the teacher provides a “skeleton“ dialogue into a free group discussion. The teacher preapares a task which involves use of a grammatical structure and lets the students perform on their own with minimum intervention. It can be used in practicing comparative adjectives (as.....as; not so ..... as) to rank items on a scale. The teacher prepares sets of 5 or 6 nouns and another 4 or 5 adjectives relating to them, in a form of a grid, such as: healthy

tiring

productive

enjoyable

watching TV swimming driving studying sleeping Some of these activities might be marked as healthy, tiring and so on. The students get hand-outs in the form of grids and discuss in what order the activities should be rated under each adjective. If they think that swimming is the most healthy, they will insert number 1 in the appropriate column by “swimmnig“. After discussion, they will decide on a final order fro each activity until the grid is completed.

5. Performance of grammar practice activities in the classroom

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In spite of thorough preparation (long-term planning and short-term preparing), there is always a possibility that something goes wrong and turns into a problem which has to be solved immediately for the sake of the learning process. 5.1. Supplementary materials If a teacher does not have all materials, including visuals ready at hand, it may cause a delay and upset the pace of the learning process. However, teachers can make up for lack of visual aids in a very simple way, by drawing mini-situations, scenes or characters on the board. In the following example the teacher draws two faces on the board and gives them names. Then he/ she writes what the characters have to do and what they would like to do. For example: John Obligations: Wash windows Clean floors

Alice: Obligations: Type letters Answer the telephone

Desires:

Desires: Marry Alice Get a better job

Earn more money Marry her boss

Students now practice asking and answering. S1: What does John have to do at work? S2: He has to wash windows. S3: What would he like to do? S4: He’d like to marry Alice. Apart from visual aids, there is a powerful means for practicing grammar in an effective way, i.e. music, especially lyrics or titles of famous songs or poems. Carefully selected titles of famous pop songs may be used in practicing wish + would structures (if only) (Past Tense) expressing regrets and wishes for unlikely or impossible things:

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(Task: Who performed these songs?) I wish I was eighteen again I wish I were Aladdin I wish I were in love again I wish I were twins (so I could love you twice as much) I wish it would rain. 6 A poem might be used for practicing the contracted forms of the verbs: (Task: Complete the poem by putting in the contracted forms of the verbs in the box cannot

he has

he would

I will

that is

there is we have

you have

and rewrite it): Mother, there’s a strange man Waiting at the door With a familiar sort of face You feel you’ve seen before. Says his name is Jesus Can we spare a couple of bob Says he’s been made redundant And now can’t find a job. Yes, I think he is a foreigner Egyptian or a Jew Oh, aye, and that reminds me He’d like some water too. Well, shall I give him what he wants Or send him on his way? OK, I’ll give him 5p 6

Writers Digest Books (extract from Who wrote that song?), Jacobs, Dick and Harriet, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1994, p. 269

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Say that’s all we’ve got today. 7 This activity, apart from its long-term memory effects, provides an extra quality of a game precisely governed by the respective grammar rules.

CONCLUSION

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Mc Gough Roger, Three Rusty Nails, Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1976, p. 297

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Grammar is central to the teaching and learning of languages. It is also one of the more difficult aspects of language to teach well. Many people, including language teachers, hear the word "grammar" and think of a fixed set of word forms and rules of usage. They associate "good" grammar with the prestige forms of the language, such as those used in writing and in formal oral presentations, and "bad" or "no" grammar with the language used in everyday conversation or used by speakers of nonprestige forms. Language teachers who adopt this definition focus on grammar as a set of forms and rules. They teach grammar by explaining the forms and rules and then drilling students on them. This results in bored, disaffected students who can produce correct forms on exercises and tests, but consistently make errors when they try to use the language in context. Other language teachers, influenced by recent theoretical work on the difference between language learning and language acquisition, tend not to teach grammar at all. Believing that children acquire their first language without overt grammar instruction, they expect students to learn their second language the same way. They assume that students will absorb grammar rules as they hear, read, and use the language in communication activities. This approach does not allow students to use one of the major tools they have as learners: their active understanding of what grammar is and how it works in the language they already know. The communicative competence model balances these extremes. The model recognizes that overt grammar instruction helps students acquire the language more efficiently, but it incorporates grammar teaching and learning into the larger context of teaching students to use the language. Teachers using this model teach students the grammar they need to know to accomplish defined communication tasks. The goal of grammar instruction is to enable students to carry out their communication purposes. This goal has three implications: • students need overt instruction that connects grammar points with larger communication contexts; • students do not need to master every aspect of each grammar point, only those that are relevant to the immediate communication task; • error correction is not always the teacher's first responsibility (teachers can use error correction to support language acquisition, and 21

avoid using it in ways that undermine students' desire to communicate in the language, by taking cues from context). Adult students appreciate and benefit from direct instruction that allows them to apply critical thinking skills to language learning. Teachers can take advantage of this by providing explanations that give students a descriptive understanding of each point of grammar. Only the grammar point in the target language or the students' first language should be taught. The goal is to facilitate understanding. The time we devote to grammar explanations should be limited to 10 minutes, especially for lower level students whose ability to sustain attention can be limited. Grammar points should be presented in written and oral ways to address the needs of students with different learning styles. An important part of grammar instruction is providing examples which have to be focused on a particular theme or topic so that students have more contact with specific information and vocabulary.

REFERENCES

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1. Booklet for Montenegro State School Teachers, Level 1, Longman 2. Delafield, E. M, Modern Humour, Everyman’s Library LTD 3. Dylan, Thomas, Under Milk Wood, I. M. Dent 1954-55 4. Harmer, Jeremy, Teaching and Learning Grammar, Longman, 1986 5. International Music Publication Ltd, 1973 6. Jacobs, Dick and Harriet, Writer’s Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1994 7. Mc Gough, Roger, Three Rusty Nails, Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1976

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