Teaching grammar

Find someone who... can be adapted to suit any structure or structures. For example, if we
want the students to practise using the present perfect, we could make a chart asking them
to find someone who has never been to lndia, has always liked music, has never eaten raw
fish, has always had coffee for breakfast, etc. We can also get them to write the questions
themselves to make it more interesting forthem or, at the beginning of a course, we can find
out one interesting fact about each individualstudent and putthese facts into the chart (e.9.
Find someone who is a keen swimmer, Find someone who plays in an orchestra, etc.). The
activìty thus becomes an excellent way for them to get to know each other.
There are many mini-surveys that we can use for grammar practice in this way, which
involve wh- and other question forms. For example, we can construct (or have our students
construct) any number of lifestyle questions asking such things asWhat ttme do you normally
get up? What do you have for breakfast? How many cups of coffee do you dilnk in a day? Or,
if we want the students to practise past tenses, they can design a questionnaire in order to
ask When did you last go to the cinema? Who did you go with? What was the name of the
film? What did you think of the film? elc.

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ï..' Many games from television and radio (and games that people play at home in their everyday
lives) can be adapted for classroom use (see 21.4.2). The following three examples, however,
show howwe can design games especiallyfor our learners. The idea is thatthey (and
games like them) will engage the students and encourage them to use the target structures
with enthusiasm.

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Ask the right question
Aim: the students will be able to think of questions to elicit particular answers (and so
practise a variety of question forms)
Activity: grammar activation game
Language: questions (especially wh- questions)
Age: older children and above
Level: elementary plus [CEFR A2+] .ff"r, ,U-0,
This game, which is suitable for all levels, forces the students to think carefully about the
exact construction of the questions they are asking. lt can be done in pairs, as a team game,
or by individual students standing in front of the whole class.
' Prepare a set of cards with words or phrases on them (see Figure 14).
' Have the students sit in two teams: Team A and Team B. Put the pile of cards face down
between the teams,
' Ask a member of Team A to pick up the f irst card, but not to show it to anyone else.
This student has to ask the members of their own team questions until one of the team
members gives the exact answer that is written on the card.
. Count the number of questions that are asked. That is Team As score (so far).
' Repeat the procedure, but this time with a student from Team B. Once again, count the
number of questions. That is Team B's score so far.

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. Keep going like this until it is time to finish the game - when everyone has had a go,
when the cards have run out or when you sense that the level of enthusiasm is facling,
" Count up the total score of each team. The team with the lowest score wins.

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Putting sentences back together again

Aim: the students will be able to put sentence elements in the correct order
Activity: reordering words into correct sentence sequences
Language: comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
Age: young learners
Level: intermediate ICEFR A2] dffcsr ¡O-+Z

A common way of practising and testing syntax - the order of words in a sentence - is to
the students sentences with the words in the wrong order, e.g. bananas I don't eating ¡ ¡ I
likefor I don't like eating bananas and to askthem to reorderthe words to make a correct'
sentence. But such word-ordering activities can be used in a more game-like way, too.
" Put the students in two teams. lf they want, they can decide on names for their teams.
' Provide two sets of envelopes, each numbered 1-12 (for example). ln each envelope
are the words that make up a complete sentence, written individually on cards. Both
envelopes marked 1 will contain the same set of word cards (see Figure 1 5), and there
will be two envelopes for sentence number 2, number 3, and so on.

la nd
animals
elephants

Fiquie l5 Cards for game envelope 1

' Write the numbers 1-12 on the board twice, once for each team, Put the two piles of
twelve envelopes at the front of the class. A student from each team comes up and
selects an envelope (they don't have to choose them in order), and takes it backto the
team. When the team have rearranged the words and written the sentence down on a
piece of paper, they cross off the relevant number of the envelope on the board.
' The first team to finish gets two bonus points.
' Look at the sentences they have written down. Cive a point for each correct sentence.
There are other ways of having students put words in the right order. For example, they ca
move them around on an lWB. They can hold words on cards in front of them or above theit
heads without looking at them and the other students can get them to stand in the right
order to make sentences.

254
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Stepping stones phrases
combine subject' verb object and complement
Aim: the students will be able to people have done
¡nto sentences about what
Activity: sentence-makingboardgame
and sentence elements
Language: present perfect
Age: young learners (approximately
eleven Years old) ^-&

Level: elementary ICEFR A2+] låcsr 36-42

tÀe following example are fairly

FollowingonfromExamplel3,weCanUseboardgamestohelpo,urstudentsunderstand
a sentenc"' t"tàTtn.'es like
word order and the elements of paper' etc'
using drawings' pieces of
easy for teachers to replicate'
This is the sequence for
'stepping stones':
! - ^,r^- +^ {ìnr l) the"iï:;i*: same'
in order to find
to iead the initructions below
'
" Te' rhe students
cotours or the stones and 4) the
aim or the same'
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S&øppLng ffi4onøs

Fofz4o4Plagørs
$tow to p[ag r.^ñ cr^nê srone to cross the river. Make correct
rô stor
sentences by
from stone to
i'¡'" .it oi tn""gurn" ìs to step
colour:
stepping on a stone of each stone
a blul stone + a recl stone
+ a pìnk stone + an
e' t' s' ã
Plafers can steP lìke this:

1 The youngest PlaYer goes first He/she is allowed to iump over

two stones
to
2 I[iJ:i:Ëi;"i:f"ii?'ton" 'ut" :,::nt"n'u
Player 1 gets-1 point
1
J ilå;".;":" is correct? ,

The sentence is not correcti

Pluy"t 1 {alls into the rìver'
of the game
the river 3 tìmes' they drop out
!Wh"n players I'au" fatttn into
same way'
The other players play in the

Thø ruløs players

the-sentences of other
a You are not allowed to rePeat
at list of irregular verbs'
; t; ;t; uùo*ua to look a
. You ur" allowed to ask {or helP'

and J Harmer (Klett Verlas)

,"r ,stepping stones, rrom your Turn by A Acevedo

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in the
wiat iupp"ni after a ptayer has fallen
"CheckthatthestudentshaveunderstoodbyaskingWhogoe'sfirrt?Whathappens
a
when a ptaye-un't )àritete
sentenc"z

river three times? instructions'

understood 'allowed to' in the
" Check that the students have to play the game:
Ask the students to read
the instructions again and
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f igL-rre 1 1 Board for 'Stepping stones' from Your Turn by A Acevedo and J Harmer (Klett Verlag)

. Checkthat the students have completed the game successfully by asking them to share
the sentences they have made with the class.
.As an added bonus, the students can practise allowed fo bysaying whatthey are and
not allowed to do in school.
Board games designed especially for language learning usually practise specific language.
However, many other games such as Pictionary, Monopoly, Cluedo, etc. are extremely
for general language practice, too.

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Of the many grammars on offer, serious researchers and students will want to look
at Biber et al (2002) and Carter and McCarthy (2006), both of which pay special
attention to spoken as well as written grammar.
Carter, IVcCarthy, Mark and O'Keefe (201 1) is a grammar for students. Swan
(2005a) is a book which a large number of teachers and students rely on. Parrott
(20 i 0) oflers 'grammar for language teachers' and Aarts, Chalker and Weiner
(2014) offer a'dictionary of English grammar'.
Harmer (2O12: Units 1-1 7) explains grammar concepts through stories of
teachers' lives.

'.'256