Guest post by Jack Milgram from Custom-Writing.org blog:
Teachers and professors all around the world often develop new methods of teaching grammar to ESL and EFL children.
Why? Let’s be honest—grammar is one of the most boring school things.
Dozens of rules, massive texts, pointless exercises… Even many adults can’t interest themselves in these usual topics and repetitive tasks.
To find an easy way to learn English grammar, you should bring creativity and innovations into a teaching process.
Custom-Writing.org collected some excellent tips and games that will help you to vary grammar activities:
- Use technologies
When we talk about innovative ways of teaching English grammar, the first thing we remember is technologies.
It isn’t only children who can’t live without their smartphones and iPads, these devices have become an integral part of our lives as well. That’s why you should get benefits from children’s love for technologies.
Grammar teaching will become more interesting if you let children do the things they like.
For example, send students on devices pictures of famous characters from cartoons and fairy tales. Then, ask them to describe whose pictures did they get or make up a story about these characters.
This exercise will definitely interest children. Moreover, they couldn’t be distracted by apps or the internet while preparing their stories.
- Learn songs and audio books
Listening is one of the significant parts of learning a language. Make sure, your grammar English lessons include audiobooks, songs, or podcasts.
Moreover, this is an excellent opportunity to make learning interesting!
All children like an emotional approach to teaching. Why not listen to the story of Tom Sawyer?
This novel is a perfect choice to teach English grammar to children and make their pronunciation perfect by asking them to repeat after the readers.
Songs help hundreds of teachers around the world to make students focus on grammar lessons. Singing aloud is a lot of fun, and even adult students like to participate in such an activity.
This activity is useful because it’s easier for our memory to keep songs than texts. You’ll see—even at the end of the semester, your students will still be able to remember quotes from the songs they listened to.
- Watch videos and cartoons
Perfect conditions to learn basic English grammar is when you know what hobbies children have and use them for teaching purposes.
For example, you can know what cartoons are popular among the children and show them some fragments from them. Nowadays, there are a lot of short cartoons which are full of interesting vocabulary and easy to learn.
But usually, English grammar lessons in elementary school don’t last long. That’s why short YouTube videos can be perfect to use.
One of the best choices is Schoolhouse Rock! cartoons. Look at this short video about conjunctions in the English language. Children will be sure to like it!
- Use the Internet
How to learn English easily? The answer is—play a lot!
And the Internet can help you with this approach. There are lots of websites with ESL and EFL games which are absorbing and useful at the same time.
There is a great diversity of fun games to learn English—word search, crosswords, puzzles, and so on. These activities will not only help you with grammar but also improve your analytical and logical skills.
If your students don’t have access to computers—teach them what apps to download on their smartphones to develop language skills.
You can even make a competition between students. Make two or four teams and find out who can complete a grammar game in the shortest time.
- Play instead of studying
Grammar English games are important for learning, especially, when the learners are kids.
If you need to get children’s attention, use some activities in English teaching.
Custom-Writing.org prepared a list of games and activities which are easy to play in a classroom:
- Hangman
Short and fun activity for grammar and spelling improvement. Everyone knows how to play this game—but how we can use it in the sake of learning? Ask children to guess difficult words to practice spelling of new vocabulary.
- This weekend I…
Sometimes, it’s difficult to keep students’ attention. These times, you can start one interesting game which will help you to keep children focused and challenge their memory. Start the games with “This weekend I… rode a bicycle and…” The task of students to repeat the said sentence and continue it with a new action. The game lasts until one of the students forget a part of a long sentence.
- Call my bluff
You can also play one of fun activities for ESL students–the game Call my bluff. Just ask students to write down three sentences—two of them must be true, and one must be a lie. Other students try to guess which one is false. This game is great to know each other and also helps to train syntax and conjugation.
- No, I don’t
Another game from grammar practice activities is called No, I don’t. The task is to ask a teacher or other students questions. They get a point when the answer is “No, I don’t,” and no points when the answer is “Yes, I do.” The most interesting part in this game is when students imagine absurd questions like “Do you live on a tree?” or “Did you ever visit the Moon?”
Elementary grammar lessons shouldn’t be boring! It’s possible to turn any topic into a game—you just need to find the right approach.
To find more study tips visit the Custom-Writing.org blog—you’ll know how to study productively or how to choose a major.
Jack Milgram graduated from the University of Central Florida and can currently be found in his hometown of Jersey City, NJ. He has never found sitting in an office appealing, and that’s why freelancing was his career solution. He enjoys sharing his knowledge with others through blogging.