In
our last blog I talked about my belief in getting students
to do most of the work. I believe that by actively engaging them in the
material and giving them interesting tasks to complete, they will be more
motivated and this will have a positive effect on their learning.
Since
then, I have taught on three teacher training courses for European primary
and secondary school teachers and have been made aware of how mainstream
teaching in many European countries is still largely teacher-led with an
emphasis on learning grammatical structures and teaching to the end-of-year
test. Many teachers commented that while they had really enjoyed the different
activities and they had also changed their perspective with regards their
own teaching, implementing a more learner-centred teaching methodology would be
difficult within their school due to student/parent expectations and also the
constraints of external methods of assessment. They generally felt that
parents, students and those in charge at their various schools would put
grammar at the top of things to be taught and studied.
I
would like to outline 3 activities that went down particularly well among the
teachers I worked with. They all essentially have ‘introducing and practising
grammar’ at their heart but I have tried to introduce a relevant context into
the mix.
1. The Queen,
David Cameron or both?
- Choose 2
people who you think your students would be interested in and would therefore
know something about. My group were interested in British culture.
- Write 5
sentences about each person and jumble them up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
is a good source of biographical information.
Below are the sentences I used:
This
person has 4 children (B)
This
person became the youngest leader in the UK for 200 years (DC)
This
person's partner is English (DC)
This
person went to a private school (DC)
This
person parachuted from a plane in the opening ceremony for the London Olympics (QE)
This
person used to ride a bicycle to work (DC)
This
person is the leader of 53 countries (QE)
This
person is a member of the Church of England (B, although you could argue that
The
Queen is the leader)
- Students work
in pairs to decide which sentence goes with which person.
- After checking
the answers / discussing surprises, the teacher could focus on any grammatical
structures used in the sentences. I tend to focus on present and past tenses
and therefore ask students to circle all examples of the present simple and
underline all examples of the past simple.
- Students could
then, in groups, choose 2 different people and write 10 jumbled sentences for other
groups to guess who they ‘belong’ to.
What
do I like about this activity? There is a real information gap – students learn
something about people they are (hopefully!) interested in. The activity covers
all 4 skills (writing, speaking, listening, reading) and also provides a focus
on grammar in context. Students then get the opportunity to use the language in
a new, relevant context. This activity is also very student-focussed – the
students do the vast majority of the work.
2. True or
false?
This
activity is a very simple expansion on the traditional ‘3 true sentences, 2
false ones’ activity. The stages are as follows:
- Dictate (at
normal speed) 5 sentences about yourself to the students. You may need to
repeat the sentences 3 or 4 times but it is important that you do speak at
normal speed. Below are the sentences I used for a ‘grammar-focussed’ lesson
·
I
have lived in 7 different countries
·
I
have never learnt to drive
·
I
have hitch-hiked around Europe
·
I
have done a bungee jump for charity
·
I
have eaten grasshoppers – they were very crunchy
- Once you have
dictated all the sentences, get the students to compare what they have written
in pairs.
- During whole
class feedback, write down the parts of the sentences which students have
understood correctly. Mark a gap where what they understood is incorrect but
don’t provide the correct answer at this stage. An example sentence may be: I have ________ _____ 7 different countries
or I have _______ in ___ different
countries
- Repeat the
sentences for students to get the missing words. If they can’t, the teacher can
guide them to the correct answer (what’s the preposition after….? What tense is
it? What’s the past participle? etc.)
- Once the
students have 5 correct sentences, you could do some work on pronunciation (which
words are stressed in the sentence? Where are the weak forms?)
- In pairs,
students now try to decide which statements are true and which are false about
you. They could ask you questions in order to try and find out the answer
(although you don’t necessarily have to tell the truth!!). If you don’t want to
use personal information in class, you could always use that of a famous person
or, alternatively, have 5 sentences about 5 different people in the class. For
me, sentences 1, 2 & 5 above are true!
- After
feedback, ask the students to focus on the grammatical structure, underlining
examples and checking that they are familiar with both form (has/have + past
participle) and, more importantly, function (life experiences).
- After
feedback, ask the students to focus on the grammatical structure, underlining
examples and checking that they are familiar with both form (has/have + past
participle) and, more importantly, function (life experiences).
- Students then
write similar true/false sentences about themselves to discuss in pairs.
And
the positive things about this activity? Once again, a variety of skills are
covered (writing, listening, speaking, reading & pronunciation). The
activity can be modified to focus on different aspects of grammar in a
(personalised) context. It is also motivating and interesting for the students
– they don’t feel as if they have been in a ‘grammar lesson’ and they also love
finding things out about their teacher/each other!
3. Using texts
– two-way translation
I
use this activity to encourage students to look at different language areas
that I want to focus on. The activity focuses on a range of skills and ensures
that grammar is noticed and recycled in context. Once again, the focus of the
activity is on the student and the teacher’s role is simply to support and
facilitate.
- Choose a text
(from your coursebook) that students are familiar with and have previously
worked on. This ensures that there are no questions or misunderstandings about
content.
- Choose 2
five-line ‘blocks’ from the text. Ask half the class to work with one of the
‘blocks’ and the other half to work with the other.
- Students
should translate their text into their mother tongue.
- Students then
swap their texts and translate back into English.
- After this,
they compare with the original and ‘notice’ the differences.
To
summarise, the activities above all put the context before the grammatical
structure. Students are introduced to language without perhaps initially realising
that the focus on the activity is language and, through the context, should get
a better understanding of how the language is learnt. They also work together
and help each other to become independent learners.
Putting
the context first means that the language simply becomes a ‘vehicle’ for
learning (about) something else, which I feel is how it should be. Also, with
the students doing the vast majority of the work in these activities, the
teacher is free to listen, monitor and support, which is also how it should be.
What
do you think about this approach to language? Would it work within your
context?
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