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vermouth
Joined: 21 Dec 2009
Location: Guro, Seoul
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 Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 7:41 pm Post subject: How do you make grammar interesting? |
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So, I just started teaching grammar this year. My students have somewhat uniformally high levels of English skills. They almost all read at their English Grade level plus or minus one.
I've got some pretty good ideas about how to get involvement going in my reading and writing classes. In those classes I've done some activities that my elementary students seemed to think were fun.
I really haven't been able to do that much with where to put the comma or where to put the apostrophe. I've found some enjoyment out of explaining the miscommunication possible with poor punctuation.
Some of those are like Eats, Shoots, and Leaves describing a murderous panda or everyone running away from a giant kid's playground.
Surely someone will find a mistake in a forum post I'm not taking the time to proofread and mock me savagely for being unqualified. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 7:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
a giant kid's playground.
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How many children does the playground belong to? You are useless and can't get a job in your own country etc...  |
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vermouth
Joined: 21 Dec 2009
Location: Guro, Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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Actually it belongs to a giant kid. Which is why they're running away. From the 4 meter tall 5 year old.
Strangely my students can figure out the joke but not people on the internet. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Aha got you now. Nice one |
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Whistleblower
Joined: 03 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 9:23 am Post subject: |
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| I've wasted a few minutes trying to decode the OP's message. What's he babbling on about? |
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vermouth
Joined: 21 Dec 2009
Location: Guro, Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Whistleblower wrote: |
| I've wasted a few minutes trying to decode the OP's message. What's he babbling on about? |
What I'm asking is how do you make where to put the comma or apostrophe fun. I always feel like I'm boring my students in my grammar classes.
The only thing I've found that interests students is examples of absurd grammar mistakes. like Eats, Shoots and Leaves or the giant kid's playground where it drastically changes the meaning. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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It's a kind of bizarre request as punctuation is not something that comes up a lot when teaching young learners. Unless you're teaching near native speaker level kids in an international school. Even then I think most teachers would just teach the basic rules and remind the kids when they make mistakes in their compositions. I've never seen an exercise specifically on punctuation in any course books.
If you really want to concentrate on it and make it fun, how about a grammar auction? Put the kids into teams give them pretend money and twenty sentences, half with correct punctuation and half with incorrect and they have to bid to buy the sentences they think are correct. The team with the most correct sentences at the end wins. If there's a tie, the team that has the most money left wins. |
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vermouth
Joined: 21 Dec 2009
Location: Guro, Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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| edwardcatflap wrote: |
It's a kind of bizarre request as punctuation is not something that comes up a lot when teaching young learners. Unless you're teaching near native speaker level kids in an international school. Even then I think most teachers would just teach the basic rules and remind the kids when they make mistakes in their compositions. I've never seen an exercise specifically on punctuation in any course books.
If you really want to concentrate on it and make it fun, how about a grammar auction? Put the kids into teams give them pretend money and twenty sentences, half with correct punctuation and half with incorrect and they have to bid to buy the sentences they think are correct. The team with the most correct sentences at the end wins. If there's a tie, the team that has the most money left wins. |
I do teach nearly native level speakers as all my elementary level kids read at their US grade level plus or minus 1. Any given set of kids has grammar once a week and they look dreadfully bored when we're going over this stuff. |
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