grammatical teaching

<b> Forum for discussing activities and games that work well in the classroom </b>

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betheone
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2004 9:48 am

grammatical teaching

Post by betheone » Thu Apr 08, 2004 7:03 am

Hi~~
I am a language school teacher in Taiwan. I was teaching the medium degree GEPT(General English Proficiency Test), includes reading, listening, and grammar. However, recently I came across some teaching problems about grammar.
I hope to make my students happy for my class. My students are about 13 years old, an active but impatient age, so I should find some moths to make them go through with the tiresome grammar lesson. I get well along with my students since we are like friends. Whenever they felt tired or bored with the lesson, they would tell me and I would brainstorm to change it.
In my class, I used a grammatical reference book (my boss decided to use it) to teach my students who had passed the primary degree. Before we started our new lesson, I found that medium grammar was much more difficult than primary grammar. If I taught my students followed those lessons, they must get tired of grammar. But I did not know how to teach them by an easy and interesting way. At first, I began my class through some activities, such as brainstorming or playing some games to get across grammatical terms. However, as I taught some complicated or mixed structures, they would look at me with their confused and dizzy eyes. Sometimes, students would get bored when they learned grammar in class. (Actually, I would feel bored, too.) I would like to make boring activity become interesting. But how?
This is an emergency!! I would like to get some help.

Thanks for reading and if anyone can give me any suggestions, that would be grateful!!! :D

tomtoledo
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Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2003 2:30 pm
Location: Toledo, Ohio USA
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fun teaching grammar

Post by tomtoledo » Fri Apr 16, 2004 5:28 pm

Hi --

It's hard to say how to make grammar fun without a specific grammar point in mind. Do you have one structure that you're going to be working on in the next month? Maybe someone could suggest a fun technique. I'll do my best, too.

By the way, I think my website www.englishzoom.com might be fun for your students. It's grammar with listening. I don't know if their level is high enough, though.

All the best -- Tom :wink:

betheone
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2004 9:48 am

Thanks~~

Post by betheone » Sun Apr 18, 2004 10:43 am

:D :D
Thanks for your opinion!!!!
I know it's hard to make a grammatical class more fun!!!
But I would try an easy way to make my students go smoothly.
Luckily, whenever my students got bored, they would let me know. Therefore, I would use easier way to explain the difficult grammatical terms.
Some of my friends suggest me to use some examples or do some exercises to make them understand clearly. They said sometimes demonstration in grammar is workful on students.
The reactions from the students are good!!!
I am sure that the students have the potential to work smoothly on grammar and they will use it well!!
Again, thanks for your feedback!!!

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Lorikeet
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Post by Lorikeet » Sun Apr 18, 2004 5:44 pm

Have you ever tried to get the class involved in the grammar explanation? For example, review some things they already know by asking them questions. Put a sentence on the board that is obviously wrong and ask them where the mistake is. Ask them for example sentences. Give them the first sentence and tell them to give you a second one with the grammar point you are showing them. Give them two sentences and have them help you show how the two sentences can fit together into one. Use your imagination ;) Hmmm, I'll have to get back to this style of grammar explanation. I forgot about it. :D

betheone
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2004 9:48 am

Post by betheone » Mon Apr 19, 2004 7:42 am

Yeah!!
I tried this way many times... to make them practice the sentences.
I think practice makes perfect!!....Not only have some practices on class but do some exercises at home can help them memorize the grammatical usage.
Recently, they should learn what is "noun clause,"so I prepared some exercises for them. Fortunately, they could get the point quite well.
On the other hand, if we change roles, let them figure out the structure of sentence or grammar by themselves, through the enteraction,they would learn better!!!
Thanks for your suggestion, I will try it :D

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