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\n<\/div>\nTeaching grammar is a subject I\u2019ve been struggling ever since \u00a0since I started teaching.When I first started teaching English, I thought the most convenient way to teach the language was to write grammar rules and a few example sentences on the board and make students write them down in their notebooks , later do some drilling, oral repetition and lots of worksheet exercises and finally end the lessons. It was that easy, because I had been taught in this way and other colleagues had been teaching in this very teacher centered way.<\/p>\n
In my first years of teaching. it was the easiest way for me because the classes I taught were crowded and there were class management issues I had to handle. \u00a0Also, there was no support or mentoring from the experienced colleagues in my school. I was all alone, dependent on the coursebooks and grammar woksheets. That is, teaching only grammar with lots of repetition made me not only feel more secure but also helped me manage the students,because they were already accustomed to this kind of learning.<\/p>\n
Yes it was the most manageable way but not the correct way. I wasn\u2019t satisfied at all. This repetition and monotony bored me much more than the students. There must have been other ways of teaching and I had to find them. Besides,I wasn\u2019t sure if the students were really learning.<\/p>\n
Having searched for some class activities, attended some seminars, and learned from some great educators, I decided to try some class activities with my students.The result was excellent. Students both enjoyed and were engaged, and I was pleased with the result. Therefore ,in every lesson plan I made I tried including some games, songs, and puzzles so that I could make the lessons more efficient. Although it was more fun and useful to include some engaging activities while teaching grammar and students definitely enjoyed the lessons, some of my colleagues didn\u2019t see the point and thought I was not a very good teacher. because I wasn\u2019t teaching the grammar rules to students properly. According to the majority of teachers here (in Turkey), grammar is the most important aspect of the language and a great deal of attention must be given to it. I can remember once that a colleague of mine complained to the administration that I wasn\u2019t qualified enough to teach grammar because I hadn\u2019t made the students copy the rules in their notebooks. Maybe it\u2019s true that I\u2019m not good at teaching grammar. On the other hand, I know that I am happier now \u00a0by not teaching grammar only.<\/p>\n
I have been teaching grammar for a long time now. Honestly,I find teaching other language skills such as writing, speaking, and listening easier and more enjoyable. And also I\u2019m still learning to teach grammar more effectively. Even though I haven\u2019t found the effective method yet, I have some class activities, songs and web tools that foster students\u2019 learning, engagement and motivation in classes. I\u2019ve been compiling them from various sources such as other educators\u2019 blog posts, teachers\u2019 book resources, and the seminars , workshops and webinars I\u2019ve attended. Here are some of the activities I use frequently in classes.<\/p>\n
The first one is the well-known \u2018Find someone who\u2026.\u2019activity. You can adapt it into various grammar structures and also it requires students\u2019 participation, which makes them practise what they learn. They simply need to walk around class and ask their classmates some questions and fill in the handout. Here are my handouts. Feel free to use and adapt them. \u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/app.box.com\/s\/sq1kc201rzof6tpyvd57<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/app.box.com\/s\/ev2t3xedidz7w4vhawzi<\/a><\/p>\n The next one works best when practising \u2018Relative Clauses\u2019. It\u2019s an activity I first found in one of the teachers resource boks I have. Divide the class into groups of four or five and hand out some cards on which some object, people or place names are written. Students must write three definitions for these names and only one of them must be true. The other groups must find the correct definition. This activity is very competitive and fun. You can also try this activity by giving students a list of words and get them to search their meanings and write their definitions in their own words. If you want to use tech, students can look up\u00a0 their meanings on their mobile phones or tablets as well .You can check out my handout here.\u00a0 https:\/\/app.box.com\/s\/ljomu55ujm02kan0qy8r<\/a><\/p>\n The other one is a fun activity which I\u2019ve learned from a colleague. You can use it when teaching any language point. Write a sentence in big fonts on a piece of paper and cut all the elements of the sentence. Mix them and give to a student and ask him\/her to put them in the \u00a0correct order to make a sentence in one minute. While he\/she tries to put them\u00a0 into the correct order, another student always utters something nonsense \u00a0(la,la,la or blah,blah,) to distract him\/her. You can also make this activity more competitive by dividing the students into teams.<\/p>\n In addition , songs can be one of the most impactful ways to teach vocabulary and grammar . Moreover, they can be used as warmers or fillers .You can use the song \u2018Tom\u2019s Diner\u2019 \u00a0to practise \u2018present continuous tense\u2019,\u2019My baby shot me down\u2019 for \u2018simple past tense\u2019 and \u2018would\u2019 and \u2018If I were a boy\u2019\u00a0 to teach \u2018the conditionals\u2019.Here is one of\u00a0 the song lyrics .\u00a0 https:\/\/app.box.com\/s\/n8e4v1g2wp3dyub9rjz2<\/a><\/p>\n We cannot ignore the fact that grammar is necessary. On the other hand, our aim shouldn\u2019t be to teach grammar rules only .Instead, we can make the lessons more attractive through some meaningful class activities. As you get to know your students you can adapt and blend the activities into their needs and learning processes. Frankly, I haven\u2019t found the most effective way yet and I don\u2019t know if there is one but at least I\u2019m trying to do my best to facilitate learning. You can try to break the boredom of the grammar lessons as well as creating such an engaging and student-centered atmosphere by avoiding repetition and routines .<\/p>\n If you seel some useful ideas, iTDi is one of the perfect places where you can find lots of help and mentoring to develop your teaching skills. It has helped me a lot and I\u2019ve been learning lots of new ideas from colleagues \u00a0all over the world. Please don\u2019t hesitate to join in and connect with the great educators here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Connect with Ann, Adam, Alexandra, Arzu, Rose, Miguel, and other iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account<\/a> to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers<\/a> and Teacher Development<\/a> courses.<\/p>\n Grammar: tedious or fun? \u00a0– \u00a0Arzu Baloglu Teaching grammar is a subject I\u2019ve been struggling ever since \u00a0since I started teaching.When I first started teaching English, I thought the most convenient way to teach the language was to write grammar rules and a few example sentences on the board and make students write them … Continue reading Grammar Issue – Arzu<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":3985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar-issue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n![](\"http:\/\/itdi.pro\/itdihome\/images\/blogimages\/arzu310114-2.jpg\")
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