Do you struggle sometimes with coming up with a fun grammar lesson in English? Then you have come to the right place. Teaching grammar might not be one of the most appealing things to do in your lessons, I know. You might find it boring, and maybe your students do too? But I am here to tell you it CAN be fun! It’s actually one of my favorite things to do, now that I know more about it. What do I do to achieve that fun?
If you feel like textbooks are falling short in the grammar teaching department, I don’t think you’re wrong. Using text books makes me deeply unhappy. This is because textbooks don’t get students to think about using grammar in context and in real life. Whereas that is what they need grammar for: to use it in communicative settings with actual speakers of the English language. Fill-in exercises are not the way to go. Let me tell you what is!
Wanna skip ahead? Click here to download my free Great Grammar Lesson Road Map to plan the perfect grammar lesson in 4 steps!
How to learn grammar in English
You need grammar for learning English. It may not be the funnest thing when you’re learning a new language, but learning about grammar rules is very important. Lessons in English grammar, though, don’t have to only center on these rules. Learning grammar in English can be fun if you follow four easy steps. Let me tell you about the structure I think all grammar lesson plans should follow.
Structure of a great grammar class in English
Introduce
Start the lesson with a fun introductory activity! It shouldn’t ‘teach’ anything yet, just introduce the topic. This can be just showing them a picture, object or video, just to spark their interest, creativity and prior knowledge! Check out this blog post full of ideas for different grammar topics introductions. There’s something there for any grammar lesson in English.
Teach
Give students examples from your or their personal life that fit the grammar point. For example, if you’re talking about the future tense, say: “I will do the dishes when I get home.” How many grammar rules in English can you apply to your own life? Actually, all of them, because that’s what they’re for. Then teach the actual grammar point. What is the rule? And ask them to explain the rule back to you. Then get students to do a few quick examples of an exercise in which they use the grammar or vocabulary word. For example, ask them: “What will you do when you get home?”
Practice
Make sure students have a few different ways in which they can practice the grammar point in action. Give them a couple of exercises. So just have them do fill-in exercises, matching ones, correction ones, translation ones, etc. The point is to see the grammar rule in action and for them to apply it in the correct way. Also make a point of checking their answers with them and gently pointing out any mistakes that were made.
Produce
And now for my favorite, and in my opinion most important, part of any grammar lesson. Get students to produce either a piece of written text or spoken to show that they have understood the grammar point. It must be something original, so not something like the practice exercises. Make sure they can show off what they learned in action. The point of this is to show understanding in a communicative way. What if the students had to use this grammar point in the real world, would they be able to do it?
Fun examples of this are to have students create a set of interview questions and conduct that interview to practice question words and making questions. Or to write a news article using the passive tense and reported speech. In this blog post I talk about using Bloom’s Taxonomy to come up with fun production tasks. Check it out here for more ideas!
My lesson plans
So that’s my two cents on teaching a grammar lesson in English! If you want to check out some of my lesson plans, there are some in my store. They all follow the structure I just described, and they contain activities that are ready to go for each of the four steps. Click here to go there now!
Or do you want to remind yourself of what I said here by downloading my free Great Grammar Lesson Road Map, which contains all the information in this blog post in one handy PDF, then grab it here right now!
Related articles:
How to empower and enrich your grammar teaching with Bloom’s Taxonomy
Why grammar games can really help engage students and solidify learning
How to introduce grammar topics in a fun and easy way
