Ah, correcting grammar. It is so easy to mess it up.
Over-correct, students feel browbeaten. Under-correct, they get ossified
grammar errors. So let’s start with a few basic guidelines that I know work.
First, be nice.
Seriously. Errors are not irritations, they
tell us what our students need to learn, how useful for both them and us! If
there are no errors then they don’t need us. I used to have a sign up saying I
LOVE GRAMMAR ERRORS! Don’t lecture, mentor. Remember, no one like to be told
‘you are WRONG!’ Better to say ‘,Hm, almost! Let’s fix it.’ When correcting
students, don’t embarrass, humiliate or put them on the spot. Group corrections
are always more palatable. Get all students, even the lowest level ones,
involved in discovering, figuring out and playing with the grammar. And
remember: There is NO excuse for a completely boring grammar class and the
fastest way to demotivate is to teach from the book. No. Bad. Stop.
YOU know the grammar, start there, with you and the students
having a fun time discovering and creating authentic grammar sentences. If you
must, END with the book, saying “See? This is exactly what we did today. Here
are some specific in-class techniques for having some fun correcting.
The Raised Eyebrow
Have a relaxed body gesture, like a raised eyebrow or a hand
raised, to indicate that a grammatical error has been uttered, signaling to the
student that they should monitor and revise. Do it with a relaxed pose and
smile. This lets students self-correct, the whole point of grammar class.
Collecting Wild Errors
Have your students do a grammatical communicative grammar
activity and walk around listening for errors but don’t say anything. Write
down the errors you hear. If there are many that are similar, like dropping
‘did’ in a past tense Yes/No Question, they just collect a couple. When the
activity is done, list them on the board without saying who made the errors.
Let the whole class help fix them.
Grammar Races
Irregular forms really suck for our students. A fun way to
drill is via team competition. Before teaching Present Perfect, this sort of
activity prepares students for that past participle quagmire. Have a bunch of
common past participle forms on cards of verbs that students have already had and
then organize two teams standing in two rows, say the simple form of the verb
(eat!) and then the team representatives, whose turn it is, have to say the
three verb forms: ‘eat/ate/eaten!’ If they can’t, the other team gets a shot. Run
it like a relay race. Each win is a point. This can be done for all sorts of
forms, especially irregular ones.
Peer Correcting
Before I ever had a student offer to share his or her
written work with the class I surreptitiously pair them up, weaker grammar
student with stronger one, and I let them peer edit and correct. There are
three rules: All must be done respectfully. The reasons for the corrections
have to be explained and, finally, if they aren’t sure, they need to get the
teacher to check. Then I do a wrap up on what the common errors were and ways
to fix and remember the answers. It is relaxed, fun and students find it a real
and useful in-context skill.
Board Game
Create a simple board game with all the targeted grammar
represented as questions with errors. Game board templates are easy to
download. Students play, land on a square (Ex; You work Friday?) discuss and
correct it and then practice it with each other (Ex; Did you work Friday? No, I
didn’t) I can just walk around and hear all the awesome grammaring and when
done, we wrap up by having them tell me the forms and what the problems are.
Sweet.
Slap
You need flyswatters and two teams set up in rows, the first
person in each row has the fly swatter. This game is useful for all sorts of
grammar points where there are choices, like count/noncount nouns or -er/-more-
comparative adjectives.
The board is divided by the choices COUNT / NONCOUNT / BOTH.
Then, the teacher yells ‘homework’ or another noun and students have to slap
the correct choice. If both hit the NONCOUNT side of the board, the swatter at
the bottom is the winner. Then review. There are many permutations of slap.
Memory
I have my students make memory cards targeting the grammar
point, Ex: Present Perfect, Simple Past, Phrasal Verbs and so on. They have to
review/remember/discuss all the grammar points we have done and get them on
index cards in pairs or groups. Right away, this is good review.
Then, they all take a card (that isn’t one they wrote) and
they have to write an authentic sentence on a new, differently colored card
that shows the grammar and they underline the key aspect. Ex: SIMPLE PAST / I ate
sushi yesterday. When done, we mix them up and play Memory with them. It is
fun, they are motivated because it is their game, and of course there will be
errors, so we correct them all together as we play, with no stress.
Rods
Yes, spare the rods and spoil the grammar, right? Cuisenaire
Rods can be a grammar teacher’s best friend, especially for implicit grammar
which often helps students acquire the grammar point better and faster. As a
visual learner, I love them. While the full use of the colored rods to show
grammar patterns is a bit too complex to describe here, they have another use
worth noting, as a ‘reminder.’ Many use the small white rod for TO BE and the
slightly larger red rod for DO/DOES/DID I’d add another, maybe the pink rod, to
represent HAVE/HAS. We know students often leave these ‘helper verbs’ out. For
example, a student might write ‘She not works yesterday’ or ‘You work
yesterday?’ leaving out the DID because, let’s face it, where did DID come from
anyway?! By leaving a red rod at each desk as a hint, students are reminded
that often DID must be part of the form. Use rods as nifty mnemonic devices!
Mad Libs
I know, right? Still, students love the silliness and it is
all grammar. It is easy to make up your own based on the level of the students
and your targeted structures, but many ESL madlibs are online as well. Even
beginners know when they are absurd and in wrap-up you can bring all the forms
being practiced back to authentic examples generated by the students, thus
teaching linguistic appropriacy. Yes, ‘He ate a blue pizza’ is absurd, but a
discussion of what adjectives WOULD work is useful and leads to, hahaha!
Collocations.
Colored Markers
The wonderful program called G.L.A.D. has glommed onto the
rods/color concept by extending it to markers. This works great for low
beginners. First, have a set handy, assign colors to forms and be consistent.
For example Blue is nouns, red is verbs, purple is adjectives, pink is adverbs
and so on. Give students a visual color code. When you write examples on the
board, use the right color markers. Very quickly students ‘get’ the colors and
the language and go from there!
When students make errors, especially syntax errors, use the
colors to show them. They quickly learn the color patterns and it helps them to
self-correct.
Scramble and Hangman Retooled
Scramble is simple. By putting simple, authentic scrambles
sentences on the board, students get to puzzle them out. Ex: a e I d t e n i n
r – under it write: _/_ _ _/_ _ _ _ _ _. Students puzzle it out and write:
I/ate/dinner. Do four different forms for that tense (I ate dinner, I did not
eat meat. /Did I eat pizza? / Where did I eat pizza?) and you have all that you
need to talk about form, meaning and use of past tense and the students, as a
class or in groups, really love figuring them out and asking for clues.
Hangman is the same Idea, don’t play it with words, but
sentences germane to YOU that are will. Ex re: Modal WILL: _/_ _ _ _/_ _ _ _/_
_ _ _ _ _/_ _ _ _ _ _ _= I WILL COOK DINNER TONIGHT. Now do a negative
statement, a yes/no question and an info question form with WILL and , again,
you have all the forms you need to discuss the grammar AND students often don’t
even realize they are working with grammar amidst the competition.
