15 Tips and Tools for Teaching Grammar Who doesn’t love grammar? Well, most people as it turns out. The subject is often regarded as tedious by students, if not also by many teachers. Some of that comes from the subject itself, but some if it has to do with how grammar has been traditionally taught. rewrite: Educators are nothing if not creative though, and some have been working to find more innovative, entertaining, and effective ways to teach grammar to students. Grammar Teaching Techniques to Try 1) Grammar Mind Maps Grammar mind maps can make your grammar lessons more visual. 2) Writing Assignments An article in the Atlantic last year made the point that sentence diagrams and memorization aren’t helping students learn in the way we want them to. 3) X-Word Grammar This editing technique came recommended by one of our loyal readers. 4) Use Existing (Fun) Text 5) Physical Games Why not bring a more playful physical component into your grammar lesson? Online Grammar Games 7) ESL Games Plus
7 grammar myths you learned in school Grammar can be tough. There are a lot of rules to follow, and a lot to wrap your head around. Some of the rules we learn in school, though, aren’t exactly accurate. While some function as helpful guidelines for style and form, other so-called ‘rules’ are inventions, or ‘superstitions,’ as the lexicographer Henry W. Fowler called them. Here are some common grammar myths: 1. Most of us learned in school that ending a sentence with a preposition was a mistake. Clearly, there are instances where attempting to avoid ending a sentence in a preposition results in a statement that is either over-formal or simply poor English. In her myth-busting post on the issue, Catherine Soanes identifies four typical situations in which it is more natural to end a sentence with a preposition. Read the entire post. 2. Another common grammar myth is the rule about starting sentences with conjunctions. Learn more about the finer points of conjunction use in Catherine Soanes’s post. 3. I couldn’t not help him. 4.
5 Good Teaching Habits | ELT Blog As teachers and learners, we all expect different things from learning and teaching. Some learners expect language-heavy courses, full of grammar and with lots of teacher explanation. Others anticipate a more social learning approach, where they play with the language and acquire it through practice, practice and practice. Whatever the style you take or whatever the style your learners expect you to take, there are some basic behaviours that all teachers should follow in the classroom. These go a long way to building an effective learning environment. Teachers come in all shapes and sizes and they vary greatly, but great teachers all share some common features i.e. the core basics of good teaching habits. Whether you have been in teaching for five minutes or five years, reminding yourself of the core basics of good teaching is always a good refresher. So, what are these top five teaching behaviours or habits? (1) Make it count – Don’t talk too much – Don’t fill the awkward silences
Prove invalsi per la scuola primaria secondaria e l'esame di stato How in questions The word “HOW” is one of the most productive words in English. It helps us create meaningful questions and sentences. The word “HOW” combines with many other words to create these questions. In this post I try to introduce the basic phrases “How much”, “How many”, “How often”, “How well”, “How long”, “How far” and “How old”. How in questions – mindmap Here the students can practise the basic usage of the word HOW in questions. The way you can create questions with how. In the first game your task is to complete the questions with the correct word. Teacher Invaders In the second game you should choose the correct answer and shoot only the BAD ducks. Shooting game I hope that by now you know all the basic usages of the word HOW.
Innovative Grammar Mind Map Is Perfect For Teaching English I tend to be an extremely linear thinker, so I don’t always love mind maps. Even though each branch can be fairly linear, something about the whole branching visualization of it doesn’t usually speak to me. I ran across this one today, and despite its many branches, I really like it. Grammar can be tricky. We live in a world of self-proclaimed ‘grammar police’, and folks who admittedly ‘judge you when you use poor grammar’. While that’s fine (and I literally cringe when I see people misuse apostrophes), sometimes I think that we need to give grammar a little bit of a break. The graphic below breaks down basic English grammar into eight branches, and then breaks down each branch a bit further. The mind map below breaks down basic English grammar into eight branches. Adjectives comparativedescriptive Syntax structureSVA Pronouns restrictivesubjectiveobjectivepossessive Nouns countableuncountableverbaldeverbalphrase Morphemes freebound Verbs actiontransitiveintransitivefinitenon-finite Adverbs modify-ly
Learn English Parts of Speech - Explanations, Examples and Exercises There are eight different English parts of speech, but before we continue any further... Click Here for Step-by-Step Rules, Stories and Exercises to Practice All English Tenses What is a Part of Speech? A part of speech is a group of words that are used in a certain way. For example, "run," "jump," and "be" are all used to describe actions/states. In other words, all words in the English language are divided into eight different categories. The English parts of speech are: Nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. Click here to learn the different parts of a sentence. Same Word – Several Parts of Speech In the English language many words are used in more than one way. For example, in the sentence "I would like a drink" the word "drink" is a noun. Click here for video grammar lessons (including the Parts of Speech Made Simple Videos) Nouns Click here for the complete illustrated page on English nouns. Abstract Nouns Concrete Nouns Common Nouns Verbs
About tekhnologic – tekhnologic I’m a language learner as well, and I try my best to find time to learn Japanese and French, although I am not always successful. Personally, I find reading is the best way to learn as I am absorbing vocabulary in context with a story and can notice grammar patterns. Why is my blog call tekhnologic? I wanted to originally name by blog technologic, but like most ideas, someone else had already thought of it first. I tried to think of a better name, but nothing appealed to me. Finally, I decided to change the C to a K because of tekhne, which is part of the origin of the word technology but it originally meant art or skill. So, the name of my blog isn’t a spelling mistake, but a combination of technology and the English language and its history. Why did I start tekhnologic? I started this website because I own plenty of books that offer low-prep activity suggestions, but I haven’t seen much information about effective ways to use Microsoft® Office® in the classroom. Is it all about technology?
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) It’s Time for a Music Break! Do you have the mid-winter blues? Us, too! So we thought it was time to shake it off and have a little dance party. We asked our Facebook friends to share their favorite educational songs in the hopes that it would give us the energy we need to make it to spring break. Here’s what they said: I love Dr. What about you?
paralleltext.io A SOME THE ANY AN When you teach the concept of countability in English, students have to learn to use the words A, SOME, THE, ANY, AN in front of the nouns correctly. To decide correctly, students have to take several mental steps.In this process I explain the mental process and I offer your students a chance to practise it in several games. ADVERT: In this post you will find a simple infographic, which explains the thinking process. A SOME THE ANY AN – infographic To decide correctly which word should be used in front of the given noun, students should ask the following questions in this order: If the students have already spoken about the thing, then we have to use the article THE. If the noun is not in plural or uncountable, then A or AN is used. The process might seem a bit complicated when you read the text, but my students found it very easy when they could use the infographic. A SOME THE ANY AN – games To practise the grammar, I created three brand new games. The first game is called Shooting Game.
Technology for language learning | it's NOT about what the teacher does with technology Bruce Springsteen: "When we kiss…" Not just going through the motions! You could probably say I've had four different though overlapping careers — in language teaching, language teacher training, technology and ELT management. The first of those I retired from (after 35+ years) a few months ago, though the number of contact hours I was doing was limited; teacher training I'm retiring from at the end of this month; management I got fired from (to the relief of all involved!) I happened to mentioned this in a session a couple of weeks ago and someone (Mati?) Yes! My #1 tip for teachers Every class, every day, every week, every term, every year of your teaching career, try something new and never ever just stick with what you have done before! Trash all your lesson plans at the end of the year: you don't want to use them again next year, with the possible exception of the half dozen that were truly outstanding (see Engage, not entertain, below). Attitude is everything What they had in common: