Editorial
The text was first published in English Teaching Professional Issue 55, March 2008.
Putting Grammar in Its Place
Simon Mumford, Turkey
Simon Mumford teaches at Izmir University of Economics, Turkey. His interests include academic writing, EAP material design, the role of Reading Aloud in language teaching, and teaching Spoken Grammar. E-mail: simon.mumford@ieu.edu.tr
Menu
The reckless taxi driver roleplay
Past vs present pictures
School for butlers
Courtroom questions
Logic puzzles
The determiners game
Driving lesson
Real or unreal?
Similar pictures
Door conditionals
Conclusion
Students need to learn grammar in some kind of context that makes the meaning clear, and most of us need to present items in isolation, or in contrast with only a few other structures in the early stages. Hearing, saying and writing the structure repeatedly can help students to remember, but this will be monotonous unless it is integrated into some kind of activity and context. Games, roleplay and fun drills are some of the ways of making this process enjoyable. Here are some suggestions.
Ask the students to work in pairs and take the roles of a native English speaker and a reckless taxi-driver in a non-English-speaking country.
The English speaker arrives at an airport and takes a taxi into town. During the ride, the driver starts a conversation to practise his English, asking present perfect questions such as: Have you ever... visited (the country), heard of (famous place/person from the country), tried/tasted/drunk (food/drink from the country), heard (singer from the country)?
The taxi driver should sit in front of and slightly to one side of the passenger, and should turn round while asking the questions, and the passenger answers at the same time as giving warnings to the driver, such as Look out!, Please slow down!, Watch that bus! etc.
Look at a picture for a minute, then give it to a student and make some statements about the picture, for example, There was a man, he was standing by the road. Since you no longer have the picture, and are describing from memory, use past tenses. Ask the student with the picture to repeat, using present tenses. There’s a man, he is standing by the road. Include some untrue statements, eg A dog was lying on the grass. The student should reply: A dog is not lying on the grass. Teach the students still, not...anymore, so they can use these in their responses. For example, The man is still standing by the road. The dog is not lying on the grass anymore. Give out pictures to pairs of students for further practice.
Explain that using past tense in an offer makes it formal and polite. Tell the students they are trainee butlers and that they should change your sentences into past tense, replacing you with Sir/Madam, using appropriate intonation (slow and dignified), and body language (arms at the side, perhaps a bow). For example:
T. Do you want anything else?
Ss. Did Sir/Madam want anything else?
T. What time do you want lunch?
Ss. What time did Sir/Madam want lunch?
T. Are you ready to have tea now?
Ss. Was Sir/Madam ready to have tea now?
Put the students into pairs and tell them that they are going to roleplay a lawyer and a witness in court. Give pictures to the lawyers and ask them to hand their picture to their witness to look at for a very short time, just a few seconds and then take the picture back and question them. For example:
Lawyer: How many people were there?
Witness: (hesitant) Er... three?
Lawyer: Are you certain/sure/positive there were three people?
Witness: Er not certain, no
Lawyer: What was the weather like?
Witness: (confident) Sunny
The lawyers should ask a direct question first, and, if they hear any uncertainty in the answer, follow up with an indirect question to find out whether the witness is really sure. Of course, the witness must guess if not sure.
Solving the following logic puzzles depends on understanding the meanings of verb tenses. The focus is especially on the perfect tenses.
The book is 240 pages long and I am half way through. I read twenty pages a day. How long have I been reading? Answer: 6 days
I have been reading a book for 3 days. On Monday I read 6 pages, on Tuesday, 14 pages, on Wednesday, 25 pages. I am half way through the book and I am planning to finish the book tomorrow because I have to give it back. How many pages will I read tomorrow? How many pages will I have read in total? Answers: 45, 90
I finished a 250 page book last night. Yesterday I read 100 pages because it became very exciting. Before then, I had been reading the book rather slowly for ten days. How many pages had I read every day, on average, during that time? Answer: 15
For a follow up, ask the students to write their own simple puzzles for each other.
Write the following on the board: everyone, nearly everyone, most people, many people, some people, not many people, a few people, very few people, noone.
Then read gapped sentences, saying blank for the gaps, such as:
Blank think football is boring.
Blank can drive.
Blank have got a TV.
Blank live in a hole in the ground.
Blank would like to be rich.
Blank want to get married.
Blank can sing very well.
Blank live to be 100.
Blank earn 1 m dollars.
Blank have been into space.
Blank believe in ghosts.
Blank have played roulette.
Ask students to write the words that they think best fill the blank for each sentence. (If they choose everyone, nearly everyone or no one, they may have to change the verb.) The most suitable answer is likely to be the one chosen by most students. Eliminate people who have different answers from the majority each round until only two or three are left.
Draw a road circuit on the board, with some alternative routes round it. Draw some hazards, eg a dog on the road, traffic lights, an accident. Put students in pairs, facing the board, and tell them that one is a driving instructor and the other a learner driver. They should roleplay an imaginary driving lesson, as if following the circuit. The instructor uses imperatives or requests, eg Slow down now, Could you take the next left?Would you just check the mirror? The learner asks questions, eg Shall I overtake the bus? Shall I change gear now? Shall I wait for the old man to cross the road? Keep changing the hazards, adding new ones, while the students are on their imaginary drive. They should go round the circuit several times.
Explain to the students that a real conditional shows that something is thought possible or likely, whereas an unreal conditional means it is unlikely. Tell them to work in threes and perform a roleplay in which three people are having a discussion about whether to do something: The person in favour (S1) uses a real conditional, seeing it as a real possibility, and the person against (S2) uses an unreal conditonal, believing it should not happen. They try to persuade a third person (S3), who responds appropriately with will or would, and decides at the end: Let’s (not) go!
Put the main ideas on cards, for example:
A: Visit Big Ben/Go on a river trip/ See Buckingham Palace.
B: Spend a lot of money/Not have enough time to see everything/Get very tired.
An example role play might be:
S1: If we go to London we’ll see Big Ben.
S3: Yes, we will.
S2: Yes but if we went, we’d spend a lot of money.
S3: We would, wouldn’t we?
S1: We’ll go on a river trip, if we go.
S3: We’ll enjoy that!
Give out sets of pictures on related themes to groups of four, one for each student. One student from each group (S1) stands at one end of the room, facing the other three at the other end. S1 calls out instructions related to the picture he or she is holding, as follows: If you have got a tree/car/house in your picture take one step forward. If the house is big, take another step. If there are some flowers take another step, and so on. At the end, the person nearest S1 should have the most similar picture to that of S1, let the students compare pictures to see if this is true.
In this metaphor, the first conditional is represented by an open door. The condition is possible, eg If It rains, I will stay at home. To represent the second conditional, the door is closed, i.e. the possibility is unlikely, eg If it rained, I would stay at home. To represent the third conditional, the door is locked and you have not got the key! The condition is locked in the past, there is no possibility of changing it: If it had rained I would not have gone. Point out to students that would and wood sound the same, so if you hear would, the conditional is very unlikely or impossible, the wood (i.e. the door) is closed. Read some sentences with different conditionals and ask individual students to open, close and lock the classroom or an imaginary door accordingly.
Roleplays, challenging activities and drills in semi-authentic situations can produce motivating and fun language practice, and make the repetition more purposeful. Intonation, pictures, realia, the board, and of course, imagination are some of the resources we can use when devising a context for a particular structure.
The Creative Methodology for the Classroom course can be viewed here
|
