How to help students learn new grammar and vocabulary?

 

Talking about techniques, let's discuss a couple more, and then move to the ways of making your controlled practice even more interactive.

Matching

The task is that students look for and select items that match each other. These can be: Definitions to a word, halves or phrases or grammar rules. Synonyms / antonyms. Formal / informal words or expressions. Pictures with words or sentences. Cards with pictures, words, sentences, etc. In this memory card  game, students take turns flipping cards with words or pictures until they find a matching pair.

Touch the board

Students hit or touch the correct answer on the board with a fly swatter or just a hand. The first one wins. In groups: students sit in groups and play with each other. When one student gives a hint, the other students (perhaps two at a time) compete to 'slap' the correct answer. Whole class: students form two rows leading to the board. Two students stand in front of the board when the teacher reads a hint. When you say, 'Turn around!' or 'Go!', students start the competition. The correct answer is a picture or a word or a sentence.

Fill-in-the-blank

From the title, it is clear that students will fill in the blanks in the text. They will need to choose or write the correct answer: Two options: students choose (underline or circle) the correct answer. Word bank: students are given a word bank from which they select the answer. No options: students need to write their own answer without any options.

Jumbled Sentences/Words

In this exercise, the teacher gives a set of words/letters that students need to arrange in the correct order to get a sentence/word.

Sentence Completion

It’s also a great task at this stage of the lesson. Students receive prompts with blanks for their own answers (e.g. personal information or opinions, etc.) and write their own sentences.

How to make controlled practice more interactive?

The tasks described above may seem simple because many of them are in almost every modern coursebook. Here are some highlights that will help make this stage of the lesson more interactive.

Click click sentences

This task works well with prepositions, participles in phrasal verbs or prepositional phrases. Distribute a TL card to each student.  For example: 'I am good at English and Science.' Students should move around the classroom, approach other students, and 'click' on the words they are learning. Example: 'I am good click click English and Science' or 'I am click click click click English and Science'. Their partner listens and guesses the missing word or words. Then they exchange cards, find a new partner and repeat the process. Read about other mingling activities in our blog.

Wacky Backy

This is a very interactive gap-fill. Ask students to stand up and attach a sheet of paper with one of the correct answers on their backs (10 answers = 10 students). Also, use sticky notes that you can stick on their foreheads – make sure they do NOT see your word. Give a worksheet with a gap-fill to each student. Then they move around the class and tell each other what number they think the other students are. If I ………(1) the lottery, I……….(2). a Ferrari. If I ………(3) rich, I………(4) money to charity. WOULD BUY, WERE, WON, WOULD GIVE WOULD BUY: “I think you’re number 2” They SHOULD NOT say what word it is! Each student must guess their word and write it on the board.

Treasure Hunt

Divide the students in pairs and say that this is a competition. Students have a worksheet with a task to fill in the blanks. Post answers, as well as distractors, on the walls or in the hallway. They need to find answers quickly and fill the gap.  Here are some other cool ideas in our webinar with Chris Reese:

As you can see, even ordinary exercises from the textbook can be turned into an exciting game, during which students will learn in a relaxed and natural atmosphere. Isn't that what we want? https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGkXwNcmPjhkQxvrMcmgbgxndWW