Video tip: Active grammar presentation
Teaching tip
Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I might remember; involve me and I’ll actually learn.
Using the example of the present continuous, Dagmar explains how personalising your material can really help students to learn their grammar as involving students in creating sentences about themselves helps to make the grammar more memorable. Have a look at the video and see for yourself.
More ideas:
Past simple
Use the same method as Dagmar to elicit information about the past. Write a true sentence on the board about one of your students: Julia went to America in 2018. Elicit from the students how to make the sentence negative Julia didn’t go to America in 2018 and then a question Did Julia go to America in 2018?
Elicit some of the key words for the past simple: last week, yesterday, in 2018, last year and so on.
Plurals
Write up some nouns with irregular plurals for example child, man, woman, mouse, foot and elicit the correct plural form (children, men, women, mice and feet). Ask students to create sentences which are true for them using one of the words, for example: I have two children. I don’t like mice!
Make it true.
Write some simple sentences on the board, for example: I am Australian. I am a child. I am not learning English. I am not in the classroom. I have met Madonna. My name is Mickey Mouse. Elicit from students how to make the sentences true for them.
