Eyes right! A fun way to revise grammar

This is a fun way to revise grammar!

Loved this activity, by Jo Budden, which I got from my RSS feed for teachingenglish.org.uk.

You get all your learners to stand up, get themselves into a nice long line, and then dictate to them sentences which are either right or wrong.

If they think the sentence is "right", they take a "big step" to the right (though as you can see in the photo, I got my learners just to look right or left); if they think it's wrong, they step or look left. You could make it an elimination game, Jo suggests, until you've got a "winner" -- or make it boys vs girls.

You know the grammar casino game? You could play it like that, with the sentences you dictate being right or wrong grammatically.

It's fun -- and might be especially good as a break for your hyperactive teens...

Mobile phone pix

In the bar: "He was cutting a pineapple"

Here's one that came from the session on our CELTA course, July 24. I sent six of you out with your camera-equipped mobile phones to take pictures of people doing things. My instructions were to ensure that you asked politely for permission to take the photo, and thank the person for their assistance.

My assumptions were that you were teens; that you had such technology in your pockets; that we had been doing either the present or the past progressive; and that we had a class blog on which we could afterwards post the pictures with an appropriate caption (in the example, "He was cutting a pineapple...").

The point of the exercise was to raise the question of how much language would be learnt and/or practised and/or used relative to the amount of time invested in the activity. What is the return on investment, in other words, a question I would always ask myself with technology.

This isn't an idea that I've actually tried out with language learners, but I think I would: when are teens -- or adults -- more likely to learn: "doing" the language via a photocopied exercise or doing an activity in a way that is actually significant to them (and fun!)?

Interactive grammar exercises

On ESL Blues, you will find a huge number of interactive grammar exercises, from "Pre-intermediate to high-intermediate level English".

Note also the diagnostic quizzes and tests.

Would you want to use them with your learners?
I'd suggest that, broadly speaking, we could divide the websites that we might use as language teachers into one of three different categories:

1. Sites for our own professional use
2. Sites that we could use with our learners
3. Sites that we could recommend to our learners

We might also have a fourth category -- into which we might dump all those sites that we would not use, because...

ESL Blues I would put into that third category -- a site I would recommend to my learners, somewhere where they could get lots of further practice and revision, one which they could use outside class, in their own time.

It isn't, however, one I'd use in class...

More exercises
We also have grammar, vocabulary and reading exercises on our English courses site.

Learning Spanish?
For any of you struggling to learn Spanish, there are also Spanish grammar exercises.

If you are looking for more exercises, our "Learn Spanish" site again has grammar, vocabulary and reading exercises.