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ERES
Copyright 2007 English Raven Educational Services / Onlinenglish.net
Australian Company Number: 123 251 927
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More riches from the Raven's Nest!
Getting to know your learners, your learners getting to know each other, and establishing some basic rules
Lesson plans are for each day or week, but at the start of an extended session, you have more to think about
A range of amazing resources and activities for building an entire fictional city with your EFL/ESL learners
Discover what "interlanguage" means, and how you can drive its development through special diaries
English Raven is the personal resource site of Jason D. Renshaw, a veteran teacher of English to young learners and teenagers in North East Asia and author of the exciting new Boost! Integrated Skills Series from Pearson Longman.
English Raven's Grammar Resources
A lot of visitors come to the English Raven site looking specifically for grammar-based learning materials. Up until now, grammar-oriented materials have been spread out across the site - for a few different reasons. For a start, the Raven materials have grown rather organically over the years, with stand-alone bits and pieces here and there. The other reason is that grammar has tended to be represented in my materials selection the way I personally think it should be represented and handled in actual classrooms: integrated within other activities, presented in fun and active ways, and handled functionally and interactively. In any case, now from this central page you can access a range of grammar activity ideas and downloadable supplements, as well some of my personal thoughts about teaching and learning English grammar!
Notes about Grammar Textbooks - from the person who made some! - Click here
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Some initial thoughts about grammar and teaching | Grammar games/activities | Sentence Building/Navigation
Jason's Boost! Grammar books (from the Longman Integrated Skills Series)
Grammar Games/Activities
If, like me, you want grammar learning to be active, fun, challenging and informative, then you might find the English Raven Grammar Games and Activities Kit helpful. The activities here focus on classroom games and activities oriented around meaningful practice of grammar items, and the vast majority of the activities have been designed to be simple and easy to apply, without requiring much in the way of additional resources or materials. Wherever possible, games have been presented in a way that makes full use of any natural or genuine communicative aspects embodied in the grammar constructions, though while there is emphasis on understanding the grammar and its functional and communicative aspects, most of the games also highlight the importance of using the grammar accurately. The 35-page kit contains 55 individual activities focusing on various aspects of grammar. It is available for download in the Download Resources section of the site.
Sentence Building/Navigation
In 2000, a year or so into full-time teaching with young learners and teenagers, I began to focus on some techniques and material designs that I eventually labeled "Sentence Building" (hey, simple and to the point is good!). The focus was borne out of a realization that the materials and approach we were using at our school were great for thematic conversation skills and to some degree basic listening and reading skills, but there were nowhere near enough opportunities to draw students' attention to formal/structural elements of the language they were learning, nor many chances to engage in basic writing skills. Sentence Building was a simple, puzzle-like approach that I came up with to appeal to younger learners and to create the possibility of more collaborative group work to notice and apply grammatical structures. Very importantly, the approach invited students to become part of this process themselves, rather than just listening to or copying out pre-made rules and tables. Out of this basic approach, I also built up a selection of materials that I dubbed "Sentence Navigator", which extended and provided a wider range of activity types, and allowed for some work with vocabulary and spelling as well as 'reinsertion' of sentence structures into a range of interactive speaking activities.
Both Sentence Building and Sentence Navigator were designed a long time ago, but I and many of the teachers I work with still find them highly relevant and engaging with younger learners time and time again.
Sentence Building guidelines, examples and supplements - Includes a 'basic' and 'advanced' template format, and the overview/guidelines download shows you how you can develop your own sentence building materials.
Sentence Navigator downloads - Almost 300 pages of material across 32 lessons divided into 4 separate levels. From this link you can access each individual lesson in 1st edition format, or complete books of 8 lessons each in 2nd edition format.
Sentence Navigator Detailed Kits Menu - Shows the 4 different levels and each lesson's linguistic focus in detail.
Card Games
Many of the card games I have developed over the years for this site were specifically geared to help learners discover and use a range of high-frequency and versatile grammatical functions and constructions. You can see all the different card games by following the link here, or by going to the listing in the Download Resources section of the site. Alternatively, to learn about and access each one directly from this page, refer to the listing below:
This/That/These/Those - A simple one showing demonstrative pronouns in combination with singular and plural forms for classroom items, zoo animals or farm animals.
Conversation Creator Cards - Begin with picture-based prompts on one side, and a color-coded and illustrated grid on the back presenting a range of applicable sentence options.
When Who What Where? - One of my all-time favorites with so many different options for classroom application, great for large classes or small groups. The cards take some time to prepare, but once made you have a ready-to-use teaching tool that you and your learners will really enjoy applying.
Noah's Ark - Another one with a singular/plural emphasis, but great for young or very young learners.
Grammar Golf
This is a combination of a card game and worksheet activity, and grew out of the sentence building/navigation approach described above. It works around the concept of golf, utilizing ideas such as miss-hits, pars and even the popular idea of the 'hole in one'! The activities associated with this approach and materials have worked for me time and time again in terms of getting learners busy with grammar, but enjoying themselves and a challenge at the same time.
Download Resources - Click here to go direct to the downloads for Grammar Golf, including worksheets and six separate sets of full-color Grammar Golf cards.
Overview and Application Ideas Page - Preview the materials and get ideas on how to apply the activities in your classroom.
The Language Shack
If you've ever worked with theme or content-based materials with English language learners, you may have noticed a pattern whereby attention to the new content (concepts and terms) results in less attention to language forms and accurate application of structures. I developed the "Language Shack" activity to help my content-based classes get an even balance between accurate structure and new content, in a simple flip-flop application.
Language Shack Teacher's Guide and Examples - Click here to access the teacher's guidelines and examples as a printable download (look for the link at the bottom right in this section).
Language Shack Introduction - Web page introduction to the activity with some general and background notes.
Language Development Diaries
At some point while I was reading around about theory and research findings, I stumbled upon this interesting little term called "interlanguage". As I began to investigate it further, I realized what an accurate summation it can be, and how it accounts for different sorts of gaps (between what the learners 'know' and can 'use' for example, or between what they think the language is about as opposed to what it actually is about). Based on this, I began developing materials that would allow me as a teacher to not only notice what was going on with my learners' interlanguage, but also to overtly 'drive' it forward. One of the most effective supplements to come out of this, and one which formed a great companion to written work in particular, was the language development diary.
Language Development Diary and Teacher's Guide - Click here to get the downloads in printable form.
Language Development Diary Introduction - Web page introduction to the activity with some general and background notes.
Listening Dictogloss
This is about as intensive as a listening exercise can get! It's also a marvelous way to promote grammar noticing and application. Basically, students listen to 1-4 chunks from an overall listening script and take notes on what they heard at intervals. Following multiple readings of the overall text and its various 'chunks', students in groups or pairs then go about 'reconstructing' what they heard based on memory and the notes they have taken. While the demands the activity places on listening comprehension and retention are high, the activity also has very beneficial follow up applications for grammar, writing, and in-class teamwork.
Listening Dictogloss - Go to the main webpage to get a comprehensive overview of the dictogloss activity, including background and relevant theory, detailed guidelines on how to apply the activity, ideas on how to link the activity to reading, writing or grammar syllabi, and how assessment can be achieved.
Listening Dictogloss Downloads - The downloads in this section include both PDF and Microsoft Word template versions (the latter provided for teachers who want to type in their own listening scripts or notes).
Recommended books related to teaching grammar
Hopefully you haven't only come to this page to get a stack of free grammar teaching stuff and to let someone do all your thinking for you! In a spirit of hoping your main ambition is to better understand English grammar and develop more innovative ways to teach/facilitate it, my main advice is to do a lot of reading around. The books and writers below really inspired me to get a better grip on grammar and what I can do with it in the classroom and in my materials design. I highly recommend taking a look at these resources if and when you get the opportunity. I've generally tried to list the books below in terms of most recent editions and from easiest/most accessible to heavier/complex.
- Harmer, J. (1988) Teaching and Learning Grammar (Longman Keys to Language Teaching), Longman
- Harmer, J. (2007) How to Teach English (The How to... Series), Longman/Pearson Education
- Brewster, J., Ellis, G., Girard, D. (2003) The Primary English Teacher's Guide (Penguin English Guides), Longman/Pearson Education
- Cameron, L. (2001) Teaching Languages to Young Learners (Cambridge Language Teaching Library), Cambridge University Press
- Thornbury, S. (2007) How to Teach Grammar (The How to... Series), Longman/Pearson Education
- Harmer, J. (2007) The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman/Pearson Education
- Ur, P. (1991) A Course in Language Teaching - Practice and Theory (Cambridge Teacher Training and Development), Cambridge University Press
- Brown, H.D. (2001) Teaching by Principles - An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, Longman/Pearson Education
- Willis, D. (2003) Rules, Patterns and Words - Grammar and Lexis in English Language Teaching (Cambridge Language Teaching Library), Cambridge University Press
(The last one on the list there, from Dave Willis, is an absolute classic and could very well change your whole perception of 'what' grammar is and how it fits into the greater scheme of things)
