Teaching grammar to primary learners: presentation and practice

For learners to be able to express themselves and communicate, they build complete sentence from the words they already know. For this, they need an understanding of grammatical structures

Our learners come across different grammatical structure every time and they may even not understand that. For example, language chunks. Do they realise that when they say "Can I go to the toilet?" they use "can" in question for permission? Or, for instance, "I'm sorry, I haven't done my homework". 

So, these chunks include grammatical structures and learners come across grammar as a natural learning process when we integrate language chunks. 

When we present a grammatical structure to our learners, the result may be not as good as we wanted it to be. Some learners need more time, some need more practice, and others may need more clarifications. 


So, first, we need to present new language. Then, we practice it with our learners and later they produce it. 

1) Presentation 

The elements which create a successful language presentation:

• Relevance  -The context relates to the learners’ world;

• Involvement - The learners are active during the presentation;

• A generative context - The context provides plenty of examples of the focus structure;

• Variation and speed of delivery - The pace is not too slow and the activities are varied;

• Challenging activities - The way you integrate the language makes learners think;

Strategies you can use to present new language

• We can use known vocabulary to create sentences that contain the focus language structure.
• We can use a reading text that  integrates  the language area we want to focus on.
• We can use a listening text such as a  story  that contains the new language.
• We can create our own context by  building up a dialogue  around a situation.
• We can use a song or chant that repeats the language area  several times. 

The most important thing is to make the context  natural and child-oriented  so learners can relate to the language

2) Practice 

Advice about grammar practice activities:

• Provide a clear demonstration
• Include some rehearsal time
• Monitor learners to guide them
• Use a meaningful context
• Integrate a focus on pronunciation
• Focus on correct examples of the language

If we want our learners to extend and improve their language we need to provide learning opportunities that give not only language practice but also a clear outcome. So, we need to create activities that provide meaningful practice as they help students to practise the grammatical  structure, thus they are controlled, and they also provide some choice for your learners. Such activities require learners to use both their linguistic and communicative resources to obtain information.

For example: 

• Questionnaires and surveys - Learners go round the class collecting information about each other.
• Quizzes - Learners compete in teams to answer questions.
•  Information gap activities - Learners have to find out the missing information.
• Jigsaw activities - Each group has a part of the information needed to complete the activity.
• Games 

Games you can play with your students:

• "Preposition treasure hunt" - ask a volunteer to go out of the classroom for some seconds. Hide any of the things (a pen, a pencil etc). When they are back, they start asking questions like ‘Is it under the table?’. The learners have to say ‘Yes, it is’ or ‘No, it isn’t’. 
• "Cross the river" - put blue paper on the floor (this is our river). Place flashcards along the middle of the river and add at least one picture of a crocodile. The learners have to create a sentence using the focus language are and the flashcard word to be able to step on the stone (flashcard) and cross the river. 
• "Sentence jumble" - Make up sentence which focus on your chosen language ares (3 more than the number of teams you are going to have). Print these sentences and cut each into separate words. Put the words from each sentence into a separate envelope and number each envelop. Divide the class into small teams and give each one envelope. Learners are to make a sentence using words in cards from an envelope, they copy the sentence into their notebooks and put the words back into the envelope. They bring the envelope to you and say the sentence. If it is not correct they go back to fix the error. Then they swap their envelope for a new one with a different sentence. The first team to correctly unscramble all of the sentences is the winner.

Games are also motivating but you should be careful with them. You should always insist your learners use the language you want them to practise.

Links:

http://www.cambridgeenglishteacher.org/courses/details/18777/teaching-primary-learners-communicatively