GRAMMAR This page offers sound ,practical, down to earth advice on basic techniques and approaches in the classroom . Most of the suggested activities can be adapted and usedfor almost any  class, by any teacher.Below there are the headlines of the topics that we are going to study.   THE ROLE OF THE GRAMMAR IN LANGUAGE TEACHING ·                    COVERT AND OVERT ·                    GRAMMAR-LESS TEACHING   IDENTIFYING GRAMMAR  : PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS ·                    FUNCTION AND FORM ·                    CONTRASTS WITH OTHER LANGUAGES ·                    EXCEPTIONS AND COMLICATIONS PRESENTING GRAMMATICAL ITEMS ·                    CHARECTERISTIC OF GOOD PRESENTATION ·                    TECHNIQUES ·                    WHAT OVERT GRAMMAR HELP CAN THE TEACHER AT THE PRESENTATION DISCOVERY TECHNIQUES ·                    WHAT ARE DISCOVERY TECHNIQUES ·                    PREWIEV ·                    MATCHING TECHNIQUES ·                    TEXT STUDY ·                    PROBLEM SOLVING   PRACTICE TECHNIQUES ·                    DRILLS ·                    INTERACTION ACTIVITIES ·                    INVOLVING THE PERSONALITY ·                    GAMES ·                    WRITTEN PRACTICE   TESTING GRAMMAR ·                    TYPES OF EST ·                    WRITTING ACHIEVEMENT TESTS ·                    TEST ITEMS THE ROLE OF GRAMMAR INLANGUAGE TEACHING       COVERT AND OVERT COVERT grammar teching is where grammatical facts are hidden from the students -even though they are learning the language .In other words , the students may be asked to do an ınformatıon gap activity or read a text where new grammar is practised or introduced , but their attention will be drawn to the activity or the text and not to the grammar . Whit covert grammar , teachers help the students to acquire and pratise the language , but they do not draw concsions attention to any of the grammatical facts of the language. OVERT grammar teaching means that the teachr actually provides the students with gramatical rules and explanations -the information is openly presented , in other words. Some techniques for the presentation of the new language - for example where the teacher explains how present simple questions need do, does -are extremely overt . So we are explicit and open with overt teaching ;with covert teaching we simply get students to work with the language and hope that they will more or less subconsciously absorb grammatical information .   we present examples for overt and covert teaching ın the sectıon of discovery techniques.   GRAMMAR-LESS TEACHING              In recent years the emphasis has shifted away from the teaching of grammar. Teachers have concentrated on other other issues , such as how people learn languages and what they want to say.Many teachers and writers discussed these questions and gradually created a new way of looking at teaching called the communicative approach. Two of the main issues in the communicative approach were the teaching of language functions and the use of communicativ activities .Together with these issues ,a distinction has been made between acqusition and learning .      LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS                                                                  Some people felt that teaching the grammar of the language did not necessarily help people to use the language .Just because ,for example , someone knew the verb to be , it did not mean that he or she would be able to use it to introduce themselves or others . Language is used actually to do things , to perform certain functions , like inviting ,apologasing , introducing , suggesting , expressing ,and so on .Instead of teaching grammar we should teach functions .              The problem , of course , is that sentences that perform functions are made up of grammatical elements. Even the simple introduction I'm John this is Mary is made up of the grammatical elements the verb to be and a demonstrative pronoun. Courses based on only teaching functions ( at beginner and elementary levels )run in to the problem that students have to know grammar to perform the functions - but grammar is often not being taught .              There is now a general feeling that students do need to learn how to perform the functions of language , but that they need a grammatical base as well.Modern courses often teach a grammatical structure and then get students to use it as part of a functional conversation .An example of this would be the students learning the going to future .They might first learn how to ask simple questions using the new structure (what are you going to do for your holliday?).Later   the new structure can be incorporated into a functional exchange ,for example :              A: where are yoy off to ?              B:I 'm going to walk to the shops .              A: You 'd better take an umbrella !              B: Why?              A: It's going to rain .    COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES                One of the main effects of the communicative approach has been the realisation that just getting students to perform drills or engage in controlled practice may not be enough to help them to stand on their own feet as user of english .Other types of activity are needed where students can talk (or write ) freely and use all or any of the language that they know .In other words , ther mus be occasions when students in the classroom use language to communicate ideas , not just to practise language .There are now many books about activities like role playing ,,problem - solving , discussions , games and project work which encourage students to communicate.              Communicative activities have many advantages : they are usually enjoyable ; they give students a chance to use their language ; they allow both students and teachers to see how well the students are doing in their language learning ; and they give a break from the teacher - students arrangement in a classroom.               The question is , of course , how much they should be used . Some people have argued all English teaching should only be concerned with activities like this . Most teachers , however , say that activities like this should form only a part of the students's timetable .         IDENTIFIYING GRAMMAR : PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS              In this section we are going to look at three of the most important reasons for this : the class between function and form ; the similarities and differences between the students's own language and the target lanuage ; and various exceptions and comlications that all languages seem to suffer from .In each case we will dicuss the problem and then consider its implications for language teaching .              FUNCTION AND FORM              Some of the confusion about English arises because of the mismatch between form and the function . For example , most teachers of English know that the present continuous tense (e.g. he is running , they are eating their lunch  ) is used to describe actions taking place now , in the present. what then , is it being used for in these examples ?          He's meeting her at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon.        Imagine the scene , exactly one year ago . It is two o'clock on a wendnesday afternoon . I am standing near the old factory ...        He is always complaining !                            All these sentences use the present continuous tense , but they do not refer to the present . The first one is referring to a future arrangement , the second one is actually a story about the past , and the third one i referring to a repeated habit . The same form (present continuous ) can be used to mean many different things : the form has many functions               The situtation is further complicated by the fact that the same meaning ( or at least similar meanings ) can be expressed by using many different forms . If we think of a situtation in the future , for example , we find that it can be expressed in many different ways.             I'll see her tomorrow              I'll be seeing her tomorrow              I'm seeing her tomorrow              I'm going to see her tomorrow              I'm to see her tomorrow              I see her tomorrow.                            All of these grammatical constructions are different , and they all represent fine differences in meaning . The second sentence suggests that the meeting tomorrow has been definitily arranged , whereas the third sentence perhaps suggets that it is a plan , though not yet a definite arrangement . The last sentence implies that the arrangement is official.                 IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING Meaning and use              It is clear that when we introduce a new piece of grammar we must taech not only the form , but also one of its functions .For example we could present simple continuous by peforming actions such as opening the door or closing the window.As we did these things we could say to our students ' I'm opening the door . I'm closing the window.' This would certainly be an adequte demonstration of the meaning of present continuous , but it wouldn't tell students how we use it, because people don't usually go around describing their own actions to others . But tehre are some situations where such commentary could be acceptable : people giving cookery demonsrations might well say what they are doing ; so might the police ; test pilots reporting to base ; and radio commentators .perhaps , then , it would be a better demonstration of meaning and use if showed someone dooing a cookery demonstration where they used  the present continuous in an appropriate way. Grammatical form              Teachers also have to be clear about the grmmatical form of a new structural item . How is it formed ? What are the rules ? How are İf clauses formed , for example , or whih verbs take to followed by the infinitive (e. g. he agreed to wait ), which take -ing (e.g. she enjoys sailing ) and which can take both (e.g. he likes sailing \he likes to sail)? Patterns              Once we are clear about the function and form the new language we then have to decide what pattern it is going to be taught in . In other words if we are going to introduce a grammatical item - one of the uses of  a verb tense , or one of the comditional constructions , for example , we need to decide what structural patterns we are going to use to present this ggrammar point.                           For example , we could introduce the present perfect in a number of different structural patterns :              He's never eaten raw fish.              I've lived here for six years              Since 1987she has lived all on her own in the big house on the cliff.              We could - if we wanted - bring all these constructions into the first  lesson that the students ever have on the present perfect . But if we did , the students would have to wory not only about of the new verb tense ( have +past particable ), but also about the use and position of time adverbials , the difference between since and    for the position of time clauses and other long adverbial clauses . In other words , by not restricting the pattern in which the present perfect is being presented , we are making the students's task more diffucult than it needs to be.                     Most teachers would not teach the present perfct with since and for to begin with : indeed the difference between these two time expressions is usually inroduced well after students have been presented with new tense . Often too , teachers do not introduce new language in a long and complicated pattern since this takes the focus away from the new language . A more sensible approach is to:              a)select the new pattern ,and              b)look for examples of use which fits this patterns Thus in our present perfect example we might choose the pattren:              xhas never +p. particible, She 's always +p.participle to produce sentences like She has never in films before ,she is always acted in the theatre .Subsequent patterns would fallow this pattern .              If we think that this pattern is too complex , we can start by introducing the tense in a much more simplified and personalised way , for example ,Have you ever ....? so that students ask each other ,'Have you ever met a famous person ? Have you ever climbd a mountain ?'etc.              IN both cases the new grammar is being taught in a specific pattern., and the teacher gets students to use many sentences and quetions using this pattern.   CONSTRATS WITH OTHER LANGUAGES              The second reason why English grammar is difficult for students lies in thr differences between English and their own language .Take for example the case of Spanish and English adjectives .Adjectives behave differenyly in English and Spanish , both in terms of their position in how they agree , or don't agree with nouns.Her are some examples: Tengo zapotos a zules .        I have blue shoes Mi abuelaes muy vieja.        My grandmother is very old              English adjectives usually come before nouns (blue shoes , small cats ) ,not after them .In Spanish the situation is reversed (zapotas azules , gatos pequenos). Another difference is that English adjectives do not generally change when they apply to 'masculine ' or ' femine ' words or plurals .In Spanish , however , the adjective azul becomes a zules when it agrees with the plural zapatos ,vieja is used because it agrees with the 'feminine' grandmother (masculine viejo ). and singular pequeno becomes pequenos .It is not surprising that Spanish speakers have trouble with English adjectives .The situation is just as bad for English speakers who learn Spanish.              Most teachers can thik of other examples : word order problems for German speakers ; the use of 'the , a ,an, ' for Japanesee speakers ; different uses of the present perfect tense for French and Spanish speakers ...    EXCEPTIONS AND COMPLICATIONS              We now come to the third reason why English seems difficult for speakers of other languages: it is fuul of exceptions to grammar rules. That is the way it appears to many people ,anyway . For example , when students think that they have worked out that the English past tense is formed by adding -ed to a verb , they are somewhat surprised to come across went , ran , put . In the same way , it seems peculiar that a noun like sheep does not change in the plural . It appears that all these words are exceptions to the rule. The situation is not , of course , quite that simple . There are a number of English nouns that do not change when they are plural just as there are some that add an 's' (rooms , girls ) while others change a ound inside the word (women , teeth) .               In the same way , some nouns cannot be made plural at all , e.g. furniture, air , sugar. We don't say , for example , 'Ilike those two furnitures .' But then the situaion doesnot get complicated , because if we use the word 'sugar' to mean 'sugar cube ' we can say' I'd like two sugars ' . The complexity of English grmmar is very depressing for some teachers - and just as worriying for their students ! What can be done about it ?               Teachers need to make themselves aware of the grammar they are teaching and they can do this by coonsulting a reference grammar in order to be on top of their material .In a larger sense they should make sure that the materials and books they use do not actively encourage student confusion : from the pont of view of grammar , clarity is a characteristic that teachers should expect from their textbooks. IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING              One of the most important stages of lesson preparation is where the teacher makes an attempt to predict problems which might arise and plans how to overcome them . This can be done partly from a knowledge of the students' mother tongue and the problems this will cause , and partly from previous experiences as a teacher . This prediction of problems means that the teacher will have some idea of what to do when typical mistakes occur , and will have some suitable techniques to use . these two examples help to show what can be done :              1) He must come to tomorrow .              This is a common mistake that students make , often due not to interference from the moyher tongue , but from confusion with the English grammatical system . We say have to come/ ought to come / want to come / would like to come ,so why not must as well ? A techar who anticipates this problem can explain -if the problem arises- that verbs like can , must , will and should are not followed by to whereas have , ought, want , would like,are . Hopefully this will make things clearer for the student              2) I'm living here since two years .              There are two problems here: the use of the present continuous verb form and the misuse of since. well-prepared teachers will not be surprised by such mistakes . They will know that the verb problem almost certainly comes from a confusion between English and the students' mother tongue . For example , whereas in French we say J' habite ici depuis deux ans in English we have to say ' I have lived \benn living here for two years .'               teachera also know that since and for are fruquently mixed up. They are therefore prepared to explain the diffrence between 'since + definite point in time' and 'for + a lenght of time .' Depending on the students , this can be done either with more examples or with grammatical explanations .     PRESENTING GRAMMATICAL ITEMS                           Presentation is the syage at which students are introduced to the form , meaning and use of a new piece of language .They learn for example, how did works with the past tense if they are being presented with past tense questions for the first time.Presentation is the stage at which students can learn how to put the new syntax ,words and sounds together. At the presentation stage , students learn the grammar that they will need for their most important experience of the new the language -applying it to themselves .We call this personalisation .: this is the stage at which students use a new piece of grammar to say things which really mean something to them. We will see the examples of the presentation   WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTIC OF GOOD PRESENTATION?              A good presentation should be clear              A good presentation should be efficient              A good presentation should be lively and interesting                        A good presentation should be appropriate               Lastly , a good presentation should be productive TECHNIQUES ·                    USING CHARTS              In this example the teacher wants to present the pattern 'How does x get to work /school?'  . The teacher puts the following chart on the board: Name Bus Car Train Bicycle Foot                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              The teacher can ask a student 'How do you get to class?' The student chooses one of the options and the teacher wites the name in the 'name' column and ticks the appropriate 'transport' column . For example , if Juan gets to class by car , the first entry on the chart will look like this:   Name Bus Car Train Bicycle Foot Juan   x                                                                                                                                                                                        The teaher then fills uo the chart with information about other students . When chart is full he can model the question and answer :                How does Juan get to class ?             By car.
USING A DIALOGUE
Paul   octopus     spaghetti     paella     raw fish     steak
In the example for beginners from Meridin1 , students listento/ read a dialogue which shows the new language  Do you like...? Yes I do / No I don't being used .After completing a comprehension task , students move straight onto a personalisation stage .                                                                                                                                                 this technique -of getting students to persoalise the new language as soon as it is introduced - is particularly suitable for language such as Can / can not where students can complete charts about eachother's abilities ; possessives +whosewhere they tastes / looks / smells+adj where they can talk about their reactions to various food smells ,etc. ·                    USING A MINI SITUATION
Lord Kane an important british diplomat must fly to                  1) who is Lord Kane. Washington immediately on an emergency mission.                   2) what is happening now A government car is taking him to london airport now.              3)why is there all this rush? A special plane is already waiting. Everything is ready               4)what is the crew of the plane doing now?   for an immediate take off.                                                         5)ask what they will be doing when he gets there THE PLANE WİLL BE WAITING FOR HIM WHEN          6)ask what they’ll do!           HE GETS THERE IT WILL TAKE OFF WHEN HE GETS THERE.

·                    USING TEXTS FOR GRAMMAR EXPLANATION

Our other story this evening is the weather. For the last five days it has been below zero in most parts of the country. Cold, frost and heavy snow have caused terrible problems everywhere. Everyone is asking the same questions- what will it end? Well, the weatherman predicts it won’t last much longer. Better weather is on the way. The temperature will rise above zero tomorrow and we’ll see the sun again for a few hours. There will be more about this too, in our special weather report at the end of the program.

This is the explanation and preliminary exercise.

1)      stop and look:

it has been cold for five days

Monday   Tuesday  Wednesday   Thursday    friday

It has been cold since last Monday.

Use for when you are talking about a length of time ………………. Five days, three hours, are all lengths of time.

Use since when you point back to the point in time when something began.

1)      use since and for:

a)      it is eleven o’clock the woman in green has been waiting for her friend…………. 10.30.

b)      in other words she has been there ………… half an hour.  

·                    USING VISUALS FOR SITUATIONS RES'M say 23alt resim

  The students discover that a murder took place at exactly eight o'clock in the top of a flat of a block of flats. They will ask and answer like this.

What were the Johnsons doing in flat 4 at eight o 'clock?

They were watching television .

WHAT OVERT GRAMMATICAL HELP CAN THE TEACHER GIVE AT THE PRESENTATION STAGE

In previous section we have seen that the materials give the students a considerable amount of grammatical information .But where materials do not give this kind of information , or where teachers are using pictures  or their own realia , they will often want to give extra grammar information themselves . How can this be done?

·                    modelling

One technique is for the teacher to give a clear spoken model of the new language . This should be done with normal speed ,stres and intonation .The teacher can give this model a number of times and then ask students to repeat it , both in chorus and individually . The modelling is particulary important since it gives students a chance to hear what the new sentence should really sound like . Repeating in chorus allows students to 'have a go ' at the new language without having to talk individually in front of the class .

·                    isolation

Teachers frequently isolate parts of the sentence they are modelling so that thay can give them special emphasis . When teachers present the first conditional , for example, they might model a sentence like this :

If it rains , she 'll get wet ... listen , she will ... she'll ...she'llget wet . If it rains , she'll get wet

The teacher isolated the She'll element , and then explained what it was (she will) before putting it back into the model that was being given . Students get a lot of grammatical information in this way altough rules are not specifically stated.

·                    visual demonstration

Another way of explaining grammar is trough various forms of visual demonstration .Vısual demonstration that can be used are :

 WRITING

The teacher can write sentences on the board and underline the critical points . Relationship between questions and answers , for example, can be shown with arrows and boxes like this :

He watches TV every evening

does he watch TV every evening?

TIME LINES

A favorite technique for many teachers is the use of time lines , where a diagrammatic representation of tense and aspect is gicen . Thus the present perfect continuous in the sentence ' I've been reading the newspaper might look like this .

Activity started

Past        I             now                    future                                                                                

Whereas the time line for the future perfect tense in the sentence 'In two months I willhave seen most of the United states ' could look like this

                                                         2months from now

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Past......................Now...............  ...Future

   FINGERS

 Many teachers use hands and fingers as a way of demonstrating grammatical structure. For example, if we consider how will is frequently contracted, we might be focusing on a sentence like  she will arrive tomorrow. After modelling it, the teacher holds up four fingers and says the sentence, pointing to a finger for each word. The teacher then puts finger 1 and 2 together and now says she’ll arrive tomorrow.  The act of pointing cab also be used to increase the students’ speed and rythm and stress.

      she will arrive tomorrow                                              she’ll arrive tomorrow

                    ''EXPLANATION'''

Of course teachers frequently explain new grammar . This can be done more or less overtly . The use of isolation is obviously a fairly covert way of explaining , whereas the following is more overt :

"We don't usually put adverbs between the verb and its object. Actually there are three main positions for adverbs :midposition ; end position or initial position .We put adverbs in initial position.......''

This explanation might well present problems to a lot of students because of the technical words being used , and because abstract grammar explanations are always quite difficult to swallow .

In general it seems thet grammar explanations for beginners and elementary students are better handled with more obvious techniques , such as isolation and demonsration.

DISCOVERY TECHNIQUES

WHAT ARE DISCOVERY TECHNIQUES

Discovery techniques are those where students are given examples of language and told to find out how they work-to discover the grammar rules rather than be told them . At the most covert level , this simply means that the students are exposed to the new language , with no focus or fuss , some time before it is presented .At a more concsious level , students can be asked to look at some sentences and say how the meaning is expressed and what the differences are between the sentences .As students puzzle through the information and solve the problem in front of them , they find out how grammar is used in a text and are actually acquiring a grammar rule . The advantages of this approach are clear .By involving the student's reasoning process in the task of grammar acquisition , we make sure that they are concentreting fully, using their cognitive powers . We are also ensuring that thia approach is more student - centred :it is not just the teacher telling the students what the grammar is . They are actually discovering information for themselves

Of course these techniques are not suitable for all students on all occasions.Discovery activities can take a long time and can occasionally be confusing. The teacher should decide when to use these activities , with what grammar , and with which students.

We will be looking at four types of activity : preview ,matching techniques , text study ,and problem -solving

PREVİEW

One rather disguised and covert way of allowing students to discover new grammar for themselves is to preview it at some stage before it is actively learnt and taught . In other words , studnts are exposed to the new language ; they do not concentrate on it at thias stage , but the fact of having seen the grammar 'in action ' will help them to deal with it when they have to study it later .

Activities such as reading and listening to texts expose students to language in this way,  because while students are practising listening and reading skills , they can also be absorbing new language . These two examples from textbokks show this kind of preview in action

1)       if you travel by air across the centre of africa or south america, you fly over forest for thousands of kilometres. These great forests are like oceans of trees. They are full of thousabds and thousands of different kinds of plants and animals.

2)       However, the worlds forests are getting smaller all the time. We are cutting down the trees because we need wood, and because we need more farm land. Some people say that there will not be any forets like these in 20 or 30 years’ time. What will happen if they disappear.

TASK: search the text and see how many examples of   If -clauses you can find .

In the extract the text contains examples of the grammatical patterns to be taught in subsequent classes , patterns such as : if it rains on Sunday I 'll stay at home / What will you do if it's sunny?Inother words , the text is used not only for comprehension and for setting up a topic for use later in the unit ,but also to make the students familiar with the new lanuage before teaching it later .

Do you like flying? Even if the answer is yes, you probably do not like airports and heathrow airport is typical. İt is noisy and crowded and people get nervous there!

You can fly from heathrow to 215 different destionations, and you can choose from seventy international airlines- there are usually six hundred flights a day.

TASK: Read through the text . What language is being previewed , here , do you think?

In the example , the students are practising the skill of exracting facts and figures from a piece of text .At the same time , though , there are two uses of can , expressing possibility , which will be the focus of study in a subsequent lesson.

Previewing , then is a way of making students aware of a new piece of language : this will help them when they study it at a later stage

MATCHING TECHNIQUES

A number of grammar exrcises ask students to match parts of sentences and phrases . Often they work in pairs for this and treat the activity rather like a problem solving

The point of matching exercises is to get students to wurk things out for hemselves : they have to make choices about what goes with what , and the activity of making choices helps them to discover correct facts about grammar . These two examples show matching exercises

1) Tag questions  ın this matching exercise for elementary learners , the students have to match sentences with tag questions.

        You 've been to Brazil ,          are you ?

       You can play the flute ,          don't you ?

       You study economics,             did you?   

       You aren't going to leave ,      haven't you

        You didnot fail the exam ,      can't you?

 2) from ways to grammar

ın this example the use of unless is briefly explained . Students are then asked to do a matching exercise . While they are doing this ,they will be sorting out their understanding of unless and how it compares with  -if .         

                                    Match   the patrts of sentences  a)unless the lake is frozen

                                    1 We can go skating                           b)if the lake is frozen

                                      We cann’t go skating                       c)it will be warm                         

                                    2 If the sun shines                          d)it will be cool

                                      unless the sun shines                         e)a fire does not burn          

                                    3  If there is oxygen                             f)a fire burns

                                      Unless there is oxygen

                                   How do you use unless

                                         A:study these examples

                                         İf you don’t take a taxi you will arrive late

                                         =unless you take a taxi you will arrive late

TEXT STUDY

Another way of getting students to discover new grammar is to ask them to concentrate on its use in a text. Teachers can get students to look at the way language used – or what kind of language is used in certain context. The principle aim here is to get students to recognize the new language. Three contrasting example will show this technique:

2) from turtle diary

 Perhaps the best kind of text study is where students read or listen to an authentic piece of text and then search through it to see how certain concepts are referred to.

 I saw a film once , The Swimmer , with Burt Lancester .In it he was an American advertising man who mind had slipped out of the present.He thuoght he still had wife and children and a house , but it was all goneThe film began with a golden late summer afternoon . He turned up atthe swimming pool of some friends who hadn't seen him for a long time .They looked at him strangely , he wasn't part of their present time anymore .While he was there it occured tohim hat there were so many swimming pools in that part of Connecticut that he could almost swim all the way home .So he went from pool to pool , public and private , swimming across Fairfield County meeting people different bits of his life whilst swimming home as he thought . And wherever he went people became angry and disturbed , he didn't belong in their present time , they didn't want him in it .At the end of the film he was hddled in the doorway of the empty locked house that had been his while rain came down and he heard the ball going back and forth on the empty tennis court and the voices of his dougters who were gone. Dora and I saw the film together.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Russel Hoban 1975

.....................................................................................................

 After the students have done comprehension exercises and discussed the extract , the teacher can ask them to look at the following sentences:

In it he was an American avertising man whose mind had slipped out of the present

He turned up at the swimming pool of some friends who hadn't seen him for a long time .

At the end of the film he was huddled in the doorway of the empty locked house that had been his .

They can then be asked to identify the verb (in each sentence ) that refers to time/ events before the film and the verb (in each sentence ) which refers to time/ events during the film . Clearly the past perfect forms the 'before the film ' verbs and the past simple verbs are 'during the film' verbs

The point about this kind of activity is that the teacher asks the students to work something out for themselves .They see language in its proper (authentic ) context and are then led to understand how it works

3) The past simple

In this example , students read a text and then have to select the verb endings and put them in the right columns according to their endings .

First of all the teacher writes a text using the required verbs .Here is an example

Mary watched the old man .He walked down the road .He stopped and talked to Mrs Castle at number 27 . Then he crossed the road and managed to dodge the traffic .He visited the drugstore and disappeared through the door.Then he reapperaed and walked towards her.

The students have to put all verbs into  one of the three columns:

.....................................................................................

.    /d/                .     /t/                         .          /Id/          .

.   managed       .     watched               .    visited            .

......................................................................................                                                         

This activity would be suitable either before . or immediately after a presentation of the past simple . The advantage of using it before the presentation is that it will give students a clear knowledge of the tense before they are asked to use itIf used after it will serve as a godd reinforcement to what the students have been learning.

PROBLEM SOLVING

As students move from beginner levelsof English through to intermediate and beyond , yheir level of English allows us to encourege them to analyse its properities .More importantly perhaps , students can look at areas of grammar rather than small detail ; in the future , for example rather than just one future form such as going to . One way of getting students to do this is to set up a problem and ask students to solve it. The problem can be , for example , that six sentences use the same structure , but it has six different meanings -what are they ? Or the problem concerns typical mistakes that students make - how can they be corrected ? The three examples we shall look at here show how , in solving such problems , students become awere of how the grammar of English works.

1) FROM WAYS TO GRAMMAR

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               HOW DO YOU REFER TO FUTURE TIME

A:Study these examples:

    1 Goodbye.I'll see you tomorrow.

    2  Look at those big black clouds : it is going to rain

    3  We bought our tickets yesterday . We are leaving at 4 o'clock this afternoon

    4  Beth may come to stay with us next weekend.

    5  The weather might be better if we wait until July

    6  Our boat leaves Southampton at 10 am next Monday and arrives in New York next Friday evening

 B: Now write the numbers of the examples above below the appropriate heading

the speaker is sure:                           the speaker is not sure:      

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In this extract , we assume that students already have some knowledge of the various ways of expressing the future . What is important is to get them to see the differences of meaning and use .This exercise asks them to study the future in terms of how sure the speaker is of the future

2) FROM DISCOVER ENGLISH

In these examples ,the students are encouraged to become aware of exactly the kind of aspects of grammar that we discussed in section two- the problems of form and function . In the first exercise (A) , students are encouraged to realise that all the sentences refer to habitual or repeated actions , even though the grammatical forms are different .In the second exercise (B) students will recognise that the same form ( the present comtinuous ) can be used to express a number of different meanings .

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SECTION TWO

Look at these groups of utternces . What do the utterences in each group have in common ? What distinguishes them ? If necessary check in the commentary after doing exrcise A to see whether you are on the right track .

A.  1. Willy smokes                           B.  1. Pollution is getting worse

      2. Fred's slow worker                       2. It's raining

      3.Aggie used to drink .                      3. I'm going out tonight 

      4.Joe 's in the habit of                        4. He's always dropping ash on the carpet

         talking in his sleep

      5.He's always making

         that mistake

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3) USING STUDENTS' EFFORTS

A very good way of getting students to discover grammatical rules is to present them with examples of incorrect English . You can then encourage them to discover what is wrong and why. Here are two possible ways of doing this:

1.While students are involved in oral activity , go round the class noting down any errors you hear .When they have finished you can choose the mistakes that are the most 'serious ' and write them up on the board , like this;

1x You must to agree with me

2x People is always complaning

3x I haven't seen him yesterday

4x Iam not agree

Now students can work in pairs to identify yhe mistakes and put them right .(Notice that you should not say who made the mistakes .)

2. When studets have written a composition (such as aletter , narrative or advertisement ) choose one which contains some common mistakes . Wipe out the name on the homework , underline the mistakes , and then photocopy it. In groups , students can study the composition and decide why the underlined pieces are wrong, and how to correct them.

PRACTICE TECHNIQUES

In this section we are going to look at exercises and techniques which get students to practise grammatical items.

We will be looking at four different types of oral practice : drills , interaction activities , involving the personality , and games. We will also be looking at some written practice activities

 DRILLS

 The aim of a drill is to give students rapid practice in using a stuructural item . Often this is done with the whole class - rather than with students in pairs - and the teacher is able to get students to ask and ansver questions quickly and efficiently . The chief advantage of this kind of technique is that teachers can correct any mistakes that the students make and encourage them to concentrate on difficulties at the same time .The problem with drills is thet they are often not very creative . Teachers should make sure that they are not overused and that they do not go on for too long . As soon as students show that thay can make correct sentences with the new item , the teacher should move onto more creative activities like the interaction activities in the next section . These two examples show drills in action:

1) Lists-have to and would like to

Teachers can create material for controlled practice with drawings / mini situations on the board just as they can create presentation material.

                          JAKE                               Miss GREYSOKE                                                

                            Clean floors                                    Type letters

 obligation        Wash windows                              Answer the telephone

                           Empty rubbish                                Take shorthand

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                         Marry Miss Greystoke                    Earn more money

desires         Learn to read                                   Take a long holiday

                        Get a better job                                Marry her boss

Students now practise asking and answering.

What does Jake have to do at work ? He has to clean floors

What would he like to do ? He'd like to marry Miss Greystoke.

2)From meanings into words : intemediate

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    8.6 RECENT ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS          practice

Work in pairs

example A: You look tired .What have you been doing?

              B: I've been redecoreting my flat

             A: ' How much have you done ?'

                 ' How far have you got with it?'

             B:  Well , so far I've done the ceiling and I've papered the walls ,but I

                  haven't painted the woodwork yet. 

Have conversations like this about:

1 cleaning the living room         5 making the supper

2 typing letters                         6 getting the flat ready for a party

3 revising for the exam             7 organising your brother's wedding

4 building a house

Work in groups .Tell each other what you have really been doing   recently , and what particular things you have done.

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In this example at the intermediate level srudents are practising the present  perfect continuous and they are given more freedom thanin the previous example to use their own ideas .

Notice that the instructions is for the studnts to work in pairs .Here theteacher would first conduct the dri working with the whole class . With the first prompt 'cleaning the living room ' the teacher can hold up cards with words like 'dust the furniture /vacuum the carpet / shake out the rugs ' The teaher would then continue to give prompts where necessary until the students showed that they understood and could do drill . At that moment the teacher would put them into pairs to continue the exercise.

Drills then are fairly mechanical ways of getting students to demnstrate and practise their ability to use specific language items in a controlled manner.

INTERACTION ACTIVITIES

One of the problems about drills is that they are fairly monotonous. Some way must be found of making controlled language practice more meaningful and more enjoyable. One of the ways of doing thisis by using interaction activities .These are desinged so that students work together, exchanging information in a purposeful and interesting way . The following two examples show exercises which get students to practise grammatical items in a motivating way.

1) from Coast to Coast1

 student a:

ask about: jim kathlen, karl and amy, tracy scott and joanne.

Write their names on the map.

student b:

ask about christy, ben and shirley, danny, ralph, bill nad michell.

Write their names on the map.

In this example students are practising where questions with the present simple , making a difference between third person singular and plural verb endings.

Students are put in pairs . StudentA looks at the following material: Student B looks at slightly different map:

You will notice that student A and B's information is slightly different . For example , A does not know where Tracy lives and has to ask B, who does know . B does not know where Ben and Shirly live and has to ask A : The whole point is that A and B must not look at each other 's maps until they have finished . So the only way they have of completing the task is by asking each other questions like (A) 'Where does Tracy live ?' to which B will reply 'Between the post office and the bank '.

2) charts-past and present tenses

Charts are very useful to promote interaction between students ; in order to complete them the students have to question eachother and note down the replies. In this example students have to write down another student's name . Then they ask that student these questions :

What is your favourite leisure activity ?

When did you last ( do your faourite leisure activity )?

How often do you ( do your favourite leisure activity )?

They fill in this chart according to the answers :

Name                Favourite leisure activity                  When?                How often?

The best way of doing this activity  is to ask all the students tostand up . They can then move round  the class questioning various classmates . When the students have finished they can compare results . What is the most popular leisure activity in the class?

INVOLVING TO PERSONALITY

Recently some teachers and materials writers have desinged exercises which practise grammar while at the same time requiring students to talk about themselves in a more involved way. They are asked to discuss things that affect their personality and to use this subject matter as a focus for grammar practiceThis example shows how this can be done :

CHAIN DRILL-CRIMES

One way of making a practice drill more involving is to get students to contribute something of their own to it ; in this way they will be more involved in the practice .

In this example , students are practising the present perfect . They sit in circles and one after the other have to say,

I am (name ) and I've never (crime ) ,

I am Maria and I've never robbed a bank .

This activity is a great fun , although if the circle is too large the students soon run out of crimes and have to think fairly hard . Some people also worry that students might reveal a bit too much of themselves when they choose the crime that they haven't commited!

GAMES

Games of various kinds have been used in language teaching for a long time and they are especially useful for grammar work

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE QUIZZES

General knowledge quizzes can be very enjoyable and can be used to practise various grammatical items . Here is a procedure to follow if the teacher of an elementary class wants the students to practise the superlative form of adjectives .    

The teacher elicits superlative adjectives (e.g. oldest , biggest , longest , most expensive ) from the students . They then divide into two teams . Each team must write general knowledge questions using these adjectives, such as 'What is the highest mountain in the world ? ' While they are writting these questions they can consult atlases and other reference books . When the game starts , team A asks team B one of the questions . Team B gets a point if they answer correctly .

WRITTEN PRACTICE

                                                                                                                                                Grammar practice is often done through writing . Students are frequently given homework exercises which ask them to practise specific language items . The following example shows some of the more common exercise types that can be used . They start with the most controlled kind of writing practise and end with something that is a bit freer - even though it is still desinged for the practice of a specific grammatical item.

FILL INS

  the fil in is a favourite technique for practising and testing writing . The students read sentences with blanks with specific words . In this example students are practising the difference between 'is and are'

 put is and are in the blanks .

 1 peter.............a doctor

 2 his sister Margeret.................a reporter.

 3 they ...........26 years old .

 4 Margeret and Peter ..............noy twins.

 5 Peter .......in Turkey now .He ...........on holiday.

Fill-ins are fairly easy to write and are useful for quick practice of specific language points . Students can do them in class or as homework.

WORD ORDER

Word order is a problem for most non-native speakers of english. This is especially so in writing.

One way of praticing correct word order is to give students jumbled sentences whşch they then have to rearrange in the correct order. Here are some examples:

1)      ankara/on holiday/but/ lives/right now/peter/in london/he is in

2)      at /gets/margaret/home/half past six/usually.

A way of making this exercise more involving is to put the words and phrases on large cards. Each students gets a large card and then they have to rearrange themselves physically.

Task: some sections in this exercise have single words and others have more than one is there any reason for this, do you think.

PARALLEL WRITING:

Task: read the post card in the example. What language (apart from the present continuos) is being practiced.

TESTING GRAMAR

TYPES OF TEST

We can test the students' ability to speak or write . We can test students' reading or listening comprehension skills . Many tests include all these elements , especialy public exams like those from the university of Cambridge or the Oxford Delegacy , for example, which have four or five separete papers . But because marking written tests is easier than marking oral tests - and because written tests take less time and are easier to administer - most tests are based on the written skills , especially when they are desinged for individual schools and colleges . Many teachers feel that this is unsatisfactory since so much teaching in the classroom is based on oral work , but as yet no one has come up with a practical solution to the problem of time and administration with oral tests for large numbers of students .           

Public exams test how good a student 's overall command of English is In this section we will look at tests which are given in schools and classes to find out how well students have done .These are often called achievement tests and are given four or six weeks' study or after three or four units of a course book.

WRITING ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

when wrıtıng tests teachers should bear in mind the following five rules

1 Don't test what you haven't taught

2Don't test general knowledge

3 Don't introduce new techniques in tests

4 Don't just test accuracy

5 Don't forget to test the test

TEST ITEMS

MULTIPLE CHOICE

In multiple choice items , students have to choose the correct answer from a number of alternatives . At the most simple level, multiple choice can be used to test the students2 grammatical knowledge , for example:

Choose the correct answer

1 Charles ........to work yesterday

a) doesn 't go    b) hasn't gone   c) didn't go to   d) isn't going

Multiple coice items can be made a greater test of all -round comprehensionif they are part of a passage or dialogue

Hılary : Where are you         a) on      to

                                           b)in

                                          c)off

                                           d)out

     Jane: I'm just going to the shops.

FILL-INS

 SENTENCE COMPLETION

Fill-in items usually ask for only one word . But they can be extended to test more of the students' knowledge and use of English. Students have to fill in a blank and complete a sentence with more than one word . There will often be more than one way of doing this .Test items like this are usually called sentence completions .

In this example from a progress test from Meanings into words , students have to choose language that 'makes sense'

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3 GAP -FILLING

Complete the sentences below so that they make sense

 1  A: Are you sure you'll be allright ?

     B: Don't worry -I'm .....looking after myself .

 2  Both teams were exhausted . They .....for three hours

 3  The old lady , who...... , suddenly sat up and asked for some tea

 4  He was born between 1940  and 1942, so he must be in......

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Obviously students who complete this task successfully show that they have a lot of grammatical knowledge and that they are able to use the right vocabulary and grammar to complete the task.

SENTENCE REORDERING

 If students are used to this activity , then part of a test (for beginners ) might look like this:

         put the words in order to make correct sentences

1) he lives / John is / and / in London./ a student

2) a house wife and / is / His sister / she is /secretary./a/

3) Thursday/ Toronto / She was / on /in

This type of test item explores the students ' knowledge of syntax and is a useful addition to a test.

TRANSFORMATION

A test of students' knowledge of syntax and structure is sentence transformation .Here students have to rewrite sentences so that they have the same meaning but different grammatical structure . Here are some examples:

Complete the sentences so that they mean the same as the original sentence

1) John is taller than Mary

Mary isn't.........

2) 'Ihaven't seen her for years ', he said.

He said that ................

3) I won't come unless you ring

I'll come ........