How to teach Grammar..=)

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HOW TO TEACH GRAMMAR TO YOUNG LEARNERS 

Teaching grammar to young learners requires an extensive knowledge of a great number of issues. Not only is it crucial to be aware of various teaching methods and approaches but also it is fundamental to be familiar with the principles of the development of children’s intelligence.

This work deals with the ways how to present and teach grammar to young learners. Learning, acquiring new pieces of information and using new skills in practice is strongly connected with mental abilities of children. Fully developed mental skills are not inborn. They are influenced by many factors, such as personal abilities of a child, family, both physical and mental health etc.

• Game-like activities

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For children at primary school is a game one of the crucial activities. They enjoy playing games but what is more, games are important as they serve as tools of socialisation. Children learn to communicate with their friends, they have to accept others´ opinions and they learn how to present their own ideas. In our English lessons we can use games for the development of communicative skills as well as for the revision of vocabulary and grammar.
 

Nevertheless, activities presented in our classrooms are not typical games. If we use the term “game”, we usually mean just playing for fun and it is something completely different from the activities we do with young learners. Although we have fun, the main purpose is educative and therefore it is better to call such activities “game like activities”. 

Although a game-like activity seems to be a very easy and natural way of learning, it is not an easy task for a teacher to prepare a good activity. We have to be aware of two basic aspects. Firstly, what we expect from the particular activity. We should consider whether the game-like activity is for children only to make the lesson more attractive and protect them from being bored or whether we tend to revise and practise some particular part of grammar, vocabulary etc. Secondly, it is important not to waste our time. Some activities have too complicated rules or on the other hand, some activities are too simple and both the cases make children speak their native language, which we definitely want to avoid.

•  Drama

 Let us draw our attention to the topic of drama in a language classroom. There are many advantages in integrating drama into our lessons. The most remarkable advantage is that role playing leads to the internalisation of a language. Role playing prepares young learners for unexpected situations they can face in the foreign language. They learn how to react if they meet a foreigner, if they travel, if they go shopping etc. All the vocabulary and grammar which they have already been taught suddenly gains the quality of something
real, something which really exists and is useful for their lives.

 There are several types of activities which concern drama. Actually all the activities which are based on movement and imagination could be included into this category. The ways in which we present drama in our lessons can involve very simple activities, such as miming. Other activities are more difficult and they deal with speaking as e.g. in the cases mentioned above.

We try to imagine that we are in a shop and we want to do some shopping. Firstly we have to teach the student all the necessary phrases and expressions and then we let them act the real situation in a shop. It is more interesting for them if we tell them a lesson before so that they can bring all the things they need. They enjoy if they have some real goods to sell and buy, if they can change their clothes etc. The most demanding way of presenting drama in our lessons is to perform real plays adapted for young learners. Either we can prepare the script ourselves or we can use some specialised literature

 Some drama-based activities do not have to be so complicated. If we tend to practise a particular area of grammar, e.g. the past simple tense, we prepare “one word story”. The teacher says the first word, e.g. “yesterday” and each student adds one word.

Teacher – Yesterday   
  Student 1 – An                                 St. 7 – Took
Student 2 - Old                                  St.8 - Pizza
Student 3 - Man                                 St. 9 - And
Student 4 - Was                                 St. 10 -Ate
Student 5- Hungry                              St. 11 – It
Student 6 - He
  

Young learners  finally make a whole story, they can draw the story on sheets of paper and then they describe the story once more. Finally, one student reads the story and the pupils actwhat the teacher is saying.

 REFLECTION:

It is always up to a teacher to decide which methods and approaches he/she is going tointroduce. Every teacher has a different way of teaching, presenting new information and dealing with children. Nevertheless, there are some basic and fundamental rules which ought to be followed by all the teachers. Although young learners differ from adults, they are not without any previous experience, knowledge and they have several skills, abilities and instincts which facilitate teachers’ attempts to present new information and make children be able to use this information in practice.