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Interactive Activities on ESL Grammar

English as a Second Language or ESL can require special teaching when breaking down grammar. As different languages have different grammatical rules, it can be difficult to instruct students to learn rules that might sound wrong in their native language. Interactive activities can be a fun way to bring English to life.
  1. Question Cards

    • Question cards are a way to help students interact with one another on a conversational level. This helps bring the language out of the book and into real life. A set of cards containing conversational questions is put face down in the middle of a small group of students. One student will pick up the top card and ask the question on the card to another student in the group. The student then formulates an answer. This gives others and the instructor the opportunity to correct any incorrect grammar in the answers. Questions can be things such as "What would you do if you won free flights for a year?" or "How would life be different if people didn't have thumbs?"

    Crossword Puzzle

    • Crossword puzzles allow students to grow their vocabulary. By focusing on things such as quantifiers or adjectives in a puzzle, it helps students break down what words work with other words. It helps if the words in the crossword puzzle work with tangible items such as food or clothing, things the students understand. Then the student matches with them more unusual words. Things such as "rolls" of toilet paper, "jars" of mayonnaise, or "piece" of cake. All of this thinking makes those learning consider singular and plural options as well as expanding the vocabulary.

    Computer Games

    • Computer games help students practice and get some instant feedback about how they are doing. These games can be things as simple as running flash cards to showing pictures of family members and having the student identify the title of the person. There are time challenge games where words or phrases drop from the top of the screen and the player must identify which phrase is using correct grammar before the words hit the bottom of the screen. With each progressive level, the words fall faster, adding to the challenge.

    Listen and Spell

    • Listen and Spell is a game that plays English words and runs a clock giving the students limited time to come up with the correct spelling of the word. To add the grammar aspect, players must know the spelling of the plurals or the various tenses, if it is a verb. If you have multiple students, you can run this as a challenge amongst groups or individual players where they can buzz in when they have the correct spelling and alternates. You allow the students to accumulate points as they challenge one another with the racing atmosphere.

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