Teaching Grammar Through Activities / Comparatives and Superlatives!

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Grammar

If we want to be good at a new language, we have to be good at grammar as well. Many student might miss this point. However, it is crucial to learn how they are used and then practice it as much as possible. This is the idea that I am trying to introduce to my students. There are some classical ways which are not effective in teaching grammar anymore. Instead of showing them rules on the board and explaining everything in mother language, we can try something else to make it more efficient.

It is important to help your students see how the grammar they are learning is used in a content. When they see the grammar in content, they will learn the rules by themselves with some additional examples. I always prefer this way in my classes and see my students learning essential grammar without saying anything in Turkish which is our mother language. How do I do it? Let me give you an example lesson, today.

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Learning through reading!

Marie and Caroline are looking for a hotel to spend their holiday this summer. There are two options that they have found on internet. Let's read their dialogue.

Marie: I think, I prefer Sunshine hotel, it is ( bigger ) than Paradise hotel.
Caroline: Yes, it is ( bigger ), but paradise hotel is ( cheaper )
Marie: I understand you, but it is not all about price. Rooms seem ( more comfortable ) and building are ( more modern) in paradise hotel
Caroline: What do you think about star hotel? this site says that it is ( the biggest ) and also ( the best )hotel in that area.
Marie: Well, I saw that. It also says that it is ( the closest )hotel to the center of city.
Caroline: It is really hard to make a decision.

This is the text that I have written for my post. It is possible to make it more organized for your lesson of course. When your students read this text, it is time to ask them to complete some rules based on this text.

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Let's write the rules!

Instead of writing all rules and explanation of the grammar you are teaching on the board, you may ask your students to complete rules by reading the dialogue again. It is one of the most common ways of teaching grammar in modern teaching techniques. Let's continue with my example dialogue and ask students to write the rules for them.

Hey, dear students! Check the adjectives in brackets and complete the following rules.
a) We add...... at the end of one-syllable adjectives to compare two things
b) We add...... at the end of the adjective which have got more than one syllable to compare two things.

In order to expect correct answers from them, it is essential to teach them some basic terms about the grammar such as compare. While reading the dialogue together, it is a good idea to emphasis on the topic of reading, showing that we are comparing things in the dialogue. This is a simple way of checking their understanding. You may make it in various ways depending on your students.

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Practise

After helping them to learn the rules by giving more examples with different adjectives, it is important to create an activity which can help them to learn better. As our dialogue is about the comparison of two hotels, it might be a good idea to ask them to write which they hotel they prefer and why they do it so. To make it easier for your students, you may teach some more adjectives.

I usually ask my students to write it by themselves or work in pairs so that they can exchange ideas. Teaching grammar is not all about setting some rules for them. Students should see examples in a content and think about the uses of grammar in that content. After explaining rules together, it is a must to support the activity with an extra practice and homework at the end in order to be sure about their learning process.

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Education

If you want to add anything about my post, you are welcome to share your opinion with me so that we can get better at teaching our students. This post is an example of teaching comparatives and superlatives. It is possible to make in larger scale, keeping the dialogue longer. I hope, you find it useful for your studies.

As a proud member of @Sndbox, I support @steemiteducation community since they work a lot to help people who put effort in creating valuable contents on Steemit platform. Everyone is welcome to have a look at @steemiteducation page and educate all people! Thanks for reading.

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