Who says that grammar assessment or reviews should be done only by using pencil and paper? In this blog post, I am presenting 5 activities that you may use to spice up your grammar review lessons.
All these activities may be carried out individually or in teams.
1. Kahoot Games
I often use Kahoot games to check my learners’ understanding of a grammar point, and they always ask for more! Kahoot not only brings some fun into the classroom, but it also helps learners to practice grammar concepts by playing fill-in and multiple-choice games. Yet have you ever asked your students to create a Kahoot game to show what they have learned? Next time you sit down to create a game for them, you might want to try this instead.
Divide the class into teams of 3-4 students. Assign each team one of the following grammar concepts, or you can add your own:
subject-verb agreement,
adjectives and adverbs,
modal auxiliary verbs,
verb tenses,
confusing words (homophones),
pronouns (personal, possessive pronouns, possessive adjectives, reflexive pronouns),
gerunds and infinitives,
coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
Each team will need a tablet or laptop as well as a kahoot.com account, which is free. Ask them to create a game containing 15-20 multiple-choice questions. Once the teams finished the work, students will play each team’s Kahoot game, which will last around 5-10 minutes.
2. Grammar Fails Posters
This task helps students to become more aware of the importance of correct use of grammar, spelling, and punctuation to convey the intended message.
Have your students browse their own Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feeds to find examples of grammar errors. They may also examine product labels, descriptions, ads, or YouTube videos to find mistakes. Once they have enough material to work with, the teams will create a collage of these grammar fails. Encourage students to be creative, produce a visually appealing poster, and present a variety of grammar errors that will showcase their understanding of the concepts seen in class. The teams will present their poster to their peers and will explain the errors displayed on the artwork.
3. Grammar Memes
This activity uses memes to showcase grammar errors in a fun and creative way. This activity requires learners to create a compilation of the grammar errors they often made at the beginning of the year. The goal is to show how much they have improved. Students need to choose 5 to 10 grammar errors they used to make early in the year and are now proud to have finally moved past them.
4. Grammar Card Game or Board Game
Students need to invent and design a grammar card or board game. Divide the class into teams of 2, 3 or 4 students. To make this activity more interesting, write the grammar concepts that you want your learners to review on small pieces of paper. Fold and put them in a box. Shake the box in front of students, then, ask each team to pick a piece. The teams have to design a grammar card or board game that contains challenging activities related to the grammar concept they have pulled from the box. Once the work is done, students will be able to play the games they have designed.
5. Comic Strip Illustrating a Grammar Concept
This review task is perfect for showcasing the use of grammar concepts in context. Learners may work individually or in teams to create a simple comic strip that must contain speech bubbles illustrating a grammar point in bold. For instance, they may create a comic strip presenting a teenager’s daily routine, so they will need to use the simple present tense in context. They could also choose to design a comic strip featuring two teenagers talking about their summer vacation, so the speech bubbles will focus on the use of simple past and past continuous tenses in context. Learners could also opt for incorporating modal auxiliary verbs in their dialogues. If you work with more advanced students, you may want to encourage them to include a variety of grammar points in their work.
These activities are not only ideal as grammar review tasks, but you may also use them for formative assessment purposes. If you decide to try any of these activities, please let us know how it went.
Happy teaching!
Kynga C.
If you are looking for some grammar activities and lecture notes for your secondary learners, check out these resources available in my TpT shop:
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