2. 2.

THE PRACTICE STAGE

The aims of this stage are to allow the students to practice the new language. The practice
exercises are graded from very controlled, accuracy-oriented drills to less and less controlled
activities, which gradually increase the students‟ control over the language to the level at
which they can use the target structure freely and independently so as to engage in fluency-
oriented communication activities. According to the control over language allowed students at
each sub-stage of the practice, which serves the aims of gradual progression from accuracy to
fluency in using new language items, the practice stage is comprised of three main sections:
controlled, semi-controlled and free-practice/production.

2. 2. 1. Controlled practice
The first sub-stage aims for practice under controlled conditions, in which the students are
asked to repeat examples of the structure correctly via a variety of oral drills. The teacher,
who has full control over the language practised, focuses on accuracy and uses immediate
correction. The predominant type of interaction is Teacher –> Students. The typical drill
activities are:
a) Repetition drills
The aim of repetition is to reinforce the structure in terms of pronunciation and word-order.
The drills should replay the MS (Marker Sentence) from the presentation, e.g.: He’s been
living in the mountains for two months. The marker sentence is repeated first with the
whole class – choral repetition – then by individual students – individual repetition. One
useful repetition technique is back-chaining, in which the students are helped with difficult
areas by repeating one item at a time, starting from the end of the sentence, and adding a new
item each time until the whole sentence is reconstructed. Repetition drills should be done at a
fast pace – speed is important since drills are inherently boring. To maintain interest, the
teacher should also be unpredictable in selecting individual speakers.
An interesting and entertaining alternative to classical repetition drills are Jazz Chants, a
concept developed by Carolyn Graham, a musician, teacher and teacher trainer who adapted
structural drill practice to short, repetitive, structure/function-bound poems to be chanted on
jazz rhythms (see Graham: 1978, 1979, 1986, 1993, 2000, 2006). These poem-like, jazz-beat
chants make for a highly enjoyable way of practising structures and functions which alleviates
the inherent boring effect of repetition drills. Alternatively, these chants can also be used as
examples for the presentation stage.
 b) Substitution drills
Substitution drills consist of graded variations on the marker sentence. The students are asked
to generate new sentences with the target structure by substituting various items in the marker
sentence. Substitution drills can be done chorally or individually. There are several types:
i. Simple substitution (vary 1 item in the MS):
She‟s living in the mountains two months
They‟ve camping in the forest ten weeks
Tom‟s drinking fresh water almost a month
My sister‟s been watching the bears for a fortnight
My friends sleeping in a tent several days
Mary and Bob have looking at the stars nearly a year
I‟ve climbing the mountain
We‟ve cooking on an open fire
fishing trout
washing in the river

ii. Progressive substitution (gradually generating a new sentence by varying 1 item

each time):
MS: He’s been living in the mountains for two months
T: They
SS: They‟ve been living in the mountains for two months
T: Sleeping in a tent
SS: They‟ve been sleeping in a tent for two months
T: Almost half a year
SS: They‟ve been sleeping in a tent for almost half a year
iii. Restatement substitution
E.g.: Let‟s + verb
T: You want to play football.
SS: Let‟s play football.

The substitution of one item for another is based on cues or prompts offered by the teacher.
We can use verbal prompts (word/phrase spoken by the teacher or written on the blackboard
or prompt cards) or visual prompts (drawing, picture, mime and gesture, words on).
Further examples:
 Single-word prompts
E.g.: Let‟s + verb
T: Cinema
SS: Let‟s go to the cinema.
T: Pizza
SS: Let‟s eat a pizza.

 Picture prompts
E.g.: Can + verb

T: SS: He can ride a bike.

 Prompts/tables/charts on the blackboard

How many are there? [desks/rows/children/chairs/windows/books/pictures/flowerpots]

swim speak skate

French
Anna v v V
Maria X v X
Mike V X v
Lucy V v X
You ? ? ?
E.g.: Maria can speak French, but she can‟t swim or skate.

iv. Free substitution

Here students make up their own sentences, e.g.: Let‟s go fishing.
c) Question – Answer drills + Substitutions (based on the Presentation)
This Q/A drill is based on the situation used in the Presentation. E.g.:
A: What‟s he been doing for the last two months?
B: He‟s been [living in the mountains].
The substitutions are those used in the initial simple substitution drill. They can be introduced
by picture/word prompts: camping in the forest/drinking fresh water/watching the
bears/sleeping in a tent/gazing at the stars/climbing the mountain/cooking on an open
fire/fishing trout/washing in the river, etc. The teacher should model the interaction and then
put the students into pairs to practise with the substitutions. The use of pair work changes the
pattern of interaction to S->S.
d) Question and Answer drill (based on picture/word prompts)
The drill is done in pairs. The teacher provides picture/word prompts of activities + a time
period:
picking apples/several hours doing chores/three hours
cleaning windows/about half an hour writing an essay/two days
waiting for the bus/ten minutes studying French/two semesters
A: How long has he been waiting for the bus?
B: He‟s been waiting for the bus for ten minutes.
e) Find someone who
This activity is a more challenging kind of question and answer drill. Students are given a list
of actions/activities related to routines, habits, past experience, etc. They have to go about the
class asking their peers Yes/No-questions based on the prompts on the list and involving the
target structure, e.g. Do you (ever)...? Have you (ever)....? The aim of the game is to get the
most positive answers. If they get a positive answer, they ask for the person‟s signature next
to the respective question. The winner of the game is the one who gets the most positive
answers in the shortest time. E.g. Find someone who:
- goes to bed earlier than 10 pm
- has a full breakfast on weekdays
- goes jogging every morning
- reads English books
f) Model dialogue
Dialogues provide more meaningful practice as they replicate more closely the real-life
conversational patterns used in everyday communication. Here is one model for the Present
Perfect Continuous:
Ann: Hi Mary. How‟s it going?
Lucy: Not too bad. What have you been doing lately?
Ann: Well, not much, really. I‟ve been cramming for exams. What about you?
Marry: Oh, I‟ve been reading War and Peace.
Substitution cues: working as a waitress/going to the gym/teaching myself French/writing a
play, etc. Alternatively, students can provide their own examples.
 g) Dialogue chain/Skeleton dialogues
This is slightly more complex, as students create their dialogues by following a „dialogue
map‟ or „script instructions‟ for the interlocutors to flesh out.
A B
Greet B Reply. Ask about recent activities
Answer. Ask B about recent activities Reply. Suggest meeting for a drink this evening
Agree. Suggest a time and place agree with place but suggest another time. Give
a reason
Agree. Say goodbye Reply
h) Creative grammar practice – model poems
This is a concept developed by Günter Gerngross and Herbert Puchta, in which grammar
practice activities based on substitution provide a springboard for verbal creativity and
activating „the right side of the brain‟ (Gerngross and Puchta, 1993). The students are shown a
model poem focused on a particular recurrent grammar structure. Sometimes they have to
work on the model itself – putting jumbled words in order, for example, but usually they have
to reflect on the poem‟s topic and ideas, and how these are relate to themselves. Using the
skeleton of the original, structure -based poem, they create their own, personalised version, by
substituting the words or phrases in the model with their own. Here‟s the frame of a Sensorial
Poem for practising the 2nd Conditional, by referring to a person they like/love:
If he/she were a colour, he/she would be ........
If he/she were a sight, he/she would be a/the........
If he/she were a sound, he/she would be a/the........
If he/she were a smell, he/she would be a/the........
If he/she were a taste, he/she would be a/the........
If he/she were music, he/she would be a/the........
If he/she were food, he/she would be a/the........

The value of the above exercise resides in what Adrian Doff calls meaningful practice, i.e.
practice which requires personalization and adds some personal meaning to the activity (Doff
1988).
Below is a list of other types of drills used at the controlled practice stage, mainly
variations on Substitution or Question and Answer drills, which also involve such operations
as transformation, replacement, restatement, completion, expansion, contraction of items, etc.
 i) Transformation Drill
Language learners are required to change sentences from negative to positive, from positive to
interrogative, or from simple present tense to simple past tense, depending on the instructions
from the teacher.
E.g.:
T: The book is new.
SS: Is the book new?
j) Replacement Drill
Language learners replace a noun with a pronoun. It is the same drill as substitution drill but it
involves with a replacement.
E.g.:
T: I like the book
Student: I like it
k) Response Drill
Language learners respond to somebody‟s sentence. In this drill this answers are patterned
after the questions. This drill may involve “wh-” questions or “yes/no” questions.
E.g.:
T: Alice is at school.
T: Where is Alice?
SS: At school.
l) Cued Response Drill
In this drill language learners are provided with a cue before or after the questions.
E.g.:
T: What did the man buy? (A book)
SS: The man bought a book.
m) Rejoinder Drill
It is similar to the cued response drill, but in this drill language learners are given instructions
of how to respond in terms of style/register.
E.g.:
T: come to my house (be polite)
SS: Would you like to come to my house?
n) Restatement drill
Language learners rephrase an utterance and address it to somebody else, according to the
content of the utterance.
E.g.:
T: Ask your friend what he has for breakfast
SS: What do you have for breakfast?
o) Completion Drill
Language learners are told to supply a missing word in a sentence or statement.
E.g:
T: I bring my cakes and you bring….
SS: I bring my cakes and you bring your cakes.
p) Expansion Drill
Language learners build up a statement by adding a word or phrase.
E.g.:
T: Mathematics
SS: We study mathematics
T: everyday
SS: We study mathematics every day.
q) Contraction Drill
Language learners replace a phrase or clause with a single word or shorter expressions.
E.g.:
T: I didn‟t mean to hurt the dog
SS: I didn‟t mean it.
r) Integration Drill
Language learners combine two separate statements.
E.g.:
T: I know that lady. She is wearing a blue shirt
SS: I know the lady wearing a blue shirt.
s) Parallel writing
This exercise offers controlled writing practice based on a model text. Students have to
rewrite the text by making certain structural changes, e.g. change the subject from I to he/she
so as to use the Present Simple form for the 3rd person singular (hurries, goes, tries), put
Present Tense verbs into the Past Simple or simply personalise the text content by writing
about themselves.

2. 2. 2. Semi-controlled practice
This stage consists in structural practice based on a wide range of exercises, commonly found
in most grammar books. These exercises are less teacher-controlled, but do not offer complete
student control over language, as students have to use the structure correctly in a given
sentence or text, without actually producing language themselves. They have the advantage of
also being suitable for individual independent study, in class or at home, orally or in writing,
for reinforcement or consolidation purposes. The most common semi-controlled exercises are:
a) Bracketed verbs/adjectives
This is one of the most frequently used exercise type, extremely useful for tense practice,
adjective comparison forms, etc. Students operate with such categories as Tense, Aspect,
Voice, Infinitive/Gerund complementation, Subjunctives, having to choose between two
alternative forms – Simple/Progressive tense forms, Gerunds/Infinitives, etc, which always
involves a compare and contrast approach.
b) Dual/Multiple choice
This exercise offers two or four items to choose from: verb forms, prepositions,
singular/plural nouns, modal verbs, time adverbs, etc.
 c) Gap-fill
These consist in sentences or texts containing gap or blank spaces to be filled in. It is used for
practice with verbs, prepositions, determiners, adverbial modifiers, etc.
d) Cloze passages
A cloze is a text from which every 5th or 7th word has been removed so that the students will
fill in the blanks. A grammar cloze devised in this way is a good way of testing general
grammar (and vocabulary) knowledge. Alternatively, teachers can tailor a cloze for practice in
a specific structure, by removing only the items related to the target structure
(infinives/gerunds, prepositions).
e) True/False statements
These can be organized as pairs of statements or sentences (a, b) to choose from, referring to
the meaning or use of a structure (tenses, modal verbs).
f) Matching items
The items to be matched are arranged in two columns, in random order. They can be verb
tenses + adverbs, main + subordinate clauses, verbs + gerund/infinitive complements, etc.
g) Error correction
Students are required to discriminate between correct and incorrect forms, and make
corrections where necessary. These exercises have an important formative value, as thinking
of and evaluating structural accuracy helps in developing the students‟ ability for self-
correction.
Below are illustrated two game-like activities based on error correction, which, by
adding an element of fun and even excitement, can render dull correction exercises more
enjoyable.
h) Grammar auction
The students work in pairs or groups. They are told they are going to participate in a sentence
auction, for which each pair/group have £1,000. Some of the sentences are correct, while
others will contain grammar mistakes. Of course, the students are supposed to bid for correct
sentences. The winning pair/group has the largest number of correct sentences at the end of
the activity.
i) Grammar gamble
This is a variation on the game above, but instead of buying correct sentences, the students
will bet on their own correction of sentences containing mistakes. Each group (3 or 4
students) is given 1,000 and a list of incorrect sentences with mistakes in grammar, word
order, etc. These can be taken from the students‟ mistakes in their written work. According to
the degree of difficulty, each sentence will be assigned different odds. In their groups,
students discuss the corrections they think necessary. The teacher calls out one sentence at a
time and asks students to place their bets on their corrected versions. On the board, the teacher
draws two columns headed Bet and Total, writing each group‟s stakes and earnings. The
winning team will have the largest sum at the end of the activity (see Gates, 1994).
j) Jumbled words ordering
These exercises are particularly focused on word order, but they can also raise awareness of
such issues as cohesion, linking words, emphasis/fronting, inversion.
Rewrite/Rephrase sentences
Beside target structure practice, these exercises also raise awareness about meanings,
functions, polysemous structural or syntactic forms, as they require reformulating a sentence
in such a way that its meaning remains unchanged. In order to rephrase a given sentence,
students are provided with cues which can be either a different beginning or a word to be
included in the new sentence.
k) Dictogloss/Grammar dictation
The teacher reads a short text at a reasonable, normal speech speed and students listen first, to
get a general idea of the content and grammar of the text. For the second reading, the students
are required to take as many and as detailed notes as they can of what they hear – sentence
chunks, key phrases/words. In groups of three or four, the students are required to put their
notes together and try to reconstruct the original text as accurately as possible. It can also be
done as a competition, in which the winning team ends up with a text which is the closest to
the original and the most grammatically accurate.

2. 2. 3. PRODUCTION/FREE PRACTICE STAGE

With free practice or production activities, the focus shifts from accuracy to fluency. These
activities are aimed at allowing students to practise the new language in meaningful
communicative contexts, which replicate real life communication. At this stage, control over
language is transferred to the students, since they work with or produce language as they
engage in communicative tasks requiring S->S interaction and are provided with opportunities
for free self-expression. A graphic representation of the staging in a grammar lesson – in
terms of activity sequencing, teacher roles, control over language and activity aims – could
look as follows:
Staging
Presentation Controlled practice Semi-controlled practice Free practice
/ / /
Presentation Practice Production

Teacher roles
T as presenter T giving T organising activities so that
of new language SS chance to practise language SS can use language meaningfully

Teacher-centred Learner-centred

Control over language

T -> S S -> S
T. control over language > SS control over language
Immediate correction Delayed correction

Aims

ACCURACY FLUENCY
/
T ss ss
ssss ss T ss
ssss ss ss ss
ss ss ss

Of course, communicative activities for free oral practice commonly presuppose pair
work and group work. In order to motivate students to work together in pairs/groups, the
activities have to be task-based – if students know what they have to achieve, they will have
a purpose to work towards, i.e. solving the task. Of course, communicative grammar
activities must have a grammar focus – a structure/function they have learnt/revised recently.
Of course, task-based communicative activities require careful preparation on the part of the
teacher, who has to plan the activity well in advance, to organise the class and provide the
students with the necessary materials, such as handouts or visuals. Basically, the most
common communicative activities are of two types – Information Gap and Role Play – but
the range is in fact much wider. The most productive communicative grammar activities for
free oral practice are described below.

1. INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES (Info-gap)

Usually suitable for pair work, but also in group work, these activities are based on an
information gap, i.e. the students have different information which they have to share in order
to fulfil the given task. In other words, the need to exchange information provides the need to
communicate, usually by means of question and answer patterns of interaction. In an
information gap activity, each student working in a pair (A and B) is given a handout
containing information his/her partner does not have. The task varies depending on the
grammar focus of the activity. Most often, they have to exchange information in order to
reach a decision, an agreement, a conclusion, a certain result (filling in a chart) or to create
something (a map, a drawing, a description, an object/handicraft item). As they are not
supposed to see each other‟s information, the best seating arrangement for the pair is face-to-
face. Here are a few examples of tasks:
i. Agreeing on a common plan/action.
For instance, in an activity focused on the use of the Present Continuous for Future plans they
are asked to agree on a time to meet, based on handouts containing different diary pages with
scheduled activities, or, in a freer variation, based on their own plans for the next day/the
weekend/the holidays, etc.
ii. Achieving a result:
 Pictures with differences
The students are given quite similar pictures containing a number of differences
(number/colour of objects, different people/animals/furniture/street/position in space). They
are told there are 10 differences, for example. To fulfil the task, they take turns to ask and
answer questions, paying attention to and recording the differences they identify. It is useful
for practising questions such as: Is/Are there...?/Where is/are? + prepositions of place; What
is the girl doing?/Is the boy sitting? – No, he is standing.
 Chart completion
The students are given charts with different missing information. To complete them, they
have to ask their partners, who have the information they need.
 Map completion
The students are given handouts with the map of a street, village, town, zoo, store, etc. Each
student has elements the other has not, so they have to ask and answer questions in order to
complete their maps with the missing items put in the right place. The activity is useful for
prepositions of place, giving instructions. Another task can be giving their partners‟ directions
to their home.
 Drawing instructions
The students are given handouts with different shapes/objects/places/people/animals. The task
requires that each of them draws the picture on their partner‟s handout, listening to each
other‟s descriptions and instructions. Without handouts, the task can be that each of them
describes his/her room so that their partner can draw a plan of the room. The grammar focus
is again prepositions of place, spatial directions.
There are also other types of communicative activities and games roughly based on the
information gap principle:
a) Guessing games: 20 Qs
This is a popular game. It can be played either in pairs or with the whole class. In a pair, the
partners take turns as „knower‟ and „guesser‟. Each thinks of an activity, person, job, animal,
country, continent, place, etc. They try to guess what the other is thinking of by asking
relevant Yes/No questions (up to 20) focused on structures and topics fit to the context. With
the whole class, one student is the knower, answering the questions asked by his peers.
b) Mime/Charades
This is another type of entertaining guessing game, also used for amusement at social get-
togethers. The knower has to mime the concept he/she has in mind, nodding or shaking his
head in response to the others‟ questions.
c) Questionnaires/Surveys
Students are asked to collect data about their classmates by devising a questionnaire on
various topics: hobbies, pastimes, sports, holidays, eating/reading habits, likes/dislikes, etc.
They have to go around the class asking questions and recording answers on their report
sheet. At the end the students process the data collected and present their findings, under the
form of pie-charts, stack columns, graphs or diagrams.
d) Interviews
The students interview each other on a given topic: future plans/career/holidays, past
experiences, family, relationships, friends, study or pastime preferences, etc. At the end each
student produces an oral or written account of the interview. It can be used for practising
tenses and reported speech. The interviewers/interviewees can act as themselves or play the
role of other people (family members, friends – an exercise in empathy!), of celebrities or
even animals! This really appeals to their empathic imagination.
e) Quizzes
It can be organized in pairs or groups. Each student or group devises a quiz based on a
structure and topic studied in class (wildlife, geographical/historical/cultural
facts/films/books/music, etc. It can be conducted orally or in writing. It is more challenging if
organised as a competition between two/three teams, in which the winning team has the most
correct answers.
 2. ROLE PLAY
The principles of role play activities are by and large the same as those for Info-gap activities.
The task involves achieving a social and transactional goal, as indicated in the Role Cards
allocated to students working in pairs or groups, which provide the information gap required
for a meaningful exchange of information. However, there is a stronger focus on functions:
persuasion, invitations, refusals, agreeing, disagreeing, etc. In designing a role play, we
should think of a context or situation presenting a potential conflict of interest, opinions or
ideas. At the same time role plays should reflect clear social role: teacher, parent, policeman,
driver, ecologist, salesperson, customer, public figure, artist, etc.
Role cards are essential in defining profile and goal of the person the student has to
impersonate while interacting with the others.
Example: Four roommates are discussing ideas for an evening out. They have to agree on
something to do together, even if they have rather different interests and tastes.
Role card 1: You are Sam. You like eating out and prefer fast-food restaurants. For a change,
however, you would try something more exotic. You like musicals.
Role card 2: You are Annie. You like Chinese food, and would like to take the £5 eat-as-
much-as you-want offer at Mr Wu. You also like going to the theatre and prefer comedies.
Role card 3: You are Lucy. You like Italian food and would like to have some lasagne at
Mama Mia. You like going to the cinema and prefer romantic comedies.
Role card 4: You are Johnny. You‟re fond of cooking curry and would prefer to cook a meal
for the others. You like dancing, especially Latino dances.
a) Agony columns/Agony aunts/uncles
This popular magazine column in which the columnist – called an agony aunt/uncle – offers
advice to readers requesting advice on a problem can be adapted for role play focused on the
function of asking for and giving advice. It works better in pairs rather than groups. Each
student receives a role card containing a problem (relationships, school, work, career, health,
etc). Every student complains about his problem and receives advice from his partner.
Alternatively, both the problem and the advice can be expressed in writing, with each student
receiving a problem card to respond to in writing. For this version, the role play can be
dropped in favour of a self-expression exercise, where the students can write their own
problems on unsigned pieces of paper, which the teacher distributes around the class, asking
students to offer advice on the problem in question. As students may be sensitive about this
self-revealing context, anonymity is obligatory. All the pieces of paper will be gathered on the
teacher‟s desk, so the students can collect their „advice letter‟ at the end of the lesson.
 b) Letter-writing
Role plays can also consist of writing activities. Students can be asked to write various types
of letters (invitation, request, advice, complaint, application, etc.) from the perspective of a
certain role. Of course, the writing activity will be based on a given context, specifying the
writer‟s purpose, audience and the appropriate style (formal/informal). The task will also
include cues about content, such as issues to complain about in a letter of complaint. More
imaginative activities can include writing letters or diary entries from the perspective of a
character in a story, a person they know well or a famous person.

3. FREE DISCUSSION/DEBATE ACTIVITIES

a) Problem solving
This activity can be done either as a role play, with students in the group assuming a given
role in a given context, or, for a more realistic context, the students can discuss issues from
their own perspective, acting as themselves. The activity consists in asking the students to
discuss and agree on possible solutions to a certain problem. A real or imaginary problem is
presented by the teacher, orally or on a fact-file handout. This can be in connection with a real
problem – solutions for cleaning a polluted area/reducing pollution in their area/publicising an
event or product/repairing a malfunctioning machine or vehicle/converting or finding a use
for an old building in town/refurbishing the school building/raising funds for a
cause/protecting an endangered species/community/area, etc. Alternatively, the problems can
be brain-teasers or puzzles to work out, or more imaginative problems like being on a space
mission and having to deal with a technical problem.
The example below is quite a popular riddle aimed at testing strategic and logical thinking,
called „Who owns the zebra?‟
The students are given the following cues, and asked to work out the answers for two
questions: 1) Who drinks water? and 2) Who owns the zebra? The activity can be used for
practising modal verbs (may/might/could/must/can’t/couldn’t + infinitive) and such
functions as expressing possibility, positive or negative deduction/certainty, prepositions
of place, etc.
1. There are five houses in a row, each of a different colour and inhabited by people of
different nationalities, with different pets, drinks, and flowers.
2. The English person lives in the red house.
3. The Spaniard owns the dog.
4. Coffee is drunk in the green house.
5. The Ukrainian drinks tea.
6. The green house is immediately to the right (your right) of the ivory house.
7. The geranium grower owns snails.
8. Roses are in front of the yellow house.
9. Milk is drunk in the middle house.
10. The Norwegian lives in the first house on the left.
11. The person who grows marigolds lives in the house next to the person with the fox.
12. Roses are grown at the house next to the house where the horse is kept.
13. The person who grows lilies drinks orange juice.
14. The Japanese person grows gardenias.
15. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
b) Choosing candidates
The students are given a list of candidates for a competition, job, manager, as well as relevant
information about them. The candidates‟ profiles should include details about their
background, qualities, abilities and skills, experience, interests, commitment or leadership
potential. The group has to discuss their suitability and reach a decision about the most
suitable candidate. The functions practiced can be agreeing, disagreeing, suggesting,
persuading, arguing one‟s opinion, expressing ability, possibility, positive/negative deduction
(using modal verbs).
c) Debates
The students are introduced to a controversial issue in the real world, relevant for their age,
level and interests. They have to discuss the respective issue, from various perspectives,
arguing their standpoints, giving arguments and examples. A debate can be organised in
groups or with the whole class. Possible topics can be:
 Are books losing ground in the era of digital revolutions?
 Will teachers be replaced by computers?
 Who should take care of the elderly?
4. PERSONALISATION ACTIVITIES (oral/written)
All methodologists agree on the fact that the personalisation of the content learnt promotes
better retention – a truism in language learning and learning in general (see Ur 1988). As this
makes more sense on a personal and real-life plane, such activities acquire a deeper meaning
for the learner, promoting what Adrian Doff calls „meaningful practice‟ (Doff 1988, 28).
Irrespective of the organisation of free practice activities – individually, pairs, groups, whole
class – opportunities for self-expression will promote better learning and aid retention. By
having students share their personal experience, feelings, tastes and interests with their peers,
we enhance a good rapport between students and a cooperative atmosphere.
a) Free oral communication – exchanging personal information/opinions
Students share information about issues relevant to their everyday life: their plans for the
weekend/holidays; travel experiences; childhood memories; favourite
pastimes/food/books/film/music stars; opinions on topics of general human interest, etc. They
can extend the discussion to their family and friends. They can do this in pairs, groups or in a
whole class discussion.
b) Sentence building/completion
Even if this only consists in structure practice at sentence rather than discourse level, writing
sentences to say true things about oneself involve personalisation and provide useful
preparation for more complex opportunities for self-expression. Students can make sentences
orally or in writing. One variation would be to continue incomplete sentences with a given
beginning, e.g. If I had only six months to live, I would...To make the task more challenging
and likely to trigger further discussion, the teacher can ask the students to complete the
sentences from their partner‟s point of view.
c) Compositions, argumentative and reflective essays
These are quite complex activities for free grammar practice, whose scope extends beyond the
use of a particular grammar structure. Yet, the teacher may try to adapt the task for a specific
grammar area – talking about habitual actions in the past, speculating about hypothetical
situations, etc. Giving students opportunities to express their ideas in writing helps them
practise the language learnt in a meaningful context promoting personalisation and self-
expression, which furthers consolidation, retention and a sense of personal achievement.
Overall, we should try to make grammar practice more meaningful and realistic by
offering ample opportunities for practice at discourse rather than at discrete (sentence) level,
and by providing students with contexts encouraging real communication and self-expression.
One should always bear in mind that grammar teaching and learning is not an end in itself, but
a means to an end, which is communicative fluency.

FURTHER READING AND RESOURSE BOOKS ON TEACHING GRAMMAR

Aitken Rosemary. Teaching Tenses. ELB Publishing, 2002
Celce-Murcia and Hilles. Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar. Oxford
University Press, 1988
Frank and Rinvolucri, Mario. Grammar in Action Again. Prentice-Hall, 1991
Gerngross, Günter, Puchta, Herbert. Creative Grammar Practice. Longman, 1992
Hall and Shepheard. The Anti-Grammar Grammar Book. ELB Publishing, 2008
Harmer, Jeremy. Teaching and Learning Grammar. Longman, 1995
Rinvolucri, Mario. Grammar Games: Cognitive, Affective and Drama Activities for EFL
Students. Cambridge University Press, 1985
Rinvolucri, Mario. The Q Book
Ur, Penny. Grammar Practice Activities: A Practical Guide for Teachers. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988
Wajyrb, Ruth. Grammar Dictation