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Grammar

Even the word grammar can strike fear into student and teacher alike and yet at its core Grammar accelerates the learning of a language by providing a set of helpful rules. Unfortunately the list of exceptions to various rules in English makes it feel like its almost as long as the rulebook. Hopefully these handouts will make life a little easier.

If you're having trouble teaching grammar, then I'd highly recommend Raymond Murphy's Grammar In Use book. It's helped me through some pretty tricky grammatical problems.

Resources on this Website

Verbs & Tenses

  • Tenses Mindmap (308KB JPEG)
    If you've ever wanted to see what all the tenses were like together. Here is the ultimate Mindmap. A very handy reminder for putting into students' folders.

  • Verb To Have (62KB PDF)
    It's almost impossible to find a simple explanation for the verb to have. So here it is without the burdens of the perfect tenses and thousands of modals uses.

  • Past Simple Test with Form Guide (57KB PDF)
    This is a Past Simple Test with common regular and irregular verbs. It also includes the form of the past-simple.

  • A Day In The Life Of An English Teacher (220KB PDF)
    Includes sample day in the life of an English Teacher with regular / irregular verb quiz. Also includes answers and a form to allow teachers and students to create their own days in a simple format that encourages use of the Past Simple.

  • Comparitives & Superlatives (137KB PDF)
    Quiz for common comparitives and superlatives. Rules for using comparitives with examples and teacher's notes.

  • Tenses Summary Sheet (79KB PDF)
    A sheet with all the main tenses in active and passive forms, makes a nice shortcut sheet for students without text books.

  • Tenses Cutout Jigsaw (130KB PDF)
    An easy to use cutout jigsaw that is easy to cut out and uses as a table-top puzzle. It also features a key to the timelines.

  • Tenses Timelines Sheet (66KB PDF)
    A sheet with the timelines for all the main tenses, examples and forms.

  • Tenses Timelines Full colour (70KB PDF)
    Full colour sheet for use on electronic blackboards or for posters. You can press Ctrl-l to make the document full-screen. (View - Full screen mode)

  • Question Forms (58KB PDF)
    This handout explains the differences between questions using do and questions using is/are. 

  • Subject/Verb agreement and Articles Exercise (68KB PDF)
    Based on a compare and contrast essay this exercise allows for error correction of this common problem. It also includes the form of the verbs for reference.

Prepositions

  • Prepositions with time (25KB PDF)
    Prepositions with time matching cards.

  • House Plan (216KB PDF)
    Ideal exercise to revise prepositions of place and furniture lexis. It is also a good discussion exercise.

Nouns

  • Common Uncountable Nouns (53KB PDF)
    This handout includes a list of common uncountable nouns, it is really aimed at oriental users who often hear them used as countable nouns in their own countries.

  • Quantifiers (36KB PDF)
    Table Top puzzle to help with estimating quantities.

  • Article Removal Template (188KB Zipped dot file)
    Microsoft Word Template that allows you to copy and paste text into MS Word and remove articles to improve error correction. Making it very quick and easy to create exercises from nearly any electronic file.

Other Handouts

  • Conditionals (156KB PDF)
    It's amazing how grammar books manage to neglect the simple things... What about putting all of the conditionals on 1 page, so that students can clearly see the differences between them? It's taken a long time to put together and I hope it provides the right balance between simplicity and comprehensiveness. There are also some teacher's notes explaining a number of alternatives and rival meta-language used in grammar books.

  • Modals For Probability (76KB PDF)
    This handout provides clear percentages for modals of probabilities, plenty of examples and an opportunity for students to personalise and discuss using the target language.

  • Yoda's Word Order Class (93KB PDF)
    Reinforce sentence patterns with this fun exercise based on StarWars.

 

Threebooks

USEFUL WEBSITES

Ego4u
A very comprehensive grammar selection of quizzes, guides and exercises.

Activities for ESL Students
quizzes, tests, exercises and puzzles

English Language Guide
A great reference guide for most areas of grammar.

Guide to Grammar and Writing
It looks a little basic, but has a lot of quality material on it.

LearnEnglishCentral
A little light on content in some areas, but the information is by the British council and answers specific questions well.