TEACHING TIP 1
Miming Activity for imperative sentences
Level: Beginners
Purpose
This activity is real fun for students as it engages the learners fully in the topic. The learners are prompted to use linguistic form imperative sentences and it helps the learners, who are very weak in basics, speak the target language. When I tried this in my class I remember it was an awesome experience when I found my whole class students with shining smiles in their faces.
Material and preparation
You need paper chits by the requirement of time. If there are 16 students, there can be 4 groups and each group can be given 16 chits and they all will be assigned to write imperative sentences on chits. For example:
Procedure
1. Students will exchange their chits with different groups and all groups will act out the imperative sentences given by other groups through chits and the other members will guess the action and tell what he/she is ordering, requesting, suggesting or advising.
2. Each student will pick not more than 4 chits and act out through this all students will get an opportunity to act out and they all will be energized.
3. For each correct guess the group will get 1 mark and if students guess a sentence half correct and half incorrect, they will be given half marks.
4. If students use any other language than target language during the activity they will have 1 mark deduction.
This activity can be used for any other grammar practice activity such as present continuous tense etc.
Bring me a cup of tea.
Don't use mobile phone here.
Drive slowly
Speak up
TEACHING TIP 2
Verb Chits and Noun Chits
Purpose
This activity helps the learners construct sentences with correct form without any pressure as they are engaged in a game. The learners learn on the focused mode in order to practice the correct form as it is necessary to learn on both focused and diffused modes to process the language through both right and left hemisphere therefore teachers may bring an activity based on diffused mode. I am using the modal verb structure “Should” using this activity however the learners can practice any sentence structure using this activity.
Material and preparation
Students are divided into 2 groups, let’s say group A and group B. Group A is assigned to write 20 verbs on 20 chits while group is assigned to write 20 nouns on 20 chits then they keep the noun chits and verbs chits separately in two boxed/Cups/any pots.
Procedure
1. Now students from each group will be asked to one by one pick one noun chit and one verb chit and make a sentence using the combination. For Example:
We should always speak the truth.
2. If the combination of verbs and nouns makes a wrong verb collocation, all other group members will correct it.
For Example:
We should drink food.
Is syntactically correct but semantically it is wrong as it doesn’t give any meaningful sense.
If the group members correct it, they will be given 2 points for correction of any wrong collocations.
3. If the learners don’t use target language during the activity their points can be deducted.
4. The team getting the most points will be the winner.