One of the most common grammar errors is the omission of the 3rd person singular suffix in the Present Simple tense, even for B2 learners.
In order to deal with this error, you could start by drawing your learners' attention to the fact that even the verbs “be” and “have” end in -s in the 3rd person singular, thus becoming “is” and “has”, respectively.
Next, you could devote five minutes at the end of your lessons to have your learners play games. Games boost their mood and increase their motivation, hence promoting learning. You should introduce them to and familiarise them with different kinds of games so that they will not get bored and lose their interest. If, after some time, they express their preference for a specific game, then you are advised to stick with it to avoid their demotivation. One game that learners are into is Tic-Tac-Toe (also known as Noughts and Crosses, or Xs and Os). A suggested way to play this game is to draw a tic-tac-toe grid on the board, divide the class into two teams, and have each team choose O or X. Ask one player from each team to come to the board in order to accomplish a task, which could ideally be the full answer to a wh-question or the construction of a sentence with a given subject and a verb by writing it on the board. The first player to successfully complete the task is the first to play a square. The other player either plays second or loses their turn in case they fail to carry out the given task successfully. The players go back to their seats, and the next two players come to the board to carry out a different task. The first one to accomplish it plays a square and so on and so forth. Another game could be the creation, on behalf of the teacher, of two dice. One dice could involve a different subject word on each one of its sides, and the other dice a different verb word. The class could again be divided into two teams, and one player from each team alternately throws both dice in order to form a sentence with the subject and the verb indicated on the sides the two dice fall on. The team with the most correct sentences is the winner. Another game could be a memory game. Give them a picture depicting lots of people with their names written on top of their heads doing different things and get them to have a close look at it for only one minute. Then, take it away and ask what each one of the people in the picture does in their everyday life. Whoever answers most of the questions correctly is the winner. One more memory game could be to ask your learners what they themselves always do. Advise them to pay attention to their classmates' answers in order to be able to answer your questions about what each one of them always does when the game begins. The student with the most correct responses is once more the winner. You are advised to change the adverb of frequency in your question every time you play the game to keep them motivated. You could also have your learners listen to a song and then hold a competition by asking questions related to its lyrics. Two suggested songs are https://youtu.be/1n9rsD5L5NU, where a hero presents his everyday life, and https://youtu.be/JWjperIEGZU?si=S-GEFKDxcuLvBeZF. You could also explore web 0.2 tools like WordWall, Quizlet, Quizalize, Quizizz, and Kahoot, which have ready-made games, but you could have a go at creating your own ones, as well. What makes these web tools really interesting and fascinating is that they provide you with the opportunity to divide your learners into teams and let them take part in a synchronous competitive online game through the use of tablets/laptops/PCs with the leaderboard appearing on the interactive board at any phase of the game.
In addition, you could create chants and rhymes and have your students learn them, or even better, you could get them to create their own ones for a chant/rhyme contest and vote for the most inspiring one.
Moreover, you could have your students create collaborative posters (digital or not) with a picture of their favourite hero and a text describing their habits. Ask them to paint the 3rd person singular suffixes in a different colour and stick the final posters on the walls of your classroom. PosterMyWall is an ideal free web tool for the creation of digital posters.
Furthermore, you could read your learners a story and have them write it with as many details as they can remember. You could either divide them into groups to implement collaborative writing, thus applying the differentiation approach in your lesson, or give their writing a contest orientation with the winner being the learner who correctly uses the most 3rd person singular verbs. Here is an example of a video with digital storytelling that could be used as a reference point: https://youtu.be/kzC6wXHMUQs. Pink Panther videos, such as https://youtu.be/uc8OpUnUNNU, could also be exploited to this end as they are deprived of dialogues. You can have your learners watch them and write down their plot. Alternatively, you could have your students come up with their own stories and ask their classmates to correct them with regard to the 3rd person singular verbs. Besides, you could divide them into groups and ask them to write a collaborative story with a wiki, such as My PBworks, for homework. The story with the most correct 3rd person singular verbs will be the winner.
Last but not least, you could take advantage of Artificial Intelligence to have your students create their own song with a web tool such as Suno AI and learn to sing it. A song contest could be held to turn this activity into a challenge and keep your learners fully motivated.
