The most common thing we can confront when teaching a language is…mistakes. A great number of them may appear, more often than not. Just name them: pronunciation, speaking, comprehension, and grammar ones are here to make our lives difficult. In this presentation, we will deal with some common mistakes, the interactive teaching strategies, and the possible solutions to students’ challenges.
In this presentation, we will focus mainly on B1-B2 problems, which are nevertheless a continuation of grammar inadequacies deriving from earlier levels.
- The wrong use of the verb ‘’to be’’ and some possessive adjectives
One of the most common mistakes learners make is the difficulty to differentiate between various forms of the auxiliary verb ’’to be’’ and possessive adjectives. So, a lot of learners usually put the possessive pronoun ‘’your’’, instead of the second singular or plural type ‘’you’re’’, and vice versa. Such mistakes are more obvious and common in written forms, whereas in oral speech the mistakes cannot be spotted.
The mistake: Its beautiful.
The correct way: It’s beautiful.
The mistake: You’re kittens are marvellous.
The correct way: Your kittens are marvellous.
The mistake: They should mind they’re business.
The correct way: They should mind their business.
And some examples to choose the correct option:
Can I have you’re/your number?
Their/They’re choice is excellent!
Its/It’s time for bed.
- Should have+past participle and must have+past participle
Some B1/B2 learners cannot easily distinguish between ‘’should have+past participle’’ and ‘’must have+past participle’’ to draw a conclusion for the past.
This problem starts a bit earlier when learners are taught about the uses of present modals. If they have not been able to distinguish between the present use of ‘’must’’ to derive positive conclusions, and ‘’should’’ to use it for advice, it will be a lot more challenging to do so for the past usage of these two modals. So, if the correct present modal usage is embedded from an early age, the past modal usage will not be an issue later on.
The mistake: His clothes are filthy; he should have been playing football yesterday.
The correct way: His clothes are filthy; he must have been playing football yesterday.
The mistake: They mustn’t have talked to her that way.
The correct way: They shouldn’t have talked to her that way.
The mistake: The floor is still wet; your mother should have mopped it.
The correct way: The floor is still wet; your mother must have mopped it.
And some examples to choose the correct option:
Mary is late. She must have found/should have found a lot of traffic jam on her way here.
Jeremy, I think you should have studied/must have studied more; your grades are really low!
Your mother mustn’t have been dieting/shouldn’t have been dieting that much! She has lost a lot of weight!
- Making nouns plural in compound adjectives
This type of compound adjective is often found mistakenly written in compositions. As it contains a noun, most learners use it in the plural form. We should emphasize that a compound adjective is an ADJECTIVE and as such it lacks gender and number, as all adjectives do in English. Some examples on the board to show the difference with some extra exercises for homework, will be of much help.
The mistake: Let’s take a five-minutes break.
The correct way: Let’s take a five-minute break.
The mistake: The eleven-years-old girl is a genius.
The correct way: The eleven-year-old girl is a genius.
The mistake: There is a two-days off period this week.
The correct way: There is a two-day off period this week.
Interactive teaching strategies
The aforementioned examples are just some of the challenges B1/B2 learners face. Let’s have a look at some ways to make grammar fun and interesting for them.
- Use of games and Technology-Incorporating Multimedia
If we incorporate games within the classroom environment, it will make grammar learning and problem-solving much easier. Crosswords and quizzes with friendly competitions and relevant rewards will make grammar funnier, plus enhance friendly rivalry among learners. Of course, the use of interactive boards and the internet will make both learners’ and teachers’ lives easier and quicker.
- Collaborative Learning
If we assign tasks that require peer work, such as grammar posters, designing grammar games, and comedy sketches, these will enhance peer learning and a sense of ownership in the grammar learning process.
- Use of Humour
The use of grammar jokes and grammar fails to make humorous examples, create a light-hearted and enjoyable environment which alleviates anxiety, and shows that people make mistakes as nobody is perfect.
Solutions to common student challenges.
Grammar is a tough subject in itself as it requires learning by heart, boring repetitions, and things that are sometimes difficult to understand. So, it is important to have some things in mind:
- Teach Grammar in Context
Excessive drills taught in isolation, outside the context of meaningful writing, have proven to be ineffective and have no significant impact on the quality of learners’ ability to use items correctly. Dialogues, real-life situations, and exercises incorporating the aforementioned grammar mistakes will encourage learners to recognise and explain them.
- Authentic material
Teaching grammar in context goes hand in hand with the use of authentic material: internet texts, newspapers and comics, audio and video clips. If it is not easy or feasible to find some to deal with the grammatical mistakes mentioned above, we can record them ourselves and offer them to our learners, thus combining a deeper understanding with a comic relief element, too
- Peer feedback.
Last but not least, we can encourage our students to work in pairs or small groups to identify and correct each other’s errors.
So, yes, grammar is challenging. Mistakes appear very often, but there are ways to deal with them. We should always bear in mind our learners’ level and find ways to overcome them.
