More Grammar Games [antikvár]

Introduction Most learners somehow accept that the sounds of a foreign language are going 0' to be different from those of their mother tongue. What is much more difficuh I to accept is that the grammar of the new language is also spectacularly different from the way the mother tongue works. For example, a speaker of a Latin-based language has 23 years, (elle a 23 ans), she has cold, she has hunger etc. At a subconscious, semiconscious and conscious level it is very hard to want to switch to: I am twenty three, I am cold, I am hungry. If it is avere (to have) in Italian, why should it suddenly be essere (to be) in English? To the Latin speaker there is something outlandish about the verb to be in these contexts. There are many subconsciously contentious areas when a person begins to try to speak a foreign language. Take the interrogative and negative in English -how come these can be signalled by an intrusive extra verb: make you like white coffee? she makes not live here, what made you do yesterday evening? (By substituting make for do I hope I have given you an idea of how ludicrously out-of-place and meaning-blocking the auxiliaries do, does, and did can sound, feel and look to a person trying to use English for the first time!) Teaching the grammar of English is not simply a question of handing out clear, linguistic information to the learners. If this were the case, teaching language would be an easier job. Somehow you, the teacher, have to induce, seduce and persuade your student into really accepting and mentally creating weird and wonderful sentences like: do you like white coffee? This book provides you with practical ways of inducing your students to preconsciously feel, think and finally produce the grammar that is specific to English. Who can you use this book with? Many of the exercises in this book are adaptable to any teaching situation with different grammar components, but the following starting points might be useful for you: If you teach primary school children, you might start by going for the 'Movement and grammar' and 'Competitive games' sections of the book. If you teach adult evening classes to which people come tired from work, you may well find things in 'Movement and grammar' that will wake them up. Do you need fresh ways of leading these whacked-out students into unknown grammar areas? If so, the 'Presentation' section will help you. If you teach lower secondary pupils, you probably need a variety of ways of correcting their language. Increase your range by looking at Section 8 'Correction'. A second obvious section for you is 'Competitive games' as these activities suit the age group. If you are teaching the more academically inclined children, then have a look at 'Cognitive games'.