A Grammar Activity

     Before we see our grammar activity I think we ought to check, at least, one concept about grammar.  I found an interesting meaning of Grammar, here is it: “The set of rules that describe the structure of a language and control the way that sentences are formed” (McMillan Dictionary). Well, many students of English language shock when they hear the word “grammar”. It happened to me and my friends when we had to deal with rules, structures, exceptions, etc. There were a lot of teachers who made a great job teaching this relevant part of English when I was a beginner student of English, but let’s face it there were some who only fill the board with tables, structures, etc which made students get bored. I think most students do not want to know all the rules; they’d like only to speak, write, listen and read.  So, we should teach grammar in simple and fun ways. That’s why we have a grammar activity in order students enjoy grammar in class. In this case we are going to see an activity which helps us to teach PAST PERFECT TENSE.

Here are the steps:

•       Tell students one day before they have to bring biographies of authors, inventors, and famous people who passed away.

•      Make students create a timeline so they can use the past perfect tense; for example, when Steve Jobs didn’t invent the iPod, he had kept the idea for 20 years earlier.    

•       Give a lot of examples so that they can familiarize with the structure, not telling them directly. Besides, make sure they understand you are talking about two events that took place in the past, but one before the other, then, have students produce examples of their own biographies using the timeline.

•      Once they are comfortable with past perfect in affirmative and negative sentences, move on to examples with questions; then make them ask each other questions that personalize the student with the person they are talking about: When Steve Jobs invented the iPad, had you heard about its inventor?

A Biography

     Okay, we saw a grammar activity that can help us to teach Past Perfect Tense.  One consideration we should keep in mind: Have everything ready before students enter the classroom. As always, not every student will bring the material we asked them before so we should be prepared for them bringing extra material.

     I think this is a great activity for teaching Past Perfect tense. According to the purpose of the lesson we should identify what it is, then prepare an activity which help us to arrange it.