Category Archives: Grammar

GRAMMAR

31.10.2025 Raimo J 1 Comment

My own road to master the English grammar was different.

Grammar – an oasis or a desert? For me it first was neither since I did not need it. I had learnt most of my English grammar from songs. Later on at the university I had to learn the rules as well to be able to teach them at school. While studying other languages I started to admire the beauty of grammar in other languages, too. So, these days grammar is an oasis for me. Move the arrows and make your choice!

In the early years of CLT many linguists and some teachers started to feel teaching grammar was not important and even ignored it. Fortunately, this attitude turned out to be impossible in practice and we kept on teaching grammar – but not exactly like we had done before.

There were three drastic and permanent changes in practising new grammatical structures thanks to comminicative language teaching:

Firstly, CLT teachers realized that we must make use of 3 kinds/levels of exercises in practising grammar: 1) mechanical, 2) semi-communicative and 3) communicative exercises and tasks. Up to that point exercises had nearly always been mechanical.
Secondly, having learnt the rules and having done a couple of written mechanical exercises, we moved on doing ‘authentic’ oral activities in pairs and groups. In brief, the focus was in doing oral grammatical exercises at 3 levels, instead of written ones. I will explain ‘how’ in the next articles.
Thirdly, CLT teachers realized that differentiation was needed in mixed-ability classes since some students did mainly only mechanical exercises while the best ones were able to move straight on to using the new structures in free speech or activities.

Three methods in teaching grammatical rules

Grammatical structures and rules can be taught using ‘the inductive or deductive method’ or they can be learnt without any rules just by being exposed to the new language a lot; pretty much the way mother tongues are learnt.

Most teachers know the term ‘inductive method’ of teaching grammar, which means the formulation of the rules on the basis on examples.
It is contrasted with the ‘deductive method’ which means the teacher explains the rules in detail and then lets the students practise and apply the rules. This is the easy way out in teaching grammar. The teacher thinks ‘I taught you the rules and it is up to you to learn them. Practise and we need to move on.’
The third ‘method’ is the lexical approach to teaching grammar which means learning grammatical structures as ‘chunks’ ; i.e. word combinations, words, set phrases or set structures. With minimum reference to any rules it is very similar to the learning of mother tongue. The Dodson method is based on chunks as well but it makes heavy use of the mother tongue.

I will deal with the communicative teaching of grammar, the inductive and deductive methods as well as the lexical approach and the Dodson method in much more detail in separate articles.

Few people like grammar. Grammar is just a tool, not the aim of language teaching. And it is not always a must. Like me, the English grammar can be learnt from games, songs or any other source without official teaching, without the learner realizing it!

My own history on learning and teaching the English grammar

Now I am going to have a look at my own experiences as the learner and teacher of grammar. My road to the English grammar was different.

A lot of input in a foreign language can lead to subconscious learning of grammar without knowledge of the rules.

I used to have an ambivalent attitude to grammar. When I went to the university in the early 1970s and had been accepted to study English, I knew very few rules of the English language. Still, even if I only wrote one essay in all my school years, I mastered the written language rather well. How come? It was at that time it dawned on me that I must have learnt the rules subconsciously while singing in English and spending a lot of my time listening to songs and writing down the lyrics. So I am a living example that one does not need to study any rules of a foreign language to learn it, provided we are exposed to the language for a long time, usually thanks to our hobby that involves the use of the foreign language.

So, I must have learnt the grammatical elements as chunks, lexical units of various length, and then generalized the models to cover different situations as well.

A teacher has to know the grammatical rules to be able to justify his/her marking of essays, exams and oral presentations.

Consequently, I was in deep trouble when I started teaching English before I had taken my official grammar tests at the university. For instance, I was amazed about the difficulty of making questions in English just three hours before I had to teach the rules to my evening class. When to use ‘do, does, did’ and when to leave them out and under what circumstances! What are auxuliaries and what is their roles in questions? It was all Hebrew to me! I was sweating like a little pig before the lesson. Luckily I did not know most of the adult students were teachers themselves and six of them were heads of their school.

Of course, I had to learn all the rules of English rather quickly and I actually enjoyed explaining the students why particular structures were considered wrong or inappropriate. Even more so, I enjoyed presenting grammar rules so that minimum number of grammatical terms needed to be used and the learning was logical, proceeded step by step and included a lot of oral practising.

However, I realized my road to mastering the English grammar is not a common one and therefore I have always used the inductive method in introducing most of the new grammatical points.

In some rare cases I have been applying the deductive method or the lexical approach to teaching grammar. They all work well but the success in using them depends on the proficiency level of the class. In other words, what kind of learners they are and how good their English is.

Let’s face it. If you go to the city centre and shout out ‘I know the English grammar in and out!’ no-one will be impressed.

But if you speak beautiful English with correct grammar in your utterances, some people might be impressed.

The following matters will be discussed in my next articles.

Grammar	Communicative grammar, tasks and differentiation
	The inductive and deductive method in teaching grammar
	Grammar in the ‘good old days’
	Teaching grammar the old style and CLT style, comparison
	Teaching young beginners grammar, the lexical approach
	The Dodson bilingual method

Communicative teaching (CLT), Grammar, Yleinen

WORK STATION technique

31.10.2025 Raimo J Leave a comment

One of my colleagues fell in love and spent all weekends in another town. On her way back home by train she had little time to prepare lessons for Mondays so she developed her own way of using ‘work stations’ in her lessons. And, to her surprise, with great success.

‘Work stations’ (or Station work) is just another special type of group work. One of my absolute favourites among lesson types. I have been using it for decades a couple times a month at least. It works well with all kinds of students and is a particularly good way:

to have a different but effective, fast-pacing kind of lesson
to change a teacher-oriented lesson into a student-oriented one
to differentiate teaching by offering choices for the students
to enhance social skills in the groups and let the students help each other
to practise for a future exam

The example above implies that ‘station work’ does not need to be a burden for the teacher. It may well be based on the exercises in the workbook. We only have to organize the lesson so that we do the very same things in the groups that we would do in a teacher-oriented lesson.

Central pedagogical ideas

A new motivation point after the transition to a new table.
Everyone proceeds at their own pace.
Students help each other (the social emphatic aspect).
Teaching others is a great way to learn yourself (the internalization aspect).
The teacher can be mobile or work in a particular group .

Essential practical advice on organizing work stations

The students are forced to be active and co-operate.
Usually 4 -5 groups, 4 – 6 students in each group
The desks are organized as in the photo below
Time in each group depends on the length of the lesson
First 5 min for organizing the groups, at the end 5 min for wrap up
Group members are randomly selected, mixed-ability groups but one student is appointed group leader
Each group has two sets of the same instructions on the numbered desk (this way everyone can see the written instructions)
There are more exercises than there is time for (and the students know it), extra tasks are available and marked with *
There is one extra task for all groups (for example: Ask each other the words of a particular chapter)
Two sets of correct answers (if there are any) are placed in an envelope on the desk.
Announce the change of groups 2 min beforehand, and let the students check the answers. Moving to the next table takes 30 seconds.
Usually the 1st group takes a bit longer and the last one is shorter.

Look at the two examples below. By all means, do not hesitate to make your own version. The 1st time may seen troublesome but once you get a hang of the things to remember you will realize this is one of the best lessons types ever. I hope to be able to add a video on a ‘work stations’ lesson at some point.

Types of tasks in each group

1 Listening to a recording of the chapter. In the corner of the room or with headphones on. Reading the text or part of it aloud. (See my recommendations on the structure of ordinary lessons.)
2 Questions on the text + answers, or explain the chapter content in own words, or tell a story related to the chapter.
3 Various vocabulary exercises, orally and/or written ones.
4 Practise the latest grammar point orally and /or in writing.
5 Let the students choose whatever woorkbook exercises they fancy.

An illustration how ‘station work’ can be used when we practise for an exam just before the exam itself.

Use the same types of tasks as you intend to use in the exam itself.
1 A couple of dictation sentences (read by you or a student) A short reading task: done alone and checked together with justifications for the correct answers.
2 and 4 Tasks testing recently taught grammar points, preferrably three difficulty levels (See my recommendations on ‘differentiation’ under heading ‘Grammar’
3 Crossword or any other vocab task, preferrably three difficulty levels 5 Practise orally the kind of questions you wish your students to be able to answer in the exam or have oral ideas for a written essay for more advanced students .

Students really enjoy ‘station work’ lessons since they can co-operate in a relaxed atmosphere and time passes quickly away and they have options on what to focus on.

Grammar

TEACHING YOUNG BEGINNERS GRAMMAR, the lexical approach

30.10.2025 Raimo J Leave a comment

At its best lexical approach means teaching grammar as chunks, set phrases which serve as models which help memorization. Combining chunks with real-life situations leads to real communication.

Teaching grammar to young beginners using the inductive method is not very common because the ability of youngsters to understand conceptual explanations and rules is often limited to the very best pupils in the class.

Therefore, in mixed-ability classes teachers tend to use the lexical approach in teaching grammar with occasional use of the deductive method. In both cases there is a lot of emphasis on chunks that serve as structure models.

My transparencies/slides below are from the 1990s. My apologies for what they look like but never mind. What you see on them is still valid even today.

Luckily the number of ‘demanding’ grammatical structures is not very big in the early years of teaching a new foreign language and most structures taught can be learnt as ’chunks’ ; i.e. word combinations, words, set phrases or set structures. In these cases there is usually minimum reference to any rules and the learning of structures is similar to that of mother tongue: a lot of oral repetition and practice as well as using examples as models.

Even if some early CLT enthusiasts were not eager to teach grammar at least here in Finland we never gave it up. Nevevertheless, communicative language teaching brought along a significant change in teaching grammar: CLT principles emphasized the idea that grammar was not to be taught in isolation but combined with real-life situations where natives actually use the structures.

Applying lexical approach in situations

I remember how I struggled with my low-achievers in the early 1980s. In those days we still divided our age groups into three streams according to their proficiency level.

How was I supposed to make my students use grammatical structures in situations that resemble real-life situations following CLT principles?

Gradually I developed a strategy that seemed to work, my own version of situational grammar. Sorry about the shape of this slide from the 1980s. I had to cut of the dirty bits from it. Result of my treasure hunt and how I got going.

Why am I having this approach now? Because it gives you some perspective to my line of thinking and besides everything below is still valid today!

At a restaurant – chunks ‘I’d like to …’ , ‘I’ll have …’

Sometimes I had to use even Finnish translations on the transparency to make sure the weakest ones understood what they were saying. But still, they went on talking! The menu is probably from book series SIIE. Say It In English (WSOY).

Looking at a ‘real’ menu made the students realize the importance of ‘food vocabulary’. You had better not order something you do not like and still have to pay for it.

First I made a long list of real-life situations such as ‘at a restaurant’, ‘at a supermarket’, ‘at a police station’, ‘in an interview’ ‘explaing about future plans or past event’, ‘comparing things’ etc.
Secondly, I thought which structures were typical of these situations and gradually I ended up in having a list of situations with grammatical structures. ‘shopping – comparative and superlative forms of adjectives’, ‘at the police station or in an insurance company – was/were + -ing form – describing what was happening at the moment’
Thirdly, I realized that dramatizing the real-life situations was the only way to get close to reality at school. So, I told my students about the new ideas and why I’d like to try them out with them. In practice we chose role-play as our main method for dramatization. But …
Fourthly, I was pretty sure that I could not throw my low-achievers to these situations without suitable pre-tasks and proper preparation. Role-play was going to be the final stage of the practice.
Fifthly, I had to plan carefully the stages to be taken before the role-play. Sometimes it was a piece of cake since the students already knew the ‘chunks’ on the basis of the previous chapter in the textbook and could apply it right away.

At a dinner table – practising ‘could’, ‘would’. ‘ ‘d’ and ‘should‘

The chapter related to the 1st conditional was studied in class.
The exercise below was done in pairs at least twice. As you can see it is barely semi-communicative since most of the ideas are given ready-made.
But there was an element for communicative creativity since the students were allowed to replace the words in the box with words of their choice if they wanted to.
Finally we practised a similar situation at a ‘restaurant’ with real menus and a waiter/waitress taking orders with a white towel round the arm. Some of the key phrases were reflected on the screen with an overhead projector to help the weakest ones.

This kind of role-play is highly motivating since everyone understands that they will face a similar situation if they travel abroad. This exercise is also an example of ‘hidden differentiation’ where the weaker ones can hang on with the help of the advanced students. The continuation of the exercise below shows how the teaching of grammar and situations can be combined with extensive learning of vocabulary. A lesson like this will never be forgotten

With the advanced groups we went a bit further. Each 4-person group in class collected a vocabulary list: ‘cookware’, ‘kitchen utensils’, ‘kitchen verbs’ , ‘names of dishes’, ‘fruit, berries and vegetables’, ‘kitchen gadgets’ ‘spices and ingredients’ and made an exercise for the others to practise those words.
We went to the school cookery class to actually open the drawers and closets and cabins to check if we really memorized the ‘kitchen’ words.
Next each group made some food with ingredients they had brought from home (45 min) and we had a ‘RESTAURANT’ where we could dramatize the the highlight of the previous lessons, some students as clients and the others as waiters switching roles half way through.

Applying lexical approach in grammatical pre-tasks

It is rather common among CLT language teachers to start teaching a grammar point with a pre-task where the students use the new structure in an oral activity and have not got a clue about the rule they are applying. Usually the activity involves the use of a lexical chunk directly linked to the new grammar point. If the situations are ‘realistic’, the pair work or role plays, for example, can be very effective.

Games like ‘The Hot Ball’ or ‘Find someone who …’ are ideal as a pretask for a new grammatical point since the students get to use the structure up to 30 times correctly before the rule is formulated.

Pre-task: The hot ball game – the perfect tense

The teacher writes the sentence below on the board or screen

‘I have been to England/ Sweden/ Italy/ Germany/ Spain ...’

The chunk to be learnt, the perfect tense structure, is ‘I have been to …’
The students who are in a circle are supposed to say the same sentence by replacing the underlined country with any other country.
The teacher throws a small ball to the next student, whose attention is on the ‘hot ball’ so that it does not ‘burn’ their hands. So there is no time to worry about the sentence.
The student says his/her sentence and throws the ball to someone else.
Note that what the students say do not have to be true and … means they can use their creativity to make the answer more commi´unicative.

The chunk ‘I have been to’ serves as an introduction to the perfect tense and can be replaced later on by ‘I / We have had a dog/ two cats / a red car/ a summer cottage …

Similarly you could introduce many other structures ‘I’d like to …’ without any talk about the 1st conditional, superlative forms etc.

Pre-task: ‘Find somone who …’ – the perfect tense

Instructions for the students:

Find someone who can answer ‘Yes’ to your question. Write the name in the second box. You can use the same name only once. You have max 5 minutes for the task.

1 Have you seen any movies this week?
2 Has your dad or mum done sports today?
3 Have your classmates spoken to you this morning?
4 Has your math teacher ever been late?
5 Has your friend ever bought you a present?
6 Have your granparents ever picked you up from school?	Anne
7 Have you talked to the head of the school today?
8 Has anyone given you money this week?
9 Have you been abroad this year?	Raimo
10 Have you told your parents a joke this month?

So this is the ‘Pre-task’:

The students get this paper and walk about in the room asking these questions.
It may be hard to get ‘Yes’ answers to some questions and that is why many questions have to be repeated many times.
The key idea is that the students will have used the new structure correctly a lot before it is actually taught.
And there is no chance to make mistakes.
At the end the ‘results’ are explained in groups:’Raimo has been abroad this year.’

Pre-task: ‘Be able to’

This pre-task from the my early CLT years shows how a mechanical exercise can be changed to demand something more than reading aloud. In this case the student has to make links like ‘camera -photos’ ‘skates – ice-hockey’.

Besides students should be encouraged to make similar sentences creatively by replacing the words in the boxes with their own words. I should have added three dots … after the red boxes to indicate any words the students can come up with. Effortless differentiation!

Communicative teaching (CLT), Grammar

THE INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE METHOD in teaching grammar

30.10.2025 Raimo J Leave a comment

Look at the photo above. Which one is better for learning? The teacher telling the secret of the mystery car OR the students studying the car and finding it out themselves?

The answer is at the very end of this article. Think carefully because it will reveal your attitude towards teaching grammar as well.

I know. Having studied English for many years at the university you are not supposed to lecture and shine with your knowledge in front of your class (= the deductive method). Let’s have a look at our options.

Why the inductive method? Because it forces the students to think hard. The more they crack their brains, the better they learn.

Earlier on we defined the two most common methods in teaching grammar:

“Most teachers know the term ’inductive method’ of teaching grammar, which means the formulation of the rules on the basis on examples. It is contrasted with the ’deductive method’ which means the teacher explaining the rules in detail and then letting the students practise and apply the rules. This is the easy way out in teaching grammar. The teacher thinks ’I taught you the rules and it is up to you to learn them. We need to move on.’ “

I will start by discussing ‘the inductive method’. In my opinion it is the one we can and should use in teaching nearly all grammatical points. The inductive method activates the students’ brains much better than the ‘deductive one’.

The advantages of using the inductive method

First of all, students remember the rule better if they themselves have worked it out from the sample sentences given to them.
Secondly, students become very motivated to solve the problem; it is a minor detective operation.
Thirdly, every student is given time to try to figure out the rule if the process is slow, and proceeds step by step.
The teacher can exercise his/her expertise in the matter by presenting the relevant questions when the rule is being formulated.
In most cases the process can be carried out in English but in some classes it may be better to use the mother tongue to make sure everyone understands the rule.

How does the process advance in using the inductive method?

For the method to be effective it is advisable to more or less follow the steps given below and allow differentiation in the exercise types at Stage 5 if necessary.

Stage 1: Pre-task 1 Play a board game where the students throw a dice (or roll a pencil with 1-6 dots on it) and can move onwards if they remember the 3 forms of about 20 verbs, regular and irregular ones. N.B. Always make sure the foundation for the next task is solid: Some irregular verbs must be mastered for Stage 2.

Stage 2: Pre-task 2 Have a ‘Find someone who …’ task in order to make the students use the structure to be learnt many times. The structure to be learnt is The 2nd conditional.

What would you have done, if the school had been closed today?

Action	Name if ‘YES’
I would have gone swimming.
I and my friend would have played computer games.	Peter
Me and my dad would have eaten lunch together.	Jill
I would have written our home essay.
I would have slept a couple of hours more at home.	Shirley

Stage 3: Look at the examples below and work out the rule for the main clause and for the if-clause.

The main clause	The if-clause
I would have gone downtown	if the boss had given me the task.
My mum would have taken dad’s car	if it had been in the garage,
What do these two clauses have in common? (= KEY QUESTION!!) (would have + verb) How would you translate the clauses? ‘olisin mennyt’ ‘olisi ottanut’	What do these two if-clause have in common? (the pluperfect tense) How would you translate the clauses? ‘olisi antanut’ ‘olisi ollut’

Stage 4: Let’s formulate the rule for the 2nd conditional

The road to the formulation of the rule is clear if the students spot which pattern the sample clauses have in common.

The main clause	The if-clause
would have + 3rd form of the verb	the pluperfect tense = had + 3rd form of the verb
‘olisi tehnyt’	‘olisi tehnyt’

Now the Finnish students would notice that the Finnish language does not make any difference between the main and if-clauses and for them that is the point to bear in mind. In addition to the rules, of course. In other languages the situation may be different. In any case, comparison with the mother tongue is often very useful.

Stage 5: The if-clause can be in front of or after the main clause but do not reveal it to the students. Let them fall into the ‘trap’ when they do the first exercises and they will remember the application of the rule better.

Practice session; just like we have learnt before there should be 3 kinds of tasks for the sake of differentiation. The students will do i), ii) or iii) or all of them. See the samples below as a reminder!

i) A mechanical task (a gap filling exercise, isolated sentences with no context)

I don’t understand why you said nothing. I ___________________________ (tell) him the truth, if he __________________________ (ask) me anything about it.

Why did they not let us know they were not coming? If they _____________________ (call) us, we _________________________ (leave) the party immediately.

ii) Semi-communicative exercise (a realistic context but no freedom to write creatively and use the 2nd conditional forms)

There was a robbery at a local grocery store last week and three students are discussing what they would have done if they had been in the shop at that time.

Malcolm: I ______________________________ (hide) behind the shelves and if it _____________________________ (be) possible, I _________________________(call) the police quietly.

Anne: If I __________________________ (see) the robber, I _______________________ (write down) what they looked like and how they spoke.

Cary: I ______________________________ (try) to be quiet and I ______________________________ (take) photos from my hiding place. It _____________________________ (be) very dangerous, if the robber _______________________ (see) me doing it.

iii) A real communicative task (a realistic situation/context and freedom to be creative about the content)

There was a boat accident on a lake near your school yesterday and you are talking about it with your class mates. Write at least four things you would have done if you had been there and had seen what was going on. Include at least two if-clauses in your story.

How does the process advance in the deductive method?

The decuctive method is very easy to use but in my opinion should not be used too much since the students do not need to crack their brains very much when the teacher is explaining the rules.

There are, however, a couple of cases when the use of the deductive method is justifiable:

The rules might be too complicated for the students to work out. (For example, changing ‘direct speech’ into ‘indirect speech’ includes far too many little details to be taken into account.
Working out the rules might take far too much time.
The class is not accustomed or able to formulate the rules, not even when it is done in the mother tongue.

If we look at the stages above, in the worst case a teacher in favour of the deductive method might skip Stages 1 – 3 altogether, explain the rules at Stage 4 and offer mere mechanical exercises in Stage 5.

All in all, hopefully you have now a better idea how modern CLT teachers deal with grammar and treat it as an essential part of foreign language learning.

The ‘car’ is not a real car at all but a piece of art in New York made mostly of recycled tyres.

Communicative teaching (CLT), Grammar

COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR, TASKS AND DIFFERENTIATION

30.10.2025 Raimo J Leave a comment

Many teachers feel guilty when their students rarely reach the stage of ‘real’ communication while learning grammar. Please, don’t! Just provide the opportunities for ‘real-life’ practice.

In fact, there is no actual communicative grammar. In CLT we teach grammar rules pretty much the same way we did before using mainly the inductive method and ocassionally deductive method as well.

Thanks to CLT we started to apply the rules differently: first with a lot of oral exercises in ‘real-life’ situations (role plays, task-based exercises etc.) and after that we applied the rules in writing as well.

Don’t mind the grammatical errors, they will disappear later on. And even if they don’t, it is not the end of the world. No-one makes mistakes on purpose (unless they are joking).
Don’t be pleased with mechanical written exercises and stop there, if your students can do better.

My greatest concerns with grammar at this point have always been:

Which of the three methods of dealing with the rules should I choose?
Can I go straight to communicative exercises or should I proceed in this particular order 1) mechanical, 2) semi-communicative or 3) communicative exercises.
Is there a way to differentiate the learning of grammar?
What else should I take into account when teaching grammar?

MY RECOMMENDED GUIDELINES FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR

1 Start with a pre-task where the students use the new structure and become subconsciously aware of the structure, minimal chance for mistakes. Find someone who … is my favourite CLT pre-task: no chance to make mistakes but the students talk a lot and get a feeling of the new structure. See my example below.

2 Choose an appropriate ‘method’ of dealing with the rules.
a) the inductive method; it is in most cases the one I favour, the students work out the rules themselves using some examples, the effort and thinking result in the students remembering the rules better

b) the decuctive method; the teacher explains the rules and lets the students apply them in exercises; some rules are too complicated for the students to work out or it would simply take too much time

c) the lexical approach; rules are seldom given at all but they are learnt using fixed/set grammatical patterns as models for the structures; most appropriate for beginners and elementary class students whose conceptual thinking is not high enough to grasp abstract rules

THE TEACHER KNOWS HIS/HER CLASS BEST – AND HE/SHE IS THEREFORE ENTITLED TO CHOOSE a), b) or c) in each case.

3 Be prepared to differentiate the teaching of grammar. Low-achievers are able to recognize the structures and apply them in simple sentences with models. Advanced students can be very creative with the structures once they know the rule.
These methods and approaches are dealt with in more detail in the next articles.

Examples on each Task type

Let me demonstrate how to proceed from a pre-task to a mechanical exercise towards a communicative one. This is a written example but it could be carried out orally as well.

Pre-task, Find someone who

The pre-task is a combination or ‘indefinitive pronouns’ and ‘the perfect tense’ The students present the Yes/No-questions and write the name of those who answer ‘Yes’ in the box.

1 Have you seen any Tarzan films?	Michael
2 Has your dad used any vehicle this morning/afternoon?
3 Has somebody told you a joke today?
4 Have you done every school task for today?
5 Has you mum already gone to work or somewhere else this morning/afternoon?	Alison
6 Has anyone listened to the Beatles today?
Some of the questions are hard ones on purpose and the students have to repat the questions many times.

The same name may appear only once in the list. After five minutes the sentences are read in groups of four: ‘Michael has seen (some) Tarzan films’ etc. The same sentences can be used in the formulation of the rules.

3 types of grammatical exercises

i) A mechanical task with no real-life context and communicative purpose. However, one must not underestimate these kind of tasks since they also require a lot of knowledge of the target language.

A: What have you done today?

B: I __________________ a letter? (write)

A: What has your mum done today?

B: She _______________________ the bathroom. (clean)

A: What have your classmates done this week?

B: They ______________________ swimming. (go)

A: What have you done this summer?

B: I ___________________ to drive a car and I ________________ a lot of French. (learn, speak)

The rule for the perfect tense ‘has/have + 3rd form of the verb’ has to be known and applied but we have only isolated sentences with no connection to real life. A very easy drill and a gap exercise. Still, some students get no further than this level.

ii) A semi-commmunicative task, the context and the conversation is more natural. Still, the problem is that there is no room for creativity and the students are tied to use the phrases and verbs given.

Let’s practice the past continous forms (was/were + -ing-form)

Jim: Hi, Brenda. I heard you were in an accident. What happened?

Brenda: Hi, Jim. Yes, but I’m ok. My dad ___________________ (drive) our Toyota near the beach and I ______________________ (sit) next to him when a lorry hit us from behind.

Jim: Oh, dear. _______ it _______________ (rain) or something or what was the reason for the accident?

Brenda: No, no. The sun _______________________ (shine) and the weather was fine.

Jim: What was it then? Maybe the lorry driver __________________ (talk) on the phone and didn’t see when you ____________________ (slow down).

Brenda: No, the police think that the breaks of the lorry ________________ (not, work) properly.

Jim: Well, thank God you are fine. My father ________________ (check) our car yesterday when I came home. But it seemed to be alright.

Advanced students do this exercise in two minutes and do not find it challenging and motivating. Yes, it resembles ordinary discussion but … So we need to give them a creative challenge.

iii) A true communicative task. The students are free to create a story of their own and also use other linguistic means than the grammar point referred to in the guidance part under the photos.

Task: Look at the photos and write a story in pairs or in a group of three on the basis of the photos. You do not have to use all photos and you can add other ideas too. The title: ‘Me as an eye-witness’

You are free to create your own story but you must include the following ideas in your story:

What was the incident? What was the time when the incident happened? Where were you in New York?
What were you and the people around you doing when the incident took place?
You called home and your friends. What were your parents and your friends doing at that time?
How did it all end?

How does differentiation work if these recommendations are followed?

Stage 1: The pre-task. It is a compulsory task for everybody.

Stage 2: The students are completely free to choose any of the three exercise types: 1) Mechanical exercises 2) Semi-communicative exercises or 3) Communicative exercises.

In other words, some students choose 1) or 2) or 3) only and ignore the rest. The others might take 1) and 2) or 2) and 3) etc. without the teacher telling them which one to choose. The best ones might take only 3) and expand that one even further.

Of course when you are introducing this idea to the students, you can tell them that this is the difficulty order as well but later on it is not necessary any more.

All three approaches how to cope with the grammatical rules will be dealt with in more detail in the following articles. The final grammar article is about the Dodson method, which is one methological option in teaching slow learners and beginners. The interesting thing in it is how the teacher makes use of the mother tongue in this method.

Grammar, Writing

ADVISING THE STUDENTS ON WRITING GOOD-QUALITY TEXTS

30.10.2025 Raimo J Leave a comment

What is meant by authentic ring, fluency and coherence? Elaboration and complex ideas and sentences? Fancy words? Impressive grammar and phrases? Serious mistakes and spelling errors? And 9 point mistakes?

The purpose of this article is to open up the meanings of the ‘unofficial criteria’ presented in the previous article. I think most of the ideas can be applied no matter which writing criteria you are using.

In other words, what kind of advice do you give to your students when they insist on getting useful advice to improve their writing?

The advice given must be based on the criteria used. If students get criteria-based feedback on their writing tasks, they will know which areas they are good at and which areas require much more work. But if we want our students to move to the next level this is not enough.

For instance, if the teacher gives the following points for the essay: overall impression 7,5, content/message 8/10, vocabulary and structures 6/10 and accurary/mistakes 7,5/10, the student will start wondering

‘How could I get 9/10 for content?’
‘What’s wrong with my opinions? I only got 7/10.’
‘What’s wrong with my structures and vocabulary? I think it is better than 6,5’
‘I have plenty of mistakes but you still gave me 8/10. Why?’

This article hopefully helps you to answer the students’ questions and justify your evaluations of the texts. I am using scale 1- 10 but whatever scale you use it does not affect the principles of evaluation and the advice given.

In the previous article we studied how to write an argumentative essay, and more precisely applied the ideas in the column ‘Content/Message’ and ‘Logical, convincing structure’. When I started my career I did not have good answers to the questions so don’t worry. Having marked a few hundred essays over the years you will be much wiser.

Let’s have a look at each column of the criteria and be more specific on what is required from the students. N.B: I would advise you to take a photo of the criteria and expand it on your phone screen or copy the criteria photo and print it to see it better.

The 1st column – holistic impression on flow of ideas and fluency – ease to read

it is vital that a text is easy and pleasant to read
the language is fluent and has an authentic ring means the text could have been written by a good native writer

the ideas run smoothly and the structures and phrases are the ones a native speaker would use
the text should not feel as if it was translated from another language
if the text is coherent and logical, the ideas hang well together and follow each other in a way that makes sense

a typical feature of a coherent text is the use of connectors like ‘in addition’, ‘as a result’, ‘therefore’, ‘firstly’, ‘in brief’, ‘all in all’, ‘however’, ‘nevertheless’, which indicate how the idea is supposed to be understood
there are many ways to built a text logically, the most common ones being ‘problem – solution’, ’cause and effect’ and ‘cronological order of ideas’

The 2nd column – Message and content

first of all, the writer has to understand what he/she is supposed to write about and respond fully to the topic and the task
the conventions of the format have to be followed; a review of a film has to resemble a real one, etc.

a poor essay (max 6 out of 10 points) has only basic and simple ideas that are known by everybody and do not impress the reader
in a text of average quality ( 7 – 8 points out of 10) the ideas are unclear ‘facts’ or opinions that are not justified (proven in any way)

in an excellent piece of writing (9-10 points) we can enjoy lively narration or impressive arguments that are expanded/elaborated with convincing proof, reasons or examples ( = complex ideas)

The 3rd column – Vocabulary and grammatical structures

a poor essay (max 6 out of 10 points) consists of main clauses with rather simple grammatical structures and satisfactory everyday vocabulary

a text of average quality ( 7-8 points out of 10) consists of both main and subordinate clauses denoting time (‘when’, ‘while’) or causes (‘because’, ‘since’)
alternatively the clause may be relative clauses or indirect questions; mostly only the active voice used with some demanding structures or authentic idioms; good vocabulary

an excellent piece of writing (9-10 points) has a wide range of demanding structures in the active and passive voice, maybe shortened sentences and authentic phrases and idioms; very impressive vocabulary in placces.

N.B. In Finland senior high students write essays of 150 – 250 words and I advise them to have at least 10 fancy words and a couple of phrases and idioms plus varied sentence structures included in the essay. These words have to be underlined when they hand the essay in. This way the students learn to pay attention to their vocab and idioms. Of course, the style has to be consistent in the essay.

Points 3 -6 Vocabulary: to like, good, to get, rich; Grammar: I saw the accident. Did somebody die? I was afraid.

Points 7 – 8 Vocab: to fancy, excellent/wonderful, to receive, wealthy; Grammar: When I saw the accident, I started wondering if anyone had died in it.

Points 9 – 10: Vocab: to appeal, superb/exceptional/awesome, to obtain/to gain, affluent/well-to-do; Grammar: Having seen the fatal accident the first thing that crossed my mind were the consequences: were there any alarming casualties? An ambulance had been called …

I know – sometimes all this may seem artificial but this is the name of the game. The students are supposed to impress the reader with their ideas and language.

Use elaboration to make the students realize what they are supposed to do: For example: Change / elaborate the sentences below so that your points would be raised. ‘We went to the beach by bus. Dad took our car and went to work early. The weather was fine and many people came to the beach.’

4th column – The number and type of mistakes – accuracy

All mistakes are not equally bad – some are more serious than others! In the 1970s the grade could be minus 4 !?

Which mistakes are considered serious?

basically any mistake that confuses the readers and makes them stop reading and wonder is a serious one

which mistakes are serious? the basic structures taught in the comprehensive school, the use of basic tenses and the most common prepositions and cases of articles, congruence, there is/are, comparative forms
the number of mistakes is not crucial but they way they hinder communication

spelling mistakes are serious if they cause misunderstandings or common words are misspelt (foreigners are often better in spelling than native speakers)
wrong choice of words, especially if it causes misunderstandings, reduces the points given

What are 9, 6, 4 and 2 point mistakes?

When I went to school in the 1970s, we only translated texts and the teacher used coding 9, 6, 4 and 2-point mistakes. The full points were 100 and every time we made a mistake the points were reduced. As a result many of my classmates got results like minus 40 points. Meaning -4 out of 10. They knew quite a lot of English but were sent to the Antarctic with their skill. – Luckily those days are over!

Still. sometimes I write in the margins of the students’ essays if their mistake is minus 9, 6, 4 and 2 points just to make them pay more attention to the text when they are checking it = reading it silently in their heads. Some mistakes matter more than others!

I myself have a good idea what 9 and 2 point mistakes are like but 6 and 4 are more a matter of taste. My teacher never revealed the secret to us!

Communicative teaching (CLT), Grammar

TEACHING GRAMMAR THE OLD AND CLT STYLE, comparison

30.10.2025 Raimo J Leave a comment

They say 7 is a lucky, godly number. I am not supertitious but I have 7 reasons that speak in favour of the CLT approach to teaching grammar.

Benefits of teaching grammar in CLT style

The use of pre-tasks reduces anxiety around the new structure.
After the pre-task the structure feels familiar and easier to learn.
Using the inductive method activates the brains and enhances learning.
Practice is not limited to mechanical written exercises but taken further with versatile oral exercises.
Working and checking the tasks together in groups the students teach and help each other in a relaxed atmosphere.
The final aim is to have truly communicative activities such as role plays.
Grammar is seen as a tool, not as an aim of its own.

Grammar in the old days

CLT ideas on Grammar

PRE-TASK, very rarely used

PRE-TASK, commonly used

Frequent oral tasks before the rules of a new structure are introduced,
Students use the structure 15 -30 times in a few minutes.
They get a feeling they already know the structure.
No great possibility to make mistakes thanks to models or ready-made sentences.

INTRODUCING THE RULES Deductive method
Rules voiced by the teacher
Little student involvement
Comparison with mother tongue
Lexical approach with beginners

INTRODUCING THE RULES Inductive method
Teacher-guided process
A lot of student involvement
Comparison with mother tongue
Lexical approach with beginners

PRACTICE OF THE STRUCTURE
Mostly written exercises which get systematically more and more demanding.
Mechanical exercises, very seldom even semi-communicative
Everybody is doing the same exercises, no differentiation.
Oral exercises are limited to mechanical drills in class or language labs.
Exercises are mostly done alone or supervised by teacher, checked with the teacher too.

PRACTICE OF THE STRUCTURE
Both written and oral exercises which get systematically more and more demanding.
Written exercises which start from mechanical ones, turn semi-communicative and finally fully communicative.
Students can often decide which difficulty level they prefer.
Oral exercises follow the same logic, differentiation is used
Exercises are mostly done and checked in pairs or groups.

One has to be realistic and admit that in many classes this would be as far as many students are able to go. If they understand the rule and can apply it both in written and oral exercises of various kind, you as their teacher can be proud of them. Most importantly the students recognize the structurein all situations and can use it in speech as well.

Let’s think about the previous article and the way I used to teach the present tense passive voice once again. I will show you now how to turn the mechanical exercise to a communicative one. The example below combines written and oral communication and would be one way to end the teaching of the structure.

How can we turn the practice of the present tense passive voice more communicative?

First of all, the inductive formulation of the rule is best done slowly with the teacher in charge to give everyone time to think about the matters.
Secondly, exercises such as 1 – 4 in the previous article can be done in groups with a star student as the leader of the group and the others give the answers.
Thirdly, the teacher has to think in advance of a situation where natives would use the present tense passive voice structure. The most obvious situation is describing a process or a series of events where things happen but we do not need to know who does it.

Fourthly, the groups do an oral practice by taking turns in explaining a process: What happens to cars in their life time? How to make fashion clothes? How to make your greenhouse plants grow well? How to drive a car or plan a journey?

Fifth, the group decides on the process to be described in writing:

A couples of examples of the kind of sentences required are needed as models.

What is done in a local McDonald’s during an ordinary day to serve the customers well?

What is done before my day in the riding stable is done?

What is done?

Other topics: playing football or icehockey / at home or school

…

The place is cleaned between 5 and 7 a.m.
Kitchen preparations for the meals are done before opening.
The doors are opened at 9.00.

I am taken to the stables by my dad round four p.m and the horses are groomed before the lesson. We are given other chores too to do before we are allowed to saddle the horses. etc.

Models like above are needed to stir the students’ imagination and to give them an idea of what they are supposed to do.
Sixth, the descriptions are checked by the teacher while the writing process is going on. Finally the descriptions are read aloud in front of the class, each student reading at least one sentence. The ideas can be challenged by the other groups if they think something essential was ignored.

Make coming in front of the class a habit. Yes, it is scary at first but not so much any more after twenty trials. After two and a half years a very shy IB-student of mine took all of us by surprise when she wanted to give a presentation on ballet. No-one knew she was a ballet dancer but when she got in the front and made us copy her movements explaining what is done in a ballet practice and why, she became a shining star in the very last lesson we had together. She finally found her confidence in doing what none of us was able to do. I will never forget the smile on her face and the courageous memory she left on all of us. And the brilliant example of using the present tense in the passive voice. Yes, I feel like a wet blanket now. Mixing grammar with brilliance. But grammar is important, right?

Communicative teaching (CLT), Grammar

THE DODSON BILINGUAL METHOD

30.10.2025 Raimo J Leave a comment

Is there a method that allows the teacher to use the mother tongue in teaching English without feeling guilty? Yes, there is. The Dodson bilingual method.

Slow learners and beginners share one disadvantage: they do not understand the exact meanings of sentences unless they are explained in the mother tongue. Most teachers probably try to speak as much English as they can but sometimes they have no other choice than resort to their mother tongue.

The only time when I have been using the Dodson bilingual method in teaching languages was in the mid-1980s when I taught Swedish to complete beginners. The method itself was developed by Professor J. Dodson, a Welshman, and even if it was not widely used and accepted I think it is worth introducing here. For slow learners this method is excellent in getting them to use the new language from the very beginning.

The Dodson method is sometimes linked with the oldfashioned translation method but that is unfair because the students do not actually do a translation but they learn the phrases by heart after repeating them after the teacher and making changes in the phrases. It is actually very close to the lexical approach.

The time phrases in Example 1 below may seem simple and even childish but if you could do these exercises in Japanese, Arabic or Persian, would you not be proud of yourself! A lot of input and repetition at the right level with the help the mother tongue helps the students tremendously.

Example 1, learning to tell the time: It’s eleven o’clock. / It ‘s two thirty / It’s fifteen past four / It’s twenty to ten (4 basic phrases visible on the screen)

Stage 1: Pre-task: BINGO numbers 1 – 30

Stage 2: The students read the 4 basic phrases above aloud after the teacher who gives the meaning in the mother tongue.

Stage 3: Then the teacher says one of the same phrases in the mother tongue BUT changes one or two underlined words in it and the class says the phrase in English in chorus. I’ll repeat: The teacher uses the mother tongue but the students don’t!

Model visible: It’s eleven o’clock. Teacher says the phrase in the mother tongue: Kello on 10. Kello on 7. Kello on 12.	*Students say in English in chorus:* It’s ten o’clock. It’s seven o’clock. It’s twelve o’clock.
Model: It’s two thirty. Kello on 5.30. Kello on 10.30. … etc.	It’s five thirty. It’s ten thirty.
Model: It’s fifteen past four. Kello on 13 yli 7. Kello on 25 yli 3. … etc.	It’s thirteen past seven. It’s twenty-five past three.
Model: It’s twenty to ten. Kello on 5 vaille 8. Kello on 25 vaille 11. … etc.	It’s five to eight. It’s twenty-five to eleven.
*Finally all four patterns in a random order* Kello on 10 vaille 7. Kello on 6. Kello on 11.30. Kello on 7 yli 9.	It’s ten to seven. It’s six o’clock. It’s eleven thirty. It’s seven past nine.

Stage 4: The students work in pairs either doing what the teacher just did or writing times on a paper and the pair responds to it.

The next stage would, of course, be going through additional time phrases such as It’s eleven o’clock. /It ‘s two thirty = It’s half past two / It’s fifteen to four = It’s a quarter to four etc.

The main points in me using Dodson’s method ran as follows:

Decide if you need to have a pre-task to do some revision (numbers, days of the week, months, verbs, adjectives etc.)
Choose the key phrases you want to teach in advance, decide which word(s) you wish to change and write down the other words you wish to use in the phrases.
The Dodson method is rather hectic for the teacher who has to bang in the mother tongue phrases rather quickly.
Short utterances and sentences serve as units of teaching.
Grammar is not emphasized and structures are learnt as lexical items, pretty much like in the lexical approach.
Natural situations and dialogues in them serve as a starting point and then we proceed the narrative texts on the same topic.

Example 2: A situation in a shop.

Stage 1: The whole dialogue and all options are repeated aloud after the teacher.

Stage 2: The teacher says the phrases in the mother tongue and the students say them in English, about 40 phrases. In a good class you can skip this stage.

A: Good morning /afternoon. I’m looking for a silver ring / a colour TV / a blanket / jeans / running shoes. How much is it / are they?

B: Well, it depends on the size and quality. 50 dollars / 600 euros / 45 pounds / 38 dollars the cheapest ones / 80 pounds for the best ones.

A: Ah, this one looks/ these ones look very nice / beautiful / very warm / modern / wonderful.

B: Yes, you are right. It comes from Britain / India / China / from a nearby factory / from abroad.

A: Fine. I’ll take this one / these ones / the black model.

B: Okey, how do you want to pay? 50 dollars / 600 euros / 45 pounds / 38 dollars / 80 pounds. In cash or by credit card?

A: In cash, here’s the money / By credit card. Here you are.

B: Thank you sir / madam. And welcome back again.

Stage 3: The students read the dialogue in pairs picking up any green items they want or replace them with their own words and ideas ( = the last idea is the simple automatic way to differentiate the learning situation)

Stage 4: The students work in pairs and write a similar dialogue but make a lot of changes in it and the dialogues are later on circulating in the class and read by the others.

There is not much ready-made material like this available but in some classes this technique may be worth the extra trouble it causes in planning. My memories from these classes are still pleasant and the response from students was very favourable.

Communicative teaching (CLT), Grammar, Historical perspectives

GRAMMAR in the ‘GOOD old days’

30.10.2025 Raimo J Leave a comment

Most of the things done in the old style in teaching grammar were perfectly ok and are valid even today. We simply made a mistake by stopping half way through: unfortunately we were pleased with mechanical written exercises and ignored creative tasks and oral practice.

Up to the times of the introduction and first applications of CLT principles in the early 1980s grammar was mostly taught using the deductive method. The all-knowing teacher revealed the secret rules one by one and they were applied right away but only in writing. (Sorry, I am being sarcastic.) The grammar exams were also only in writing.

The good thing about the teaching of grammar was that at its best it was done very systematically. Hunting down my treasures from the 1980s I found the following example on teaching the present tense of the passive voice. Part of the text is in Finnish since mother tongue was often made use of in those days. But I still think you can get my point when you look at the original exercises taken from SIIE series published by an excellent educational publisher WSOY, Finland.

N.B. I’d like to point out that there was or is nothing wrong in teaching the present tense passive voice the way it is presented below. The only problem is that 1) we used to stop too early and 2) were pleased with mechanical exercises and 3) we had no real communicative tasks.

How the present tense in the passive voice was taught in the ‘good old days’

There were three things done before the students were given the exercises below.

We made sure the three forms of irregular verbs were mastered. It they are not, the whole thing collapses. It is still the same today.
We studied a chapter in the textbook which had plenty of these structures and the word list had a translation of them to make understanding of the chapter easier. This is still often the case in CLT lessons.
The teacher explained the rule to be applied and told that in the passive voice we do not know exactly who does the action. These days we start with an oral pre-task and prefer the inductive method to get the students more involved and to enhance memorization of the rule.

ENGLISH	FINNISH
AM IS + 3rd form of verb ARE	-taan, -tään -daan, -dään ostetaan, syödään
2 words	1 word
Negation with the word ‘not’

An example of a well-structured exercise from the 1980s

The rule could easily be formed on the basis of the first 5 sentences.

Exercise 1 above intensifies the memorization of the mother tongue structure and checks if the student recognizes the corresponding structure in the English sentence.

Exercise 2 is excellent in demonstrating the difference in meaning of the corresponding active and passive structure. It will keep the students on their toes with this structure. Once again we are on the level of recognizing the structure.

Exercise 3 is another excellent task. The writer of the task has anticipated one of the main problems weak students are going to face: choice between ‘am, is, are’. It is hard for some students to grasp that ‘tea’ is 3rd person singular, the same as ‘it’ or ‘tins’ is the same as ‘they’.

Exercise 4 is a very typical gap exercise used in testing the knowledge of just about any grammatical structure. If you have read my previous articles, you realize that stopping here is a mistake because we are still at the level of mechanical application of the rule. Why? Because there is no relevat context, the sentences are not logically connected and there is no chance for the students to produce creative sentences of their own with this structure.

Drills seem to be out of fashion but I think they could often be used orally to give another perspective to the new structure. Besides they do not take a lot of time.

One thing that I have barely mentioned in my articles are drills. They used to be very popular in the 1970s and 1980s but somehow they have disappeared. I think textbook writes started to think that they themselves sound oldfashioned if they recommend or include drills in their books and left them out altogether.

I think this was a mistake and anyone who looks at the exercise below where one has to covert an active voice sentence into the passive voice realizes that a learner has to master a lot of things before he/she can apply the rules in a realistic exercise/conversation.

Yes, it is not what we normally do when we talk but it enforces the application of the passive voice rules and can be done orally in pairs in just a few minutes. In brief, an oral drill can be a very effective intermediate task before a real communicative exercise.

This kind of drills were often practised and recorded in language laboratories in 4 stages. Yes, it looks boring and was boring and therefore probably dropped out of fashion.

Teacher: Tom speaks English.

Student: English is spoken by Tom.

Teacher giving the correct answer: English is spoken by Tom.

Student repeats it: English is spoken by Tom.

Still, I think we could use drills more than we actually do today.

Drills do not take a lot of time if done orally and checked in pairs or in a group.
What I like about them is that the students can visualize the changes that they have to make.
If needed the teacher can work on simple drills with the low-achievers while others are doing more demanding exercises.