Fluency Practice: Be verb and Personality Adjectives
by Scott Miles
Fluency Practice: Be verb and Personality Adjectives
Drill 1
|
Positive |
Neutral |
Negative |
|
Bright Friendly Funny Gentle Helpful |
Busy Careful Cold Fearless Logical |
Boring Childish Controlling Forgetful Judgmental |
- Choose eight personality adjectives from the list that can complete each sentence about you. Write the two words for each sentence in the blanks.
- I am somewhat ____________. _______ _______
- I am very ________________. _______ _______
- I am not very _____________. _______ _______
- I am not _____________ at all. _______ _______
- Write down each word on eight cards (or slips of paper). Give them to your partner.
Your partner will shuffle the cards and read the words. For each word, say the complete sentence where the word fits.
- Drill: How fast can you do all 8 sentences? Time yourself, and write the answer in Time #1 below.
Next, try two more times. Try to increase your speed with each attempt.
Time #1 ____ Time #2 _____ Time #3 ______
Drill 2
|
Positive |
Neutral |
Negative |
|
Honest Kind Loving Lucky Warm |
Interesting Quiet Realistic Serious Shy |
Lazy Loud Mean Selfish Silly |
- Complete the following sentences with personality adjectives from the box above. Each sentence should have a different word.
- My best friend is very _________, but I am not.
- I am somewhat _________, but my best friend is not.
- My best friend is not ________ at all, but I am.
- I am not _______ at all, but my best friend is.
- My best friend is very _________, and I am too.
- I am not _______ at all, and my best friend isn’t either.
- Write the six vocabulary words on cards. Give them to your partner.
Your partner will shuffle the cards and read the words. Put each word in the correct sentence.
- Drill: How fast can you do all 6 sentences? Time yourself, and write the answer in Time #1.
Now try two more times. Try to increase your speed with each attempt.
Time #1 ____ Time #2 _____ Time #3 ______
Drill 3
|
Personality (ex. forgetful, gentle, mean, etc.) |
I |
My best friend |
You |
|
|
|||
- Choose six personality words that you would like to practice. Write them in the first column (Personality).
- Complete the second column with your own information about how the personality word fits you. Choose one of the following for each word: quite, somewhat, or not very.
- Next, do the same about your best friend in the third column.
- Finish the final column with information about your partner. Ask your partner about each word.
E.g. Are you gentle? Are you outgoing? Etc.
- For each row, say sentences for each person. Follow the example.
Example: I am somewhat forgetful. My best friend is quite forgetful. You are not really forgetful.
- Drill: How fast can you say all the sentences in the chart? Time yourself, and write the answer in Time #1.
- Now try two more times. Try to increase your speed with each attempt.
Time #1 ____ Time #2 _____ Time #3 ______
For the Teacher
The above exercises are drills. These are activities which give learners ample practice with specific grammar and vocabulary to increase both fluency and accuracy. Draw students’ attention to the grammar that they are practicing. In this case, it is using the correct Be verb (am, is, are) with different subjects. When doing the final drill assignment, the target grammar should be perfect. If a student makes an error, she should repeat that sentence. If possible, complete a chart with a volunteer student and model the activity. Make it clear to the students that the purpose is NOT to be faster than their partner. The purpose is to increase their own speed and accuracy. This lesson coordinates well with Book 1 Unit 1 of Now We’re Talking.
Learning Grammar after the Grammar Class Ends
“Grammar instruction, no matter how well designed, is unlikely to achieve immediate success.”
–Rod Ellis
There are two challenges for grammar learning and teaching. The first is remembering what was learned in class. Even though a student might learn the rule well enough to ace a grammar test, the memory of the rule is highly likely to fade from memory several weeks or months after the language course is completed. Teachers who have students continue from one semester to the next experience this often.
Another issue with grammar learning is being able to use what was learned in the classroom outside the classroom. When speaking with someone in ‘real life’ outside the classroom, the learner has a lot of things to keep in mind as she communicates. She needs to check her comprehension of what was said to her, think of the content of her response, the needed vocabulary (and how to pronounce it) and all the necessary grammar points as well. When attempting to communicate successfully, grammar tends to receive the lowest priority among the above. Grammar needs to be deeply internalized if the speaker hopes to use it correctly in spontaneous speech. The classroom can rarely give enough time for this process to happen.
With these challenges in mind, learners need strategies to continue to improve their grammar skills after their English classes are finished. Here are three suggestions for language learners.
- Extensive reading
- Continued explicit study
- Becoming “Grammatical”
Extensive Reading
I’ll have another post on extensive reading in the future (until then, this video can give a good overview), but in brief, here are the three components:
- Reading at least 20 minutes a day
- Reading books that are easy enough to understand without using a dictionary more than a few times per page
- Reading books that are enjoyable
How can this kind of reading help your grammar? Over time, extensive reading gives learners massive exposure to correct forms of grammar. In this way, learners develop a ‘sense’ of the language that is difficult, if not impossible, to get solely through explicit instruction. This exposure to the language also reinforces what the students have learned in the grammar classroom. Indeed, there are a number of second language scholars that claim this kind of practice is crucial for language mastery (Licthman & VanPatten, 2021).
Continued explicit study
Though students can learn a lot of grammar through extensive reading, there will be some grammar forms that are missed. This means students will need to find a way to directly study grammar on their own. One way to do this is for learners to keep their grammar books from their most recent ESL class and periodically review a chapter or two from time to time. There are also a number of quality YouTube videos that teach grammar.
Writing can also be a good way to help learners continue on their path to language mastery. Grammar check software that comes with all popular word-processing programs (Grammarly is particularly helpful) can give learners immediate feedback on grammar issues they may have. It is true that sometimes grammar checking software is incorrect, but most of the time, the suggestions are helpful.
Becoming ‘grammatical’
The last suggestion is becoming ‘grammatical.’ Rod Ellis, long considered one of the leaders of the field in learning and teaching grammar, coined the expression ‘grammatical.’ As Ellis writes, “grammar teaching needs to emphasize awareness of how grammatical features work rather than mastery. Learners who are aware of a grammatical structure are more likely to notice it when they subsequently encounter it. Thus, awareness can facilitate and trigger learning; it is a crutch that helps learners walk until they can do so by themselves.”
For the learner, this means occasionally taking the time to analyze the language encountered outside the language classroom. Learners can compare the language they read or hear with what they understand about English grammar. When noticing the text or native speaker saying something a little differently than they expect, the learner should investigate further. Native speakers rarely correct a learner’s mistakes, but when asked, most are happy to let the learner know how to say something correctly.
Grammar mastery is a long process. The number of hours spent in a classroom cannot come close to the total amount of time needed to become native-like. None of the above suggestions is a quick fix for learning, but following these practices for a few years will make a significant difference.
Sources
Black Cat Channel. (2019). What is Extensive Reading? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IVVjwq5rBg
Ellis, R. (2003). Becoming grammatical. Language Teaching & Learning, 7, 124-232. https://www.impactseries.com/grammar/becoming.html
Licthman, K. & VanPatten, B. (2021). Was Krashen right? Forty years later. Foreign Language Annals, 54(2) 283-305. https://doi.org/10.1111/flan.12552