Grammar-to-go teaching

This year we are learning grammar, and in that occasion we learned about something called “Grammar-to-go”. The purpose of Grammar-to-go is to teach the pupils about grammar without them knowing. According to Hestnes many teachers divide the grammar from the language, and teach them as separate parts. You can say that the real purpose is to unite the two parts, and teach them as one. 

Our group has been practicing our teaching in two 5th grade classes, with around 25 pupils in each class. When we got the assignment, we decided that we wanted to work with grammar before we planned, and used the Grammar-to-go method.  Our practice teacher told us that they had not had much grammar yet, so we saw it as an opportunity for both ourselves and for the pupils. 

Grade: 5th

number of pupils: 25

level: spread (differs alot from top to bottom)

Tid	HVA (skal du gjøre)	HVORDAN	HVORFOR	LÆREMIDLER	NOTAT
15min	Introduction and teacher reading the poem	Rutines: write the goal for the lesson on the white-board   Introduction: The teacher asks the pupils about what they know about poems. Teacher reads the poem “What is sweeter”, then tell them what the poem is about. The pupils are going to translate the poem in pairs.	Activate previous knowledge.	Smartboard	Eskil
10 min	Go over nouns adjectives and rhymes	Talk about nouns, adjectives and rhymes, ask them if they remember what these three words means. Introduce the task: Ask them if they can find nouns, adjectives and rhymes in “what is sweeter”, and invite pupils up to the whiteboard to ring around these three.	Help them identify nouns, adjectives and rhymes. Activate previous knowledge	Smartboard, poem: “what is sweeter”	Karita
15 min	Tasks	The pupils are going to point out the rhymes, adjectives and the nouns in the poem «What is sweeter». When they are done, they are going to fill in adjectives in the poem «Monster» (creative work)	Help the students to easier identify and remember the different word classes in the poem, and remember parts of the poem.
5 min	Ending	Exit notes: The pupils get a piece of paper each where they are going to write five adjectives. At last when they are finished and we gather the exit notes, we then use adjectives to send them out. Eks: -        Everyone wearing something blue can og home. -        Everyone with long hair can go home.	Theis is to see if the goal for the lesson is achieved	Post-it	Helene

 Kilder:  https://en.islcollective.com/resources/printables/worksheets_doc_docx/poems_superlative_adjectives/beginner-prea1-worksheet/16631

The evaluation 

We used our time planing the teaching scheme well, but we struggled to grasp the concept of Grammar-to-go. We had to ask our teacher for some help before we understood what it was all about. Even then we found it hard to plan something so big for so young pupils. We managed to plan something we were pretty happy about, and something we thought would be achievable for both the strong and the weak students. 

We were pretty happy with the teaching scheme and how it went, but we still found some things we could do better. The first thing is that we should have talked more English to the students, we used a lot of Norwegian to explain the tasks. We used grammar terminology like "Nouns and Adjectives" and that was wrong, since we were trying to teach them grammar without them being aware of it. We also could have practiced pronunciation and oral communication, but with only 45 minutes at our disposal, we felt that we had enough for one lesson. For the next lesson we had with them, we let them read their poems into a soundstudio. That way they practiced speaking English and pronunciation. Personally, I agree with my practice teacher, he said that people assume that the pupils hate grammar so we have to make it fun or different (like grammar-to-go). I think that Grammar-to-go could be used on older pupils, because when we used it on 5th graders we found out that too much components is too messy for them. To teach 5th graders about nouns, adjectives, verbs, rhymes, and pronunciation at the same time will only confuse them. Our practice teacher told ut that his pupils seemed to like grammar in both English and Norwegian. All in all I think Grammar-to-go would fit better for older pupils who has had the time to "learn to dislike" grammar. 

The weaker pupils used the colours, because they were the first adjectives they learnt.

The majority of the class managed to write down the five adjectives on the exit notes, but some struggled. The picture above shows a pupil who managed one adjective "Slimy", but writes "Something x4). The levels differs a lot.  

  -Karita Hansen 

Teaching Grammar-to-go

By Helene Lundberg

For the last four weeks, me and my practice group have been teaching two 5th grade classes, with around 25 pupils in each class. We have been working a lot with grammar, and during one lesson we practiced grammar-to-go. This lesson lasted for 45 minutes, and our aim for the pupils were to teach them adjectives. The pupils were working with adjectives through poems, marking adjectives in one poem and then creating their own poems.

«What is Sweeter?»

Honey is sweeter than sugar,
Coffee is stronger than tea,
Juice is better than water,
You can’t be smarter than me.

A peach is sweeter than a cake,
A sea is deeper than a lake,
A boy is noisier than a bee,
A girl is shorter than a tree.

Peaches are softer than apples,
Carrots are better than rice,
Oranges are bigger than lemon,
Nothing is colder than ice.

During the lesson, the pupils were supposed to find adjectives in one poem and later create their own poems by using adjectives. Eskil began our lesson with introducing the aim of the lesson on the whiteboard and repeating what poems are. Eskil then read the poem and the pupils translated it. Afterwards Karita asked if the pupils remembered what nouns are and asked if they could see any nouns in the first verse. Pupils got to circle the nouns from the poem on the smartboard, and asked if anyone could find the adjectives and circle them as well.

The pupils then worked individually with a worksheet. The first exercise contained finding rhymes, and circling the nouns and adjectives. If pupils were early finished, we asked them to conjugate the adjective from the comparative form to the absolute form. On the other side of the worksheet, exercise two asked them to fill in adjectives into another poem. The pupils began filling in words by themselves, but if we saw that they were struggling we handed them a paper with examples of adjectives. This really helped and encouraged some weaker pupils.

My main role in this lesson was to finish it. The pupils and I looked at the aim written on the whiteboard, “To know at least 5 English adjectives”. Karita and Eskil handed out small notes, and I told the pupils to write down five adjectives on the note. The pupils handed me the notes when they left the classroom. I would say something like “Everyone wearing something green can leave.” or “Everyone with long hair can leave.” In that way I got to use some more adjectives.

  

  

I would say the pupils managed this lesson well, but our practice group did misunderstood some points of grammar-to-go. Grammar-to go is about teaching pupils grammar without them realizing that they are working with grammar. Therefor we did not give the class any lecture on how to conjugate adjectives. As we can see in the two first images, the pupils have only removed the "er" at the end of the adjective in comparative form. Shorter became short, and stronger became strong, other words were more tricky. For the word "better" most of the class wrote "better" or "bett" instead of good. We spoke about this in class after they had worked with the worksheet, and many corrected themselves then. For the word "noisier" almost all pupils wrote "noisi", they just removed the "er". However, for the word "bigger" most pupils wrote "big" instead of "bigg", I think the reason is because "big" is a word they are familiar with, and that they know it is supposed to be written like that. The pupils did reach the aim of the lesson, which was to know at least five adjectives. We checked this by using the exit notes, see the pictures below. Almost everyone in the class wrote down adjectives, I think one or two wrote down a noun as well. Some pupil only wrote down five different colours, while others wrote down adjectives from the poem. 

  

To improve this grammar-to-go lesson there are several things we can do and change. We should not have mentioned any of the word classes by name, like noun and adjective. In that way, the pupils would be less aware that they are working with grammar. During this lesson we could have worked more with pronunciation, but there is a limit with how much you can do with 45 minutes. We did, however, use the next lesson to practice pronunciation and speaking in English. I also think that we could teach them some more about adjectives and how to conjugate them. It would perhaps make more sense to the pupils why the adjectives in the first exercise was written in comparative. 

I think this lesson scheme worked out well in the class, but I do not think we need grammar-to-go to teach pupils grammar. This class really like grammar, and I therefor do not see any point in hiding it into another lesson theme like poem. We worked with verbs in class, and there were many pupils who told us they loved working with it, even irregular verbs. I give this lesson thumbs up. There are always something to improve, and it was not a great grammar-to-go lesson, but the pupils really enjoyed it. They did not find it too difficult, but challenging enough. I saw several pupils who were really excited about their own "monster-poem". They were reading it with great enthusiasm to each other when they were suppose to pack their bags.  They got to work with poems, grammar and creative work by filling in their own adjectives. I think I still would like to focus more on the grammar and teach the pupils about the word class before they are suppose to practise it. 

Grammar to go with Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf

By: Runa Elisabeth Pettersen Nesje 

In my practice period, Elias and I was in a 7^th grade with 13 pupils, and we had 60 minutes disposal for our lesson. In the class, there were some of the pupils who were struggling a lot with expressing themselves both written and orally in English, so when messages were given, we got one of the stronger pupils in English to translate what the massage was so we would be sure of that all of the pupils understood what was going to happen, so that most of the lesson could be in English. Elias and I decided to use the “grammar to go” strategy when we go the visit from our university-teacher, Kristin. We also decided we wanted to use Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.

Learning grammar in the traditional way is often related to be boring and can be challenging for the pupils. In Hestnes article (2011), she writes about that the traditional method demands a “mature and logical mind”, which not many of the English learners has not yet developed.  The meaning of using grammar to go in class, is to teach the pupils grammar without trying to use the traditional grammar teaching. In grammar to go, you are supposed to teach grammar through a poem or a text

The text we chose to work with is a text we have been working with a lot last semester so we knew it very well. Before we were going to work with it in class, we gave all the pupils a copy each, and read through the text to see if there were any words or expressions the pupils did not understand. We also showed them a short film that was the text made into a cartoon. We thought that maybe this would also give a better understanding of the text for the weaker pupils. 

We started the lesson of with presenting the lesson, what we were going to do, and presenting the goals for the day's lesson, which were: 

- Communicate and cooperate with others in English

- Produce and present a freeze frame

- Identify and conjugate adjectives

- Write a describing text

Elias read the text for the whole class before we started with the activities and tasks. The first activity the pupils were going to do with the text was “freeze frame”. With this activity, the pupils had to discuss the text and communicate in English. We divided the class in two groups, where Elias and I took one groups each. Then we divided the group in two again. Our role was to be sure that the pupils were only communicating in English.

In English, the pupils were working with adjectives, so we decided to continue working on it when we did our grammar to go lesson. When they were done with “freeze frame”, we handed out a sheet with different tasks focusing on adjectives. Without saying adjectives, we called it “words that describes something, like: people, places, animals, things etc.” The task we gave the pupils were to find all the describing words they could find in the text, and after that conjugate them. The last task was to either write your own version of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, write a poem based on Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, or write a short text that describes a character from Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. Most of the pupils got through all of the tasks, and most of them got all the conjugation correct too. And most of the pupils chose on the last task to write their own poem based on the story. When they were done with the tasks, they had been through 4 of the aspects of what should be included if one is to use grammar to go in the classroom, which were:

-          Oral and written work

-          Creative work (writing own poems)

-          Specific grammar topic (adjectives)

-          Reflection on learning

I think the pupils enjoyed the lesson. Especially the task where they were going to either write a poem based on the text or write their own version of the text. Because most of the pupils in the class enjoy reading out loud their own work for rest of the class. At the end of the lesson, we together went through all of the goals for the lesson to see if all of them were accomplished, which they all were. Personally I think that this was in a way better for the pupils to learn grammar than the traditional way on the blackboard, which can over time get boring or confusing.  

Grammar-to-Go with Roald Dahls Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf

By: Elias Stenersen

During our practice period, Runa and I have been teaching English in a 7^th grade consisting of 13 pupils. The English skill level of the class is very widespread. Some pupils have a lower level of English, whilst others have a higher level of English. The pupils at a lower level had problems expressing themselves, reading and understanding texts, and listening and understanding others.

 In the second part of our practice period, we were given the task of making a lesson based on the concept of Grammar-to-Go. Grammar-to-Go is a teaching scheme where one does not teach grammar as a separate part of the language, but you teach it by teaching the pupils grammar by having the grammar in context. This will help pupils see how important grammar is in the English language and they will do so through a more interesting approach. The specific grammatical element we chose to focus on in our Grammar-to-Go lesson was adjectives.

Choice of Text

The text we chose for our Grammar-to-Go teaching scheme was Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf from Roald Dahls Revolting Rhymes. The reason we chose this text was that it is a story that will be intriguing for the pupils as it is a funny twist on a story they already know. Not only does Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf offer funny twists, it also contains end rhymes and many adjectives for them to work with.   

Teaching Scheme

The preparations for the Grammar-to-Go lesson started the week before, when we re-introduced the pupils to adjectives. We did some repetition of how to use adjectives and how to conjugate adjectives. Other preparations included reading the text Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf for the pupils, watching a video related to the text as well as having the pupils read it at home. This was done in order to ensure the pupils were familiar to the text before they were given tasks related to the text. Below is the video we used

At the beginning of the lesson the goals we had set for the lesson were written on the blackboard and we explained them for the pupils. The pupils were then given a copy of the text Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf and a worksheet with grammatical tasks connected to the text. Before they started working on the tasks Runa and I decided that they were going to do a warm-up activity The class was divided into groups and asked to do a freeze frame, where the action in parts of the text are frozen and made into a still photo. The pupils had already tried freeze frame before, so no explanation was needed. Runa and I made sure the pupils only spoke English during the preparation of the freeze frames. We gave them 10 minutes to practice and after that, they performed their freeze frames in front of each other. When they were done performing, they were asked to find their seats and look at their worksheet. Runa and I proceeded to carefully explain the tasks on their worksheet to make sure everyone understood what they were going to do. When explaining the tasks, we were careful to not use words like adjectives, nouns or conjugate. Instead we explained the words, for example: instead of using the word adjective, we would say “a word that describes something”, and instead of using the word conjugate we would say, “writing the words in the three different forms”. After explaining the tasks, they started working independently on their worksheets.

The first and second task that was on their worksheet was connected to the freeze frame they did earlier in the lesson. The first task asked them to create a freeze frame, and the second task the pupils tried to guess where in the story the different freeze frames were from. The other tasks, task three and four, were tasks that focused more on the grammatical aspects of the text. More specifically, on adjectives. In task three, the pupils were asked to identify 10 different adjectives in the text. They were to circle them and then write them down on their worksheet. The fourth task was a basic conjugating task, where they conjugated seven of the 10 adjectives they found in task three. As explained before, the task descriptions did not use words like adjective and conjugate. When they finished all of the tasks they were asked to either write their own version of the text, write a poem based on the text or write a short text where they describe one of the characters or the settings from the text.

Reflection and Evaluation

I believe this Grammar-to-Go session with the pupils was successful, as I felt the pupils actually learned some grammar and it also seemed like they actually enjoyed learning grammar.

The first thing I think we did right was the preparation leading up to the Grammar-to-Go part of the lesson. We did some repetition of nouns, adjectives and adverbs, but had a main focus on adjectives. We also exposed the pupils to the text, as I first read it for the class, they watched a video related to the text and then the pupils got to read the text themselves. Another thing I feel we did well was to not use words like adjective and conjugate, as this could have made the pupils see the tasks as the ordinary and boring grammar tasks they are used to work with.

One thing I feel we could have done better, was that I think we could have created more Grammar-to-Go related tasks for the worksheet. We only made two Grammar-to-Go tasks, because we were unsure about how much time the tasks would require. Based on what I saw during this lesson, the pupils could have done one or two additional tasks. Do not get me wrong, the pupils were working constantly, but more of the work could have been focused on grammar.

After the lesson, we spoke to the university teacher that was observing our lesson. The feedback we got was positive, as she said she saw the pupils were engaged in the lesson and seemed to learn grammar, but at the same time enjoying learning it. We were also given positive feedback from the pupils. During a teacher – pupil conversation, one pupil said that he never thought he would enjoy learning grammar, and that the Grammar-to-Go tasks and text were fun to work with.

I really enjoyed working with Grammar-to-Go in the classroom, and I hope that I will be able to take what I learned from this lesson and use it later on.

Grammar to go with Humpty Dumpty's Song

By Maja Berntsen

Here is the text that we chose to use:

Humpty Dumpty's Song

~Lewis Carroll

In winter, when the fields are white,

I sing this song for your delight.

In Spring, when woods are getting green,

I'll try and tell you what I mean.

In Summer, when the days are long,

Perhaps you'll understand the song.

In Autumn, when the leaves are brown,

Take pen and ink, and write it down.

I sent a message to the fish:

I told them "This is what I wish."

The little fishes of the sea,

They sent an answer back to me.

The little fishes' answer was

"We cannot do it, Sir, because-"

I sent to them again to say

"It will be better to obey."

The fishes answered, with a grin,

"Why, what a temper you are in!"

I told them once, I told them twice:

They would not listen to advice.

I took a kettle large and new,

Fit for the deed I had to do.

My heart went hop, my heart went thump:

I filled the kettle at the pump.

Then someone came to me and said

"The little fishes are in bed."

I said to him, I said it plain,

"Then you must wake them up again."

I said it very loud and clear:

I went and shouted in his ear.

But he was very stiff and proud:

He said "You needn't shout so loud!"

And he was very proud and stiff:

He said "I'd go and wake them, if-"

I took a corkscrew from the shelf:

I went to wake them up myself.

And when I found the door was locked,

I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked.

And when I found the door was shut,

I tried to turn the handle, but-

Grammar to go is suppose to be a more fun way of teaching grammar to the pupils. We had never tried it before and had quite mixed feelings about it before we began testing it out. Tim, Sigve and I had our practice period in the same class. It was a year five class consisting of 28 pupils.

Preparations and introduction

We chose the text ”Humpty Dumpty’s Song” for our grammar to go ”experiment”. Our class had 28 pupils and they were divided in to three different stages in English. Stage one were the weakest, stage two was average and stage three were the strongest pupils.

Introducing the text was something we did quite early. When introducing it we had the whole glass gathered together. We went through the text with the pupils and read it out load together stanza by stanza. This is something that we did at the start of almost every day. Tim, Sigve and I then decided to split up and work with one stage each. I got to work with stage two which was the pupils who was doing alright in English.

First try

The first time I had not planned the lesson well enough. I wanted to read through the entire text with the pupils in my group and translate it to Norwegian to make sure that they all understood all of the words in the text. My group of pupils had a couple of boys who just would not do what they were told which made the whole experience a bit rushed and I noticed that most of the pupils actually found it quite boring. After we had rushed through the song, I made them find all of the words that described something in the text. Some of the pupils went on and happily looked for adjectives in the text whilst others found the task being too hard. Suddenly I had nothing left to do and we still had a lot of time left so we all just decided to end our plan and do something else instead.

Second try

 

(My lesson plan for my second try at grammar to go)

This time I had thought through the lesson a lot better. I started by making the pupils read through the song once more out load. The pupils then got one work sheet each. The work sheet consisted of “Humpty Dumpty’s song” where I had removed all the adjectives and made blank boxes in stead. The pupils then filled in their own adjectives. After they had done this, the ones who wanted to read their version out load got to to that. Then at the end I made different word-class houses on the blackboard and had small notes with different words from the song on, got the pupils to pick a note each, taking turns, and place the work in the correct house on the board. The pupils enjoyed this lesson a lot better than the last one. 

Evaluation

We learned a lot from our first try at grammar to go. We learned that planning is super important, that we had to try to make the tasks more fun (at least for my group with a few pupils who just could not sit still) and have a plan B in case the initial plan goes wrong. So we went back to our planning and made detailed plans for our next try which went a lot better than first time. One mistake we made when using grammar to go was that we did not read the article well enough. We soon got to know from the other groups that we had done a few things wrong such as using terminology when doing the grammar to go programme. I do see the benefits with this, but I honestly do not think that it would have worked with my stage two group. They were already kind of confused when it came to word classes, so messing around with “hidden” grammar would possibly just make them more confused and insecure about it.

However, I can understand that grammar to go might work well with some pupils, but I do not think that it was ideal for that group of pupils at that time. I will hopefully get the chance to try it out again later with different students and a different text and maybe it will work better.  

One thing that I quickly learned was that the pupils loved playing games and puzzles, so making small games or puzzles with grammar was a great way of teaching them grammar. In my group there was a couple of boys who just would not work with grammar in the beginning because they thought it was boring, but when I introduced different games and puzzles, they happily tagged along and it looked like they actually enjoyed it.