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.