1: Why would I want to use technology to teach grammar? Can’t I just explain grammar to my students in class?
Many teachers (and students) enjoy grammar presentations or explanations and, arguably, it’s important for adolescent and adult students to understand a grammar point before they start to put it into practice. However, having a teacher standing in front of the class lecturing on grammar can be dull. What’s more, grammar could easily be explained to the students before they come to class. For example, you could video record yourself at home, explaining a grammar point to your students. You could even do this using a portable whiteboard, if you think this is more effective. Or you could use free screencast tools like Jing or Screencast-o-matic to video-record your computer screen as you type example grammar sentences into a document, and give an audio explanation about what you are writing. Ask your students to watch your grammar presentation online before they come to class. Valuable class time can then be spent with the students practising the language point in speaking activities. This approach is becoming increasingly popular for teachers and students interested in the ‘flipped classroom’ model.
2: I’m a big fan of dictation as a grammar practice activity. Surely I don’t need any technology to give my students a dictation!
It’s true that dictation is an excellent whole-language activity. The students need to listen carefully to your dictation, and use their knowledge of the language to support what they heard while writing it down – or typing it into a document. But how about using technology to take your dictations outside the classroom? For example, give your students regular dictations (eg once a week) by creating short audio recordings, saving them online, and then asking your students to do the dictations out of class. Imagine you have been working on a specific grammar structure in class. You can then give your students additional out-of-class practice by ensuring that your dictation for that week includes plenty of examples of that grammar point in context. You can create your dictations by using the built-in audio recorder on your mobile phone. Or you could use a free online audio recorder like Vocaroo.
3: Some of my students need extra grammar practice. What additional online grammar materials could I recommend?
If your students have mobile phones, there are self-study apps that focus on learning grammar and vocabulary; they integrate gaming principles by awarding points and stars for correct answers. Some popular self-study apps for smartphones include Duolingo and Busuu. These apps tend to be stronger on user interface than on grammar content, but some students find them motivating and fun to use – and any additional exposure to grammar and vocabulary outside class time can only be a good thing!
4: What about creating my own grammar practice materials? After all, I know exactly what extra grammar practice my students need.
You could create your own grammar quizzes with online tools like Proprofs or QuizWorks. Most quiz creators enable you to create activities that include multiple-choice questions, true/false questions, matching questions, gapfills, etc. Remember that it’s also useful for students to create quizzes for each other as a grammar review activity – you could set this as homework, for example.
5: What about using technology for grammar games in class?
For example, you can use Kahoot! to create games online (or use ready-made games), and get the students to play these games in class with their mobile devices. See https://getkahoot.com/how-it-works. You could also use real-time polling tools to ask questions during class, and to check that the students have understood a grammar point. Good polling tools include Socrative and Poll Everywhere. To use these most effectively in class, create a poll before the lesson. After you have taught a new grammar point, show your poll online with the class projector, and ask the students to use their mobile devices to log in and answer the questions. Many polls allow the students to write short sentences, rather than simply to answer questions. This means you can give your students key words or prompts instead of questions and ask them to type sentences using the new grammar structure.
Whatever technology you choose to use for teaching grammar, make sure it links to the wider aims of your lessons, and that your students are actually learning as a result!
Nicky Hockly is Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E, an online teacher training and development consultancy. She is the prize-winning author of several books about language teaching and technology, most recently Focus on Learning Technologies (OUP). She maintains a blog at www.emoderationskills.com.
