GSE Teacher Toolkit: Planning a communicative grammar lesson

Sara Davila
Teacher stood at the front of the class writing on a interactive whiteboard
Reading time: 4 minutes

Planning grammar lessons with the GSE Teacher Toolkit

Grammar is one of the core areas of language teaching. Often, new teachers are nervous about teaching it, but sooner or later, all English teachers will have to get to grips with it. Whether you love or hate teaching grammar to your students, the makes planning a successful grammar lesson easier than ever.

When it comes to planning a grammar-focused lesson, there are two main strategies to choose from: a communicative approach or a focus-on-form approach. The communicative approach is more commonly used.

So, let’s have a look at how the GSE Teacher Toolkit can help you plan a communicative grammar lesson that is effective and engaging for your students.

Teaching communicative grammar

When you’re planning a grammar lesson, you want to be sure there is a reason for students to use the grammar point that you’re going to teach. That way, your students will be more motivated to learn the form and practise using it correctly.

Using and applying grammar generally requires producing something. That’s why grammar, as an enabling skill, is often aligned to speaking and writing, the productive skills. When you want your students to use or produce a particular grammar form, you can begin by looking for the associated skills in speaking and writing.

Choosing a skill to teach

Imagine that you have a class that is learning at an A2 level (35 - 40 on the GSE range). You’ll want to help them work towards A2+/B1. So, it’s a good idea to plan lessons around skills that are in your target GSE range to push their progress.

In order to plan an A2+ range speaking class, you can filter the GSE Teacher Toolkit to look in your target learning range for specific skills to teach:

The GSE Teacher Toolkit defaults to showing you objectives from the least difficult to the most difficult. However, you can use the extra GSE Range Filter tool in the results to sort your objectives in order to see the results in order of difficulty. This way, you’ll be able to focus on the more challenging skills. In turn, this will help your students make meaningful progress.

Choose a speaking skill that is in your target learning range. Then, use the drop down arrows to the left of the GSE objectives to check if there are grammar recommendations.

Access our GSE resources

Many of the learning objectives in the GSE Teacher Toolkit are aligned to specific grammar points. This makes it simple to review the grammar points that are related to a specific productive skill such as speaking or writing.

You can use this list to see if there is a grammar point that aligns to your coursebook, simplifying planning. You can also use the list to identify ‘grammar gaps’, where your coursebook might not cover grammar points that your students need to review before they can practise the speaking skill.

Using the grammar tab

If you’d like more detail about a specific grammar point, you can use the GSE Teacher Toolkit grammar search. Just click on the grammar tab. It allows you to search for the grammar point suggested - in this case, gerunds (A gerund is the noun form of a verb that ends in -ing). By doing a quick gerund search, you’ll find the target form:

Using the grammar tab shows that the gerund form is the appropriate level for your A2 class.

The GSE Teacher Toolkit also reveals that as well as the gerund form, there’s a slightly more challenging grammatical skill: using as a complement. You can easily add this to your speaking lesson to push your students just that little bit further.

Planning your lesson

So, with the help of the GSE Teacher Toolkit, you can now plan a grammar-focused lesson using the speaking objective. You can clearly see how the grammar skills will be used to support productive communication during the class:

  • Lesson: I like/I dislike.
  • Learning objective: Students will be able to explain what they love or hate. They’ll be able to describe their interests by using like, love, hate with verb phrases in infinitive forms.
  • Classroom activity: “Find Someone Who” interview activity.

In this lesson, you can help students make progress by using both grammar forms to support the final activity. In the interview exercise, students will produce information in their own words, using the grammar that they have learned.

Here, you’ve created a well-designed lesson that promotes communication using correct grammar. This is why the GSE Teacher Toolkit is such a good resource for teachers. It allows you to quickly and easily align grammar content with learning and planning for communicative success.

Learn about using the GSE in your teaching

Read our blog posts 'Real-world English: How GSE Job Profiles bridge learning and work' and 'How to assess your learners using the GSE Assessment Frameworks'.

More blogs from app

  • A man sat in a living room with books and plants in the background, he is reading a book

    Words that can't be translated into English

    Por Charlotte Guest
    Reading time: 4 minutes

    While English is a rich language, there are some words from other languages that don’t have a direct translation. These words often describe special feelings, situations, or ideas that are deeply connected to their cultures. For example, just as some languages have specific words for different types of weather, other languages have unique words for particular moments or emotions that are hard to explain in English. Here are some interesting examples of untranslatable words that show us the different ways people see the world.

  • A group of business people sat together at a desk

    Harness the power of English for a global competitive edge

    Por Samantha Ball
    Reading time: 7 minutes

    How does increasing English proficiency drive international growth? Read on to find out how future-focused business leaders are gaining a competitive edge globally by investing in English language training.

    The link between English language proficiency and global business growth is indisputable, and this presents leaders with an exciting opportunity to gain a competitive advantage.

  • A teacher with children stood over a globe of the world, with children pointing to it

    Using gamification in teaching: Engage, educate and excite

    Por app Languages
    Reading time: 6 minutes

    In an era where student engagement can be as challenging as the teaching itself, educators are constantly seeking innovative ways to capture attention and enhance learning. Gamification has emerged as a dynamic solution, promising to turn education into a more engaging and enjoyable experience. But what does gamification really entail, and how can it be effectively implemented in teaching? Let’s have a look: