Copycat Grammar

Purpose:  to reinforce correct grammar by having students copy a model

Prep time:  5-10 minutes

Materials:  white board and markers

Prep:  Based on target grammar you want to teach, make a list of sentences to use as models.  For example, if you’re practicing wh-words and question forms, you could use:

Who likes old movies?  What do you see?  Why are you leaving? 

Procedure:

1) On the board, write a sentence employing the target grammatical construction and draw a box around the word or phrase you want students to copy.  In the following example, draw a box around the word "who":

Who                             likes old movies?

2) Ask students to use the same grammar used in the model sentence, but all the words must be theirs except for the word or phrase in the box.  In the example given, the first word must be “who”, the second word a main verb in present tense, the third an adjective, and the fourth a noun.  You might plan to do some together as a group before asking students to write on their own.  Sample sentences would be: Who enjoys jazz music?  Who loves pepperoni pizza?

3) Without checking for correct answers, ask for volunteers to write their sentences on the board.  Everyone looks at them together and makes corrections.