Learning the proper rules and exceptions to the English language is a great challenge for English as a Second Language (ESL) students of any age. Grammar activities in the ESL classroom should be as interactive as possible in order to engage students and encourage them to actively participate in the lesson.

Tense Race

Tailor this activity to suit the proficiency level of an ESL class. Create two sets of identical flashcards using verbs on which your class has been focusing, all written in the infinitive tense (i.e. "to walk"). Divide students into two teams, each with a set of flashcards, which they distribute within the team (one card per student). Call out a vocabulary word and a tense, like "past" or "present progressive".

The students on either team that hold that flashcard must race to the board and write a grammatically-correct sentence using that verb in the correct tense. The first to finish wins their team a point. Continue until each student has raced to the board, then tally up the points to determine the winner.

Guess the Definition

Choose a relatively unfamiliar word from the dictionary and write it on the board. Use the word in a sentence to help give students an idea of what it means, but do not give them the definition. On a piece of paper, students write down what they believe the definition is, along with a guess at the part of speech (noun, verb, adjective). Collect all of the guesses, then read them aloud to discuss. Afterwards, read the actual definition and part of speech from the dictionary, and have students discuss who was closest in their guess.

Grammar Notebook

Give students a notebook that is only for this daily grammar activity. Save five to ten minutes at the end of each lesson that is dedicated to notebook time. Choose an aspect of that days lesson for students to focus on, such as verbs in a particular tense, pronouns or prepositions. Provide students with a writing prompt. Instruct them to use the focus of the day's lesson a certain number of times in their paragraph.

For example, if you spent the lesson working on past progressive tense, give students a prompt such as "What I did over winter vacation," then tell students they must utilize five past progressive verbs in the paragraph.