Courses in ESL (English as a Second Language) must cover a lot of territory in grammar. Because ESL students must understand the rules of English grammar and the multiple exceptions to those rules, an ESL instructor needs to plan effective grammar exercises. Instructors can combine grammar with vocabulary and reading exercises to help students learn spoken and written English as well. Using audio books, videos and pictures can increase comprehension.

Pronunciation Linked to Grammar
Because proper pronunciation is often linked to correct use of grammar, ESL students often need a foundation in English vowel and consonant sounds. Common exercises help students tell the difference between the long and short sounds of each English vowel. Once a student has mastered these, you can lead them to the pronunciation of vowel blends, along with vocabulary words that are exceptions to the vowel-sound rules. Follow these lessons with ones for the sound of consonants. Then teach students how to combine vowels and consonants. Remember that you are building a foundation for higher-level grammar skills. To understand grammar, students will need to practice recognizing English sounds when others speak and then pronounce those sounds themselves when prompted.

Spelling
Teaching spelling in English is more difficult than teaching pronunciation. Linguists suggest that ESL learners have so much difficulty learning to spell English words because of the multitude of rules and the exceptions to each one. To fast-track your spelling exercises, start with the rules that apply to the largest number of vocabulary words that an ESL student will encounter in everyday situations like shopping, banking and traveling around town. Then use games and phonetic exercises that will help them remember tricky rules like the silent "e" and homonyms that trip up many new English speakers.

Parts of Speech
It takes quite a long time for anyone to learn the parts of speech in any language. The first exercises that your students will need are the names of things (nouns) and words that describe actions (verbs). Exercises for these parts of speech are most effective when you use visual cues like pictures, flashcards and videos to reinforce the student's recall. Once students have grasped the present tense of common verbs, you can teach additional tenses. Irregular verbs like "to be" and "to have" will require special exercises to help students understand how to use them in English. Exercises on learning conjunctions, prepositions, adjectives and adverbs are more effective when combined with vocabulary lessons and exercises.

Sentence Construction
Comprehension of spoken and written English requires a good grasp of the rules of sentence construction. ESL students should practice forming complete sentences as soon as their vocabulary includes common nouns and verbs. ESL learners will also learn about punctuation while they are creating simple sentences. Your sentence-construction lesson plans can use visual and auditory exercises. Writing exercises will help students grasp the fundamentals of subject/verb agreement, then progress to expressing complex thoughts.