Teaching English grammar is an integral part of any ESL, or English as a second language, course. It is particularly important when teaching a middle school ESL course as it is these grammatical rules and structures that the students will build on in their future studies. The activities and lessons you give in class should reflect the students' language abilities, which are likely to be in the beginner to lower intermediate range.

Article Swatting
Write on each side of the whiteboard the articles, "a" and "an." Arrange the students into two teams and put each team in a line facing the board. Give the first student in each line a flyswatter. Call out a noun such as "elephant." The student at the front of the line must run to the board and hit, with the flyswatter, the correct article, in this case, "an." The first student to do this correctly wins one point for her team. She then returns to her team and goes to the back of the line after handing the fly swatter to the student at the front. Repeat with new nouns for 15 minutes or until the students start to lose interest. The team with the most points win.

Right Or Wrong
Prepare a list of 10 sentences, of which about five are grammatically incorrect. Divide the class into groups of four and give each group two signs, one saying "RIGHT" and the other "WRONG." Read the sentences one by one. After each sentence the groups must raise either their "RIGHT" sign or their "WRONG" sign, depending on whether they feel the sentence is grammatically correct or not. Give each team one point for each correct answer. When you have finished the sentences ask each group to write 10 sentences of their own with, again, about half being grammatically incorrect. Circulate and help each group as necessary. After 10 minutes ask each group, in turn, to read their sentences. The other groups again raise either their the "RIGHT" or "WRONG" sign, depending on whether they think the sentence is grammatically correct.

Determiner Sentences
Draw a three-by-three grid on the whiteboard and in each cell write a determiner such as "some," "a few" or "lots." Divide the class into two teams, "A" and "B." Give team A 20 seconds to pick one of the determiners in the grid and use it to form a grammatically correct sentence. Erase the word and replace it with an "X" if it does so correctly. Team B must now pick a determiner and form a grammatically correct sentence in 20 seconds. Erase the word and replace it with an "O" if it does so correctly. Continue until one team has three "O"s or three "X"s in a row. Replace the erased words with new determiners and repeat the activity. Continue for 20 minutes or until the class starts to lose interest.

Tense Test
Prepare a list of 20 sentences with incorrect tense usage such as "I go to the swimming pool yesterday," or "I was sitting in class now." Divide the class into pairs and give each pair these sentences on a sheet of paper. Each pair should identify the mistakes and correct them. After 20 minutes, or when each pair has finished, ask the class to give you the correct answers.