Practical tools for learning and teaching grammar

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Revision of nouns
Many of the activities are suitable for homework. They should 
always provide an expansion or consolidation process following 
class work. For example, words could be picked during class time 
for sentences to be written at home, or skits may be written for 
acting in school.
1.5 Activities: revision of nouns
These activities are very popular.
1. Have a large number of small cards (say 5 x 6 cm) with nouns 
from every category printed, one on each. The cards are placed in 
a container in the centre of the group. Students in turn take one 
card from the container, read the word aloud and say which kind of 
noun it is, common, proper, collective or abstract.
If the answer is correct, the student keeps hold of the card, if not 
it is returned to the container. The student or team who claims the 
most correctly answered cards wins.
2. Students in turn take one card (or a given number) from the 
container. They write the word in their exercise book, name the 
category and write a sentence using it correctly. They underline the 
noun. This activity can also be done orally. It keeps the class alert!
bones 
common noun My dog loves to chew 
bones
.
heat 
abstract noun
We felt the 
heat
as the hut burnt down.
3. Students are presented with a passage from a story they are reading 
and point out or write down the nouns they can find in it.
NOUNS
common
proper
collective
abstract
joy
fame etc.
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nouns

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Things we can say about nouns
At the risk of offending some scholars, it seems pedantic to insist 
on the retention of Latin and Greek plurals for common words 
which are clearly now part of our language, just as many words 
absorbed from other languages over past centuries now conform 
to English usage.
It seems therefore logical that the plural of 
curriculum
and 
syllabus
should be 
curriculums
and 
syllabuses
. But both forms are 
acceptable and should not be corrected.
Greek and Latin for medical, botanical and other scientific 
terms is favoured and the unscholarly person’s answer to this is to 
come up with everyday readily recognisable names, such as dove 
(Greek 
ptilinopus
) and daylily (
Hermerocallis
).
Number
Number tells us whether there is just one thing or more than one. 
In English the formation of plurals is simpler than in many other 
languages.
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GrAMMAr for eVerYone
My dog loves to chew bones.

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It is a good idea, especially for younger and ESL students, to 
explain the various ways in which we make plurals, as they can 
cause some confusion.
1. For most nouns, we just add ‘s’ to form the plural. 
For example: 
one hat 
two hats
one fire 
five fires
2. For some words it is difficult to add ‘s’ alone – try saying 
box
with just ‘s’ on the end. For such words, we insert the vowel 
sound ‘e’ for ease of pronunciation.
For example: 
one box 
two boxes
one lunch two lunches
3. Although our language has been simplified in many ways over 
time, some old forms have stayed, largely due to earlier pro-
nunciation. Among these are a number of words in which the 
inside vowel changes between singular and plural. These just 
have to be learnt.
For example: 
one man
two men
one mouse three mice
4. We also have plurals made by adding ‘en’.
For example: 
one chick 
ten chickens
one ox 
a team of oxen
Other examples of irregular plurals include:
child
children
die
dice
leaf
leaves
sheep 
sheep 
woman
women
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nouns

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foot
feet
goose 
geese
ESL students need to learn these especially, as they may not be 
familiar with hearing them spoken.
Gender
Gender is a grammatical term for classifying nouns according to 
masculine, feminine or neuter. The classification is largely irre-
levant in English, which does not attribute gender to inanimate 
objects. Many languages do, however, for no obvious reason.
For example: 
in French we have 
la chaise
(feminine) meaning chair
but 
le tabourer
(masculine) meaning stool
la pierre
(feminine) meaning stone
but 
le roc
(masculine) meaning rock
Note, too, how the article (the word for ‘the’) in these examples 
has a feminine and a masculine form. We are fortunate then that 
the English gender generally speaks for itself and we have few 
alternative forms. Many former distinctions have become blurred 
in modern times, even politically incorrect, so that we seldom refer 
to an actress or an authoress as opposed to actor or author. In some 
respects this is a pity as a ‘unisex’ term provides less information.
1.6 Activities: number and gender
These exercises are particularly useful for young children and ESL 
students and provide useful spelling practice, too.
1. Students make two columns, headed Singular and Plural, in their 
grammar exercise books. Dictate words which the students write 
in the appropriate column. They then add the counterpart of each 
word in the other column. Useful words for this exercise include 
those that sound like plurals such as: 
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GrAMMAr for eVerYone

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loops, men, maze, jacket, tax, hose, coach, children, mouse, fleas, 
doses
2. The same activity can be used to practise gender, adding a third 
column for ‘Neuter’ and a fourth for ‘Either’ (masculine or feminine), 
for example: