How and Why to Teach Children Grammar with Games

Teach Children Grammar with Games


Four sound reasons to teach grammar with games

  1. Arif Saricoban and Esen Metin, authors of “Songs, Verse and Games for Teaching Grammar” explain how and why games work for teaching grammar in an ESL classroom. They say, “Games and problem-solving activities, which are task-based and have a purpose beyond the production of correct speech, are the examples of the most preferable communicative activities.” They go on to explain that grammar games help children not only gain knowledge but be able to apply and use that learning.
  2. Additionally, games have the advantage of allowing the students to “practice and internalise vocabulary, grammar and structures extensively.” They can do this because students are often more motivated to play games than they are to do desk work. Plus, during the game, the students are focused on the activity and end up absorbing the language subconsciously. One can also add that fun learning games usually contain repetition, which allows the language to stick.
  3. While games are motivating for the students, probably the best reason, according to Saricoban and Metin, to use games is that “the use of such activities both increases the cooperation and competition in the classroom.” One can use games to add excitement through competition or games which create bonding among students and teacher.
  4. Aydan Ersoz, author of “Six Games for the ESL/EFL Classroom” also explains more reasons why games do work for teaching grammar. Learning a language requires constant effort and that can be tiring. Ersoz says games can counter this as because:

    * Games that are amusing and challenging are highly motivating.
    * Games allow meaningful use of the language in context.

Children are more motivated to learn grammar with games

The theory of intrinsic motivation also gives some insight as to why teaching grammar through games actually works. Intrinsic motivation refers to the internal factors that encourage us to do something. Most young learners will not internally decide that they want to learn grammar. They don’t yet understand the concepts of why it’s important to know proper grammar, so these external factors won’t affect them much either. Instead, intrinsic motivation can lead encourage them to play games. If these games are good then they will be learning while they are playing.


What kinds of games work best?

When you are looking for games to use in your classroom, don’t just pick something to be a “time filler” which does not have a definite linguistic outcome. These games may entertain the students, but when you don’t have much time with them each day as it is, you want your game to do double duty to get the most out of the time you spend playing games.




Written by Shelley Vernon
Shelley has helped 1000s of teachers be an inspiration to their pupils and achieve results 2x as fast. Improve the effectiveness of your lessons by up to 80%. Receive free English language games now on


  1. Jairo

    First of all, I have to tell you that what I have read is a very interesting article not only for me as English Teacher and Head of English Department of my school but also for all of my partners who obviously will get it tomorrow morning in our weekly teacher meeting.

    Second, the ideas shown here are demonstrating that teaching English grammar in this way allows teaching and learning to be very easy and fun for our kids and teenagers.

    Thanks a lot for this article!

  2. Adrian, Costa Rica

    Thank you for your insightful ideas! Grammar is completely necessary in the language learning process, and by doing it this way it makes it quite appealing to our students!

  3. Hilal (CELTA Trainee)

    I totally agree with your approach towards teaching grammar in a fun way! I try to introduce grammar using pictures. Some of my students think that Grammar is a Big MONSTER!

  4. Dr Scaria

    We all know that games are a very good means for teaching. But I would like to get good concrete, ACTION GAMES FOR TEACHING ENGLISH FOR HIGHER CLASSES.

  5. debbie wong

    I agree with your approach and am waiting for some ideas from you. Thank you for your effort and help.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.