Llengua anglesa a secundària. Competència digital

The Grammar Aquarium is part of Auto-English, an excellent page that contains free online and print-out exercises. Although there are exercises for all levels, it is 2nd cycle and Batxillerat students who will take good advantage of it. Besides the Aquarium, watch out also the different sections under Exercises: idioms (The idiom jungle), mistakes (The boo boo desert), phrasal verbs (The phrasal verb picnic), vocabulary (The vocab pool) and writing.

• Go to http://www.autoenglish.org/freeexercises.htm. We’re going to have a look at the different kinds of exercises available at this site.

All the exercises are classified according to grammar topic. We’ll start by doing some questions. Scroll down the page until you find the section, or choose Questions from the menu on the left hand side.

• Let’s begin with the Auxiliary verbs in questions. Choose Online (the print-out version is an good alternative if you do not have access to the computer room). This exercise is a multiple choice. Read the sentence and choose the auxiliary that best completes it by clicking on the letter. Move on to the next sentence by clicking on the arrow.

When the ten sentences have been completed, the program shows the score.

Click on this bar at the top of the page to go back to the exercise menu.

• Now click on No auxiliary verb online. This time, you must fill in the blanks with the correct auxiliary, only where it is required. The affirmative sentence will help you decide which auxiliary is best in each case.

In case of doubt, the Hint button at the bottom of the page

It will help you by providing the first letter of the correct word. When you finish, check to get your score.

• Passive questions is a short-answer quiz where active questions must be turned into passive ones by writing the missing words in the space provided.

Click on the arrow to go to the next sentence.

Click on Check before you move on to the next sentence.

Click on Show answer or Hint if you need help.

• In Word order in questions you must drag and drop the words in the correct order on the lines. This time, the Hint button tells you which word is the next in the question.

The arrow on the right takes you to the next question.

• Finally, we are going to try a crossword puzzle. Go down the page to TENSES, Past simple: irregular verbs - past simple and past participle. You wil get the following screen:

To enter the words, click on the number. This will show you a clue and a blank to write the verb. When you click on Enter, the word will be added to the grid. If you need help, the Hint button will give you the first letter. Check to get your score.

• Methodology. The students work in pairs at each computer. You might suggest that they have a grammar reference website or a dictionary minimized in another window, to which they can turn to if they get stuck.
• Timing. These activities can be done in one session in the computer room, at the end of a unit, as a way of doing some revision.
• Complementary material. Keep your students’ records in a worksheet fitxa.

Other good pages with exercises at a similar level are

http://www.englishpage.com, Free online English lessons & EFL resources.

http://www.usingenglish.com, Resources for Students Learning English: nearly 400 grammar and vocabulary quizzes, articles on English usage and grammar reference.