in ,

My Grammar Agreement – to teach the concept of subject-verb agreement in a fun manner

Recommended Grades:
Difficulty Level:
Content Type:

Number of Participants: 10+

Setting (Indoor / Outdoor): Any

Estimate Execution Time: 30 mins

To teach the concept of subject-verb agreement in a fun manner.

Coloured sheets, sketch-pens, board and marker

  1. Divide the students into 3 groups. Call the first as ‘Subject’ group, second as ‘Verb group’ and third as ‘Object group’.
  2. Further divide the Subject group into 3 groups. – Simple subjects, Complete subjects and Compound subjects. Give them pink, orange and red A-4 size sheets respectively.
  3. Divide the Verb group into 3 groups- Action verbs, Linking Verbs and Helping Verbs. Give them green, blue and purple sheets respectively.
  4. Further divide Objects group into 2 groups- sentences with ‘object’ and sentences ‘without object’. Give them Black and White sheets respectively.
  5. Ask one student from ‘Subject’ team to choose a word that fits his/her category. For eg:-Child A belongs to category Simple Subject. So, she may choose a subject word ‘Cat’.
  6. Ask her to choose a friend from the verb team. For eg:- She chooses student B from Action Verb category. Ask her to show her coloured sheet with the word ‘Cat’ written on it to him. Now, the first Action Verb that may strike his mind may be ‘eats’. If she is satisfied with this verb as there is an agreement in the Subject and Verb, she will shake hands with him.
  7. If student B is not clear about the concept of Subject-Verb agreement, he may choose the verb ‘eat’. Now she would not shake hands with him, because her ‘subject’ is not in agreement with his ‘verb’. Or even if she shakes hand with the student with the wrong verb, some other student can point out and win bonus points for his team. Another student from the team of verbs may stand up with the correct word on his sheet i.e ‘eats’. Then she will shake hands with him.
  8. Then, they need to find the ‘object’. They will together decide whether or not they need an object. Then they go to team ‘object’ and ask them for an object. If the student from Object team present a slip with say ‘a rat’. Then they can shake hands with him. For eg:- he says ‘milk’. Now a cat cannot eat milk. Or if someone says ‘grass’. A cat cannot eat grass. So, they won’t shake hands.
  9. It is up to the students even if they don’t want to choose an object. In this case the verb would be intransitive verb.
  10. These three students, who shake hands, will form Team A. There will be more such rounds, in which they’ll have to formulate more such sentences. The teacher should ensure that they don’t communicate with each other, except through the A-4 sized sheets, so that they don’t help each other with the answers.
  11. For every correct match they will get a star.
  12. In the 2nd round each team will have to form five more such sentences. They will be likewise marked with stars.
  13. At the end of the 2nd round whichever team has the maximum number of stars will be declared the winner.
  14. If the result is a draw, we can have another round.

This way students can learn the grammar concept of subject -verb agreement in an interesting way.

  1. How did they feel about the learning method?
  1. Set up the activity like a game, to be fun. DO NOT make it stressful for the players such that they feel that they are being tested.

Subject-All verbs have a subject. The subject is generally the person or thing that the sentence is about. It’s often the person or thing that performs the action of the verb in question and it usually (but not always) comes before the verb. (Oxford Dictionary)

Simple Subject– Subject with one word without any modifiers.

For eg:- Ram is reading a book.

Here Ram is the simple subject.

Complete Subject- Subject in which simple subject is combined with modifiers.

For eg:- That girl from St. Stephens college won the competition.

Here ‘That girl from St. Stephens college’ is the complete subject.

Compound subject- When the subject is made up of more than one element, it is called compound subject

Eg:- Gita and Sita were playing with a ball.

Here Gita and Sita is a compound subject.

Object-A person or thing to which a specified action or feeling is directed. (Oxford Dictionary)

Verb-A word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence, such as hear, become, happen.(Oxford Dictionary)

Action Verbs-Action Verbs are the words that express action or possession. They can be Transitive or Intransitive verbs. Transitive verb is the verb which has an object. An intransitive verb is a verb that does not have an object.

Example- Mohan hit the ball.

Here, Mohan is the subject and ball is the object. So, hit is a transitive verb.

It was raining yesterday.

Here,’ was raining’ is an intransitive verb as it does not have an object.

Linking Verbs

A linking verb connects the subject of a sentence to a noun or adjective that renames or describes the subject.

For eg:- Aman became a Mathematics professor at Dyal Singh college.

Here, ‘became’ is a linking verb.

Helping Verb

Helping verb is used before an action or linking verb to give additional information.

For eg:- She is going tomorrow.

Here ‘is’ is a helping verb.

Report

What do you think?

120 Points
Upvote

Leave a Reply

GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings