GSE Teacher Toolkit: Planning a communicative grammar lesson

Sara Davila
Teacher stood at the front of the class writing on a interactive whiteboard
Reading time: 4 minutes

Planning grammar lessons with the GSE Teacher Toolkit

Grammar is one of the core areas of language teaching. Often, new teachers are nervous about teaching it, but sooner or later, all English teachers will have to get to grips with it. Whether you love or hate teaching grammar to your students, the makes planning a successful grammar lesson easier than ever.

When it comes to planning a grammar-focused lesson, there are two main strategies to choose from: a communicative approach or a focus-on-form approach. The communicative approach is more commonly used.

So, let’s have a look at how the GSE Teacher Toolkit can help you plan a communicative grammar lesson that is effective and engaging for your students.

Teaching communicative grammar

When you’re planning a grammar lesson, you want to be sure there is a reason for students to use the grammar point that you’re going to teach. That way, your students will be more motivated to learn the form and practise using it correctly.

Using and applying grammar generally requires producing something. That’s why grammar, as an enabling skill, is often aligned to speaking and writing, the productive skills. When you want your students to use or produce a particular grammar form, you can begin by looking for the associated skills in speaking and writing.

Choosing a skill to teach

Imagine that you have a class that is learning at an A2 level (35 - 40 on the GSE range). You’ll want to help them work towards A2+/B1. So, it’s a good idea to plan lessons around skills that are in your target GSE range to push their progress.

In order to plan an A2+ range speaking class, you can filter the GSE Teacher Toolkit to look in your target learning range for specific skills to teach:

The GSE Teacher Toolkit defaults to showing you objectives from the least difficult to the most difficult. However, you can use the extra GSE Range Filter tool in the results to sort your objectives in order to see the results in order of difficulty. This way, you’ll be able to focus on the more challenging skills. In turn, this will help your students make meaningful progress.

Choose a speaking skill that is in your target learning range. Then, use the drop down arrows to the left of the GSE objectives to check if there are grammar recommendations.

Access our GSE resources

Many of the learning objectives in the GSE Teacher Toolkit are aligned to specific grammar points. This makes it simple to review the grammar points that are related to a specific productive skill such as speaking or writing.

You can use this list to see if there is a grammar point that aligns to your coursebook, simplifying planning. You can also use the list to identify ‘grammar gaps’, where your coursebook might not cover grammar points that your students need to review before they can practise the speaking skill.

Using the grammar tab

If you’d like more detail about a specific grammar point, you can use the GSE Teacher Toolkit grammar search. Just click on the grammar tab. It allows you to search for the grammar point suggested - in this case, gerunds (A gerund is the noun form of a verb that ends in -ing). By doing a quick gerund search, you’ll find the target form:

Using the grammar tab shows that the gerund form is the appropriate level for your A2 class.

The GSE Teacher Toolkit also reveals that as well as the gerund form, there’s a slightly more challenging grammatical skill: using as a complement. You can easily add this to your speaking lesson to push your students just that little bit further.

Planning your lesson

So, with the help of the GSE Teacher Toolkit, you can now plan a grammar-focused lesson using the speaking objective. You can clearly see how the grammar skills will be used to support productive communication during the class:

  • Lesson: I like/I dislike.
  • Learning objective: Students will be able to explain what they love or hate. They’ll be able to describe their interests by using like, love, hate with verb phrases in infinitive forms.
  • Classroom activity: “Find Someone Who” interview activity.

In this lesson, you can help students make progress by using both grammar forms to support the final activity. In the interview exercise, students will produce information in their own words, using the grammar that they have learned.

Here, you’ve created a well-designed lesson that promotes communication using correct grammar. This is why the GSE Teacher Toolkit is such a good resource for teachers. It allows you to quickly and easily align grammar content with learning and planning for communicative success.

Learn about using the GSE in your teaching

Read our blog posts 'Real-world English: How GSE Job Profiles bridge learning and work' and 'How to assess your learners using the GSE Assessment Frameworks'.

More blogs from ɫèAV

  • Business people sat and waiting in a row

    Boost the quality of your hires with English proficiency testing

    By Samantha Ball
    Reading time: 6.5 minutes

    Hire quality is top of the agenda for recruiters and talent acquisition leaders. Discover the impact of English skill testing on hiring fit-for-role employees.

    The results are in… thousands of recruiting professionals and top talent acquisition leaders say that sourcing high-quality candidates is their number one objective in 2024 and beyond.

    54% of recruiters are now prioritizing quality of hire above all else, according to LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions report . The report also highlights that 73% are using a skills-based approach to find top-quality hires, faster, with skills that fit the business both now and in future.

    Getting recruitment right can drastically impact productivity. In the UK alone, r, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC). Conversely, the direct and indirect costs of mistake hires are a constant concern to organizations, not just in the UK but around the world. According to a survey of 400 hiring decision-makers by , 75% have hired the wrong person and say that one bad hire costs them nearly $17,000 on average. It’s no surprise then that skills-based quality hiring is such a top priority for recruiters.

    It’s harder than it might seem to systematically increase the quality of your hires, especially when you’re recruiting at scale. But the rewards are high when you get it right and a skills-first approach increases your chances of success – particularly when you focus on core skills like English proficiency that underpin communication. As an added bonus, skills-based testing can speed up the recruitment process significantly.

  • Two coworkers discussing some sticky notes on a class window

    Local to global: How English skills unlock a career in leadership

    By Samantha Ball
    Reading time: 4 minutes

    Of the 1.5 billion English speakers in the world, over half learned it as a second or additional language.

    The “language of business”, English has become a foundational skill for anyone looking to work in an international business or at a leadership level, and many English as a Second Language (ESL) speakers find themselves working in English on a daily basis.

    But working in your second or third language comes with a unique set of challenges and opportunities.

    We spoke to five global leaders about the role English has played in their careers, the challenges of being an ESL speaker, and how businesses can create a culture where everyone has a voice.

  • A business woman and man sat at a long table discussing with eachother

    Improving employee engagement: The crucial role of language learning in business

    By Samantha Ball
    Reading time: 8 minutes

    The ways we approach employee engagement are rapidly evolving and changing. For HR professionals and global business leaders, understanding these trends is essential to encourage a motivated, productive, and loyal workforce. A key yet often overlooked aspect of this engagement is the role of language learning and cultural understanding. Failure to adapt to the international market doesn’t just hinder growth—it can lead to significant financial losses.

    This blog post will delve into current employee engagement trends, provide suggestions for improvement, and talk about the importance of language learning and company culture in fostering a thriving global workforce through an effective employee engagement strategy.