Grammar practice exercises do not necessarily have to be written ones, and should not deal with grammar at sentence level only; there is a necessity to provide whole context. Practice activities can include drills, interactive activities, including information gap with input provided by the teacher or learner-based activities where input is derived frorh learners, and games.
11.2.5.3.1. Drills
“The aim of a drill is to give students rapid practice in using a structural item” (Harmer, 1986:41). Their advantage is that any mistakes madę by the students can be corrected and this way, simultaneously, learners are encouraged to concentrate on difficulties. Unfortunately, drills are often not very creative, therefore they ought not to be overused or continue too long. Drills are fairly mechanical activities used for practising a specific language item in a controlled way; they help to practise the rules, help to gain accuracy and ability to build up certain structures mechanically. There are various types of drills (based on Haycraft 1978')::
• repetition drill - repetition after the model sentence exactly the same structure or intonation; it is completely mechanical and can be done absent-mindedly,
• simple substitution drill - model sentence is given and some other word(s) to substitute in a given place in the model sentence, students are reąuired to substitute a single item only, e.g. “Did you see that car?” — a piane — “Did you see that piane?”, etc.,
• variable substitution drill - both the model sentence and the prompts are given, students are reąuired to carry out desired changes not simply substituting items but also adopt form where necessary, e.g. “I was at school” - he - “He was at school” - they - “They were at school”, etc.,
• progressive substitution drill - teacher gives the model sentence and then prompts which need to be used in different parts of the newly formed sentence, this reąuires thinking and alteration of other words as well, e.g. the model sentence: “If he shouts, I will be angry” - Mary - “If Mary shouts, I will be angry” - smoke - “If Mary smokes, I will be angry” - they - “if Mary smokes, they will be angry” etc.,
• response practice - question - answer activities, e.g. Do you live in Poland? Yes, I do. / No, I do not. (No, I don’t).
• transformational drill / conversion - these are used to practise changes, changing affirmative sentences into ąuestions or into negatives, indirect statements into direct, direct statements into indirect, active voice sentences into passive, passive voice into active, present tense into past, etc. (based on Byrne 1986),
• sentence modifications:
a) expansion — given a sentence and an additional word, it has to be inserted into the sentence in the proper place, e.g.: She left the house early + rarely = She rarely left the house early.
b) deletion - some elements are deleted from the sentence, e.g. not - They haven’t got any coffee - They have some coffee; She didn’t come - She came,
c) completion - completing a sentence, e.g. If I see him, I’11 tell
him. If I saw.........- If I saw him, I’d tell him,
11.2.5.3.2. Interaction activities
These activities are designed for students to work together in order to exchange information in an interesting way, they are purposeful, meaningful and enjoyable and so break monotony of drilling. Information known to one student can be slightly different from the partner’s and so they must complete the task by asking ąuestions and exchanging information (information gap activity), students can be presented with charts which have to be filled by asking ąuestions to each other. These activities can make use of cue cards, charts, maps, tables, forms etc. (based on Harmer 1986, Harmer 1991).
11.2.5.3.3. Games
Various kinds of games have been used in language teaching for a long time and they are really useful for grammar work. Games sucli