Cartoon Grammar

Can’t get enough of comics like Grammarman? Or conversely, comics per se are not really up your (or your students’) alley? How about some classic cartoons – featuring Road Runner and Wyle E. Coyote – to practice first present continuous and then past simple?

The same mind that created Grammarman has also found a fun and engaging way to adapt popular cartoons to practice tenses.

I confess: I don’t think of myself as a Saturday morning cartoon viewer, but it’s fun and not to mention nostalgic (I guess I watched a few) to watch these two characters antagonize each other, fall of cliffs, attempt to blow out dynamite and so on.

How and why is it good for students? First of all…because it’s engaging! I feel confident that a wide variety of students will be draw to watch. Second, the cartoons provide a context for the sentences – students need to not just have practice adding -ed to the end of a verb – or reciting irregular verbs – but to tie them to real situations. Finally, these cartoons are adapted so that students aren’t reliant on the teacher to give them examples or even hold up cards with the prompts – the prompts are in the video itself.

Two thumbs up for two adapted cartoons. Visit www.Grammarmancomic.com for other fun ideas.