(This posting includes a handout which you are welcome to use with your students.)

Here is how you know that a set of grammar exercises looks like fun puzzles to your students. You pass out the handout and start to explain the directions, but before you’ve had a chance to talk, many students begin to do them.

The key to making “grammar puzzles”: use an inductive approach.

The grammar-puzzle / inductive approach works well for helping students correct common mistakes with gerunds.

For a good puzzle to engage someone, there needs to be some mystery and steps to follow to solve it.

(Notice: In this post, I don’t include all the items in the exercise. However, in the links below, you can find the complete exercise that you can download for your students.)

Here is a link to the complete exercise from my book, The Grammar Review Book, that you can download for free and use with your students: Gerund Intro Chapt 21 GRB

In two of my next posts, we’ll continue with The Puzzle Approach to Gerunds
–Prepositions and Gerunds
-Verbs Followed By Gerunds (verb + verb-ing vs Verbs Followed By Infinitives (verb + to + verb)
-Gerunds and Participles

David Kehe
Faculty Emeritus

*About the free-download materials. During my 40 years of teaching ESL, I have had many colleagues who were very generous with their time, advice and materials. These downloads are my way of paying it forward.