Subject-Verb Agreement Exercises for ESL Learners
Subject-verb agreement is an essential grammatical rule that ESL learners must master to communicate effectively in English. It refers to the agreement between the subject and the verb in a sentence in terms of number and person. For example, in the sentence “She sings beautifully,” “she” is the singular subject, and “sings” is the singular verb that agrees with it. To ensure that your students have a solid grasp of this concept, here are some useful subject-verb agreement exercises for ESL learners.
1. Matching Exercise
This exercise involves matching the subject to the correct verb. For example, the teacher can provide a list of singular and plural subjects, such as “bird,” “cat,” “dogs,” and “children,” and ask the students to match them with the corresponding singular or plural verb, such as “sings,” “meows,” “bark,” and “play.” This exercise helps students identify the correct verb form for each subject and reinforces the rule that a singular subject takes a singular verb, and a plural subject takes a plural verb.
2. Fill in the Blank
In this exercise, the teacher can provide a sentence with a blank space where the subject or verb should go. The students need to choose the correct subject or verb to complete the sentence. For example, “The _____ are playing in the park.” The students need to choose the correct plural subject, such as “children” or “dogs,” and the correct verb, such as “are playing.” This exercise helps students practice identifying subject-verb agreement in context.
3. Error Correction
In this exercise, the teacher can provide a sentence with an incorrect subject-verb agreement and ask the students to correct it. For example, “The dogs was barking in the park.” The students need to identify the error and correct it by changing the singular verb “was” to the correct plural verb “were.” This exercise helps students develop their proofreading skills and reinforce the correct grammar rule.
4. Dialogue Practice
In this exercise, the teacher can provide a dialogue between two characters that includes subject-verb agreement errors. The students need to read the dialogue and identify the errors, then rewrite the dialogue with the correct subject-verb agreement. For example, “A: Me and you is going to the movies tonight. B: Yeah, we is.” The students need to identify that “Me and you” should be “You and I,” and “is” should be “are.” This exercise helps students practice identifying and correcting subject-verb agreement errors in conversation.
By using these subject-verb agreement exercises, ESL learners can improve their grammar skills and communicate more effectively in English. These exercises can be adapted to different levels of proficiency and can be incorporated into various lesson plans to reinforce this critical grammatical concept.