GSE Teacher Toolkit: Planning a communicative grammar lesson

Sara Davila
Sara Davila
Teacher stood at the front of the class writing on a interactive whiteboard
Okuma zamanı: 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 GSE Teacher Toolkit 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 gerundives 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 Pearson

  • A woman on a laptop with headphones on and writing down on paper
    Are online checks reliable for English tests?
    By Alice Bazzi
    Okuma zamanı: 3 minutes

    Identity verification is one of the most critical steps in any English language test. For institutions and governments, the question is clear: can online ID checks really be trusted? With modern technology, the answer is simply yes. And, in many cases, they are even more robust than manual checks. 

    PTE Express uses advanced biometric verification, combining facial recognition with real-time ID validation. Candidates are required to present official identification, which is cross-checked using automated systems that detect inconsistencies, fraudulent markers and different forms of tampering. 

    What makes this approach particularly powerful is the consistency. Unlike human-led checks, which can vary depending on conditions, staff training or volume, AI-driven verification applies the same rigorous standard to every candidate. 

    Additionally, liveness detection technology ensures that the person taking the tests are physically present and not using any static image or recording. This eliminates common fraud risks that are associated with impersonation.

  • two business people sat together talking
    How to motivate employees to learn a new language
    By Charlotte Guest
    Okuma zamanı: 4 minutes

    Global business has made multilingual communication more valuable than ever, but simply offering language training doesn't guarantee that employees will use it. Many organizations invest in language learning programs only to see participation decline after the first few weeks as workloads increase and priorities shift. The most successful companies recognize that motivation, not just access to training, is what drives results. 

    The key is to make language learning relevant, social and easy to incorporate into the working week. Here are some ways that managers and HR teams can encourage long-term engagement.

    Link learning to career development

    Employees are more motivated when they understand why learning a language matters. Explain how language skills can support promotions, international projects, business travel or working with global clients. Include language development in performance reviews or personal development plans to reinforce its value.

    Schedule time for learning

    Busy schedules are one of the biggest barriers to learning. Consider setting aside 30 minutes each week for employees to complete lessons during work hours. This demonstrates that learning is part of the company's culture rather than an extra task to fit in after work.

    Make learning social

    People are more likely to stay motivated when they're learning together. Try activities such as:

    • Weekly lunchtime conversation clubs where employees practice speaking in a relaxed setting
    • "Language Buddy" schemes that pair learners for short practice sessions.
    • Team vocabulary challenges, where departments compete to learn themed business phrases each week. These activities encourage accountability while making learning more enjoyable.
  • Students sat together at a table working together
    Mind the gap in your English lesson planning
    By Ehsan Gorji
    Okuma zamanı: 4 minutes

    Professional English teachers love lesson planning. They can always teach a class using their full wardrobe of methods, techniques and games, but a detailed plan means they can deliver a richer and more modern lesson – after all, a teacher usually plans using their full potential.

    Whenever I observe a teacher in their classroom, I try to outline a sketch of their English lesson plan according to what is going on. I am careful to observe any "magic moments" and deviations from the written plan and note them down separately. Some teachers seize these magic moments; others do not. Some teachers prepare a thorough lesson plan; others are happy with a basic to-do list. There are also teachers who have yet to believe the miracles a lesson plan could produce for them, and therefore their sketch does not live up to expectations.

    The "language chunks" mission

    After each classroom observation, I'll have a briefing meeting with the English teacher. If the observation takes place in another city and we cannot arrange another face-to-face meeting, we'll instead go online and discuss. At this point, I'll elicit more about the teacher's lesson plan and see to what extent I have been an accurate observer.

    I have found that Language Inspection is the most frequent gap in lesson planning by Iranian teachers. Most of them fully know what type of class they will teach, they'll set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely) objectives, consider the probable challenges, prepare high-quality material, break the language systems into chunks and artistically engineer the lesson. Yet, they often do not consider how those language chunks will perform within a set class time – and their mission fails.

    The Language Inspection stage asks a teacher to go a bit further with their lesson planning and look at the level of difficulty of various pieces of content in the lesson. Is there enough balance so that students can successfully meet the lesson objectives? If the grammar, vocabulary and skills are all above a student's ability, then the lesson will be too complex. Language Inspection allows a thoughtful teacher to closely align the objective with the difficulty of the grammar, vocabulary and skill. Like a train running along a fixed track, Language Inspection can help make sure that our lessons run smoothly.

    Lesson planning made easy with the GSE Teacher Toolkit

    If a lesson consists of some or many language chunks, those are the vocabulary, grammar and learning objectives we expect to become learning outcomes by the end of the class or course. While Language Analysis in a lesson plan reveals the vocabulary, grammar and learning objectives, in Language Inspection each chunk is examined to determine what they really do, how they can be presented, and – more importantly – to assess the learning outcomes required.

    The Global Scale of English (GSE) Teacher Toolkit can be a teacher's faithful lesson-planning companion, especially when it comes to Language Inspection. It's simple to use, yet modern and exciting. It is detailed and delivers everything you need.

    To use it, all you need is an internet connection on your mobile phone, tablet, laptop or PC. Launch the GSE Teacher Toolkit and you'll have the ability to delve into the heart of your lesson. You'll be able to identify any gaps in a lesson – much like seeing the gap between a train and a platform's edge.

    Ask yourself questions such as:

    • Does this grammar form belong in this lesson?
    • Do I need to include some vocabulary to fill this gap?
    • Is it time to move forward because my students are mastering this skill earlier than expected?

    The GSE Teacher Toolkit gives you the ability to assess your lesson for these gaps – whether small or large – in your teaching. By doing this, you can plan thoughtfully and clearly to better support your students. It really is an opportunity to "mind the gap" in your English lesson planning.