Grammar Through Context: Moving Beyond Gap-Fill Exercises

If you ask me, I would like to teach you grammar. I even have some favourite topics that I am confident in teaching. 

What makes me even more excited is creating or adapting tasks for my students. It can be tiring, time-consuming, and you might not have much time for this. 

This is the best part of teaching. Moreover, it may inspire your students to share their thoughts, debate, or even disagree with the answers or the content. How to make it happen? 

By using good practice tasks and activities that are relatable and thought-provoking. The good ones will also include some critical thinking, background knowledge, and other practical skills.

To start with, I’d like to answer the question: “What is context in learning?” And why is everyone obsessed with it?

Context is essential and powerful when chosen and prepared smartly. Usually, it’s a piece of content containing instances of the target language — units that need to be taught.

Instead of simply lecturing students about how everything works, we give them a chance to observe, discover, and then use this context as a model for their speaking or writing practice. 

Needless to say, it also plays the role of a coping and support system for weaker students who need more time to digest everything before producing their ideas independently.

For me, the practice should also be connected to the context, so both controlled and freer stages have a link to what was presented in the clarification stage.

Most modern ESL textbooks already follow this approach, so you can just stick to the book. However, sometimes it’s worth jazzing things up and adding personalised elements and tasks to keep motivation high.

Every single item that is learned must be properly practised to be remembered. Students need to remember the form and how to use it in context. This is why gap-filling, multiple-choice, completion, and other controlled exercises are used.

It’s something you can’t skip because removing it takes away valuable training and memorising opportunities. Moreover, if the groups are mixed-ability, everyone needs the right amount of practice. 

Can you adapt these exercises? Absolutely. Can you make them personalised? Definitely — especially if you know your students well and have a good rapport.

Keep the main forms (transformation, choosing the correct option, etc.), depending on the most challenging part of the grammar point. For example, if you anticipate difficulties with remembering the auxiliary verb be in the Present Continuous, then focus on that point using a variety of short tasks.

Once your students are confident with the target grammar, it’s time to work on fluency. When choosing or creating the freer task — the one where students actively use the new language — think about:

Contextualising Controlled Practice

If you find the practice in the textbook too challenging or confusing, feel free to redesign or create your own.

Example 1 — Present Simple for habits

Example 2 — Add flexibility

Original textbook task: Complete with the verbs in the box. Adaptation: Add 2-3 extra verbs so students have to think critically. Allow more than one possible correct answer and discuss why both could work.

Can work with tenses, adjectives, and more. Example:

Available words: wake up; have breakfast; check emails; take photos; write a post; record videos; meet friends.

After that, you can give longer sentences with extra information and ask students to review them.

As a follow-up or preparation for freer practice, ask students to make their own sentences about their routines.

Contextualising Semi-Controlled and Freer Practice

A smooth transition from accuracy to fluency can be achieved by reusing controlled tasks with a personal twist. For example:

Option A — Classic Interview

Option B — Role-based twist

More Contextualised Practice Ideas

True or False Gossip Game 

Show funny “celebrity news” headlines (real or invented). But before digging into celebrity gossip, think about whether it will be interesting to your students. You can use YouTube video covers or video titles and ask to describe, correct, or decide whether they are real or fake.

Students can practice a good deal of various grammar: tenses, passive voice, adjectives, and others. As an option, ask them to make such headlines about someone they know.

Grammar Detective — Past Continuous vs. Past Simple

Provide a short crime story. Students underline examples of both tenses and then reconstruct the timeline. 

Also, you can jumble it and ask students to put the pieces together and do a peer check. As an option, try to incorporate the true crime story or a film (without any graphic details, of course).

Social Media Caption Fix — Comparatives/Superlatives

Everyone deals with social media now, so why not use it? For instance, give Instagram captions with grammatical mistakes. Students correct them and create a new caption of their own. Or, ask them to make some posts like in a forum or short messages (X or Threads, for instance).

Ask them to choose 1 or 2 and write their own captions. The next step is to share their captions. Their partners should guess the post itself. They can also decide if the captions were detailed and if the language was used efficiently.

Context is the thread that holds the whole grammar lesson together. When the practice — controlled, semi-controlled, and freer—stays connected to the original input, students see the grammar as something alive and useful, not just another set of rules.

And the real magic? When they walk out of the class saying, “I can use this now.”