Tenses are often an area of difficulty. Different languages represent tense in different ways and so this may not come naturally to children. It is important to expose children to a range of tenses in context.

·      Character and animal descriptions are a good way to practise present simple tense.

·      Stories are a good way to practise past tense.

·      Newspaper articles use a range of tenses and are helpful as a way of exploring when different tenses are appropriate.

·      As levels of English progress, introduce more tenses through reading examples of good writing before beginning writing. An author may use past perfect continuous to create an interesting opener to set the scene: ‘I had been walking along the dark cold dirt track for many hours when I eventually caught sight of the glowing light.’ These are good opportunities to introduce different tenses in context.

·      There are lots of good display resources that can help children visualise tenses, and games where they can practise using different tenses e.g. Present simple and present continuous | LearnEnglish Kids (britishcouncil.org)

Some languages do not use articles, so children would be likely to miss out ‘a/the’. Adding articles to word lists/display can be really helpful. There are good display posters and websites that help to explain the concept:

Articles | LearnEnglish Kids (britishcouncil.org)

Articles: 'a', 'an', 'the' | LearnEnglish (britishcouncil.org)

Articles: A Complete Grammar Guide | Grammarly

Remember that plurals (houses, sheep, puppies…), pronouns (he, she, his, her…) and prepositions (in, on, before, after…) can be confusing.

·      Plurals can be incorporated into spelling activities, literacy display and some matching games where children match the singular to the plural.

See The plural game: Activity for preschoolers - BBC Tiny Happy People Plurals Board Game (teacher made) - Twinkl and many more examples online (try to add visuals to games to give context to vocabulary).

·      Prepositions can be supported through good models, games, display etc. Some examples include:

§ Play barrier games where players have to describe the position for their partner to place objects.

§ There are also many good examples of posters and display that illustrate prepositions.

§ See Preposition Board Game (teacher made) - Twinkl and many more examples online.

§ Visual guides to prepositions of place and time are also helpful.

§ Learn the prepositions of place including in, at and on in English - BBC Bitesize

·     Pronouns can be supported in similar ways.

§ Display a picture of each character with the associated pronouns that refer to them.

§ See Possessives: pronouns | LearnEnglish (britishcouncil.org)

Word order in other languages is not always the same as English. Some languages are also more flexible in where words can be placed. Children may not be aware of the difference at first and may translate literally into English, so may make some errors e.g. ‘the house red’ instead of ‘the red house’. Even when children are aware that there is a difference, it can take time to become consistently accurate, and even longer for them to transfer that accuracy to writing.

·       When writing, children will be having to think about what they want to say, how to say it in English and then how to physically write it (possibly in a different alphabet/writing system). There is a lot to think about.

·       Encourage children to read what they have written as they may be able to spot some errors if they are beginning to become aware of the differences between English and their first language.

·       You can support children in learning word order using pre prepared ‘Sentence makers’. Use cut up words to form sentences. Colourful semantics is an excellent way of visualising where words should come in a sentence.

·       See What is Colourful Semantics? - Answered - Twinkl

Colourful Semantics: A teacher's guide (structural-learning.com)

·       If children are literate in their first language they could even try comparing the order of words in both languages.

·       If you are interested in learning more about the differences between English and other languages, Learner English (Swan & Smith) is an interesting read.