How do you teach subject-verb agreement and forming sentences in English?
- Dual Dialects
- Aug 19
- 1 min read
How do you teach subject-verb agreement or forming sentencing in English? Teaching subject–verb agreement to ESL students starts with helping them understand that the verb must “match” the subject in number and person. For example, He runs versus They run. Using simple sentences with common subjects (I, you, he, she, we, they) and high-frequency verbs like to be and to have always provides a clear foundation. Visuals, charts, and color-coding can make these patterns more noticeable, especially when students struggle to see the small endings like -s in the third person singular.
Teachers should make sure that practice should be interactive and repetitive. Creating short activities like sentence matching, fill-in-the-blank exercises, or oral drills allow students to apply the rules in context. Having students work in pairs, where one student provides a subject and the other supplies the correct verb, can also help keep the practice engaging. Over time, moving from controlled practice to open-ended speaking and writing tasks helps learners internalize subject–verb agreement as a natural part of their communication.
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