Free ESL Grammar Pre-Assessment for Secondary Teachers

What the pre-assessment does

The check asks twelve original multiple-choice questions spread across six skill areas. Nothing is scored until the last question is answered, and answers can be changed on the way through. At the end the page shows the total, a per-skill breakdown, an item-by-item review with the correct answer and a short explanation, and one concrete “teach next” move for each skill area that came up short.

Two ways to give it

Launch the student check on a laptop or phone, or print the student version: a clean black-and-white copy of all twelve items with name, date, and class blanks and plain directions. A separate teacher key and planning guide prints the correct answer for every item, the six skill areas, interpretation cautions, and small-group next steps. The student copy never shows the answer key.

Use it in three steps

1. Give or launch the check.
2. Review the patterns — look at the skill area missed most often, not the total.
3. Group students by that pattern and pick one small-group teaching move for the coming unit.

What it is not

Twelve items cannot describe a student’s English. This is not a standardized proficiency, placement, or reclassification instrument, it reports no WIDA or CEFR level, and it makes no claim of validity. Treat a missed item in one skill area as a signal worth checking against student writing, not as a verdict.

Skill areas covered

• Sentence completeness and word order
• Subject pronouns and articles
• Subject-verb agreement
• Present, past, and future verb forms
• Connectors that add, contrast, and explain
• Basic punctuation and capitalization

Privacy

Everything runs in the browser. No student name is requested, answers and results are never transmitted or stored against an account, and closing the tab clears them. Use the “Print or save results” control if you want a paper or PDF copy of the summary.

Using the results

Sort students by the skill area blocking them most, then pick the matching sequence in the Grammar Spy curriculum arcs or a short warm-up from the grammar bell ringers. For a fuller first-week baseline, the printable beginning-of-year ELD diagnostic covers grammar, reading, writing, and speaking.