Prepositions of place – Lesson plan
Prepositions of place are an important part of the English language
and will enable students to create more complex sentences. The
meanings of basic prepositions and prepositional phrases are
incredibly easy to demonstrate in a classroom and students can
often guess their meanings.
How To Proceed
1. 1
Warm up – Prepositions
Use this opportunity to review vocabulary you plan on using
in this lesson. In this example words
including book, desk, chair, clock, pencil, and teacherwould
be good to review. Crisscross is an excellent game to
start the class with. Have all the students stand. Ask
questions like “What is this?” while holding up a pen or
pointing to an object. Have students volunteer to answer by
raising their hands. Choose a student and if he answers
correctly he may sit down. Repeat until all students are
seated. In large classes the volunteer can choose either his
row or column of students to sit. Usually no more than about
ten questions are asked. The exercise should take
approximately five minutes.
2.2
Introduce – Prepositions Pronunciation
Write the target vocabulary on the board. The words below
are a good set to begin with:
- in
- in front of
- on
- behind
- under
- above
- between
- next to
The vocabulary you introduce may depend on the textbook
being used. Demonstrate the pronunciation of each word
one at a time having students repeat it after you. If certain
students appear not to be participating, call on them
individually to pronounce the word for the class. You may
want to start a chain where the first student says the first
vocabulary word, the next student says the second, and the
third student says the third, etc until all students have had
the opportunity to say at least one word aloud. In a small
class feel free to repeat this exercise several times and
encourage them to speed up with each cycle while still
maintaining proper pronunciation. Drilling is
important however it is often boring for students so adding
in some fun elements can encourage them to participate.
3.3
Introduce – Prepositions Meaning
Try to have the students come up with the meaning or
translation of each word. Use example sentences such as “I
am in front of the board. Now I am in front of the desk. Now
I am in front of Jane.” and change your position in the
classroom accordingly. Use as many example sentences as
you can think of for each preposition trying to get the
students to guess its meaning before writing it on the board
and moving onto the next one. Drill pronunciation and
translation before continuing.
4.4
Practice
To test comprehension, do a short exercise. Tell students to
put their hands on their desks, above their
desk, behind their backs or to put their books intheir
desks, under their desks, etc. Perhaps a few students would
like to give it a try so why not have them give a few
instructions as well. A simple worksheet where students
match prepositions with pictures would be good practice as
well.
5.5
Introduce – Prepositions Q & A
Ask students questions such as “Where is my/your/the
book/pen/desk/clock?” Demonstrate the pronunciation of the
question and answer. The model dialogue for this lesson
should resemble the structure below:
- A: Where is (my/your/Sam’s/the) (noun)?
- B: It’s (preposition) the (noun).
6.6
Practice
Ask your students to practice the model dialogue in pairs for
about five minutes taking turns being A and B. Next ask for
volunteers to demonstrate their conversations and
encourage them to be creative instead of being limited to the
vocabulary you’ve already used in the lesson. Correct any
errors with clear explanations and demonstrations before
moving on.
7.7
Production
Ask students to write five sentences using prepositions or
use a game for further practice of prepositional phrases and
sentence construction. An exercise like Jumbled (where
students work in groups to arrange a set of words into five to
ten sentences in a race against other groups)
or Scrambled (where students have a worksheet with
sentences written out of order that they must rearrange)
would be great practice.
8.8
Review
As a class review the exercise from the previous step.
Students can volunteer to read one of their written sentences
aloud, groups can take turns reading one of their sentences
from Jumbled, or students can read their un-Scrambled
sentences aloud. Whatever exercise you’ve done, this is
a key stage in catching mistakes. Often other students can
assist their peers in making corrections but if not you may
need to review certain problem areas.
