The Language Teacher
August 2000
A Communicative Way to Teach Prepositions of Place
Rod Gottula
Yanagida Agricultural High School, Ishikawa
QUICK GUIDE
Key Words: Vocabulary, Prepositions of Place
Learner English Level: All
Learner Maturity Level: Junior High to Adult
Preparation Time: Very little
Activity Time: 40-60 minuetes
Teaching at an agricultural high school can be a tough job. Most of the students don't need English for their future careers, and motivating them to learn English is a constant challenge. However, I have found that the following lesson plan proves both enjoyable and appropriate for my students' abilities.
This lesson was designed to review prepositions of place with my first-year high school students. It is a communicative, task-based method that helps to strengthen the students' use of prepositions of place while incorporating important "everyday" vocabulary to do so.
The following materials are needed: several sets of markers, crayons, or colored pencils, two pieces of paper for each student, and handouts containing drawings that illustrate the prepositions of place you wish to teach, for example, a row of boxes with an "X" on the box, in the box, etc.
Begin the class by distributing the handout containing the visual representations of prepositions of place. Give students a minute or two to look over the handout. Then orally review the prepositions of place with the students. I like to stand on a chair and say, "I am on the chair"; lift the chair above my head and say, "I am under the chair"; and so on. This seems to get their attention. This part of the lesson takes about ten minutes.
Next, give students a piece of paper and tell them to draw a picture including ten of the following items, which you can write on the blackboard: a cloud, snow, rain, a rice field, a sun, a tree, a car, a bicycle, a house, a window, a door, a river, a mountain, a man, a woman, a boy, a girl, a dog, a cat, or a road. Students must use at least six of the eight major colors (red, orange, blue, yellow, brown, black, green, and purple) while drawing their pictures. Be sure to tell your students that this isn't an art class -- stick figures will suffice -- or they will spend the entire class drawing! Ten minutes should be enough time to draw the first picture -- I find that using an egg timer keeps the students on task, as they can look up and see how much time they have left to finish.
After each student has drawn a picture, including at least ten different items in six different colors, the students are paired and told to sit back-to-back. Then, using English only, student A must describe her picture to student B, while student B tries to draw the picture that student A is describing. When this is done, the students switch roles and student B describes his picture to Student A. About 20 to 30 minutes should be allowed for this part of the lesson, depending on your students' level of English. In order to help students avoid the use of Japanese, you can write the following sentence pattern on the black board: "There's _____ (preposition of place)_____." For example, "There is a cloud (above) the house." This seems to help them out quite a bit, since they have access to both grammatical structure and the names of the objects written on the blackboard.
Students of mine who have participated in this activity are often pleased that they are able to draw pictures that are relatively similar to the original drawing described to them. For example, if a car was between a tree and a house in the original picture, it was also between a tree and a house in the reconstructed version, although sizes and shapes of the objects varied to a certain degree.
I am also pleased when I hear English being used by everyone in an effort to complete the task. Furthermore, I give my students evaluation forms at the end of the class, and in previous classes the majority of students have indicated that they found the activity enjoyable, useful, and not too difficult for their ability. Finally, I am happy that I was able to develop an enjoyable close-ended task that required both oral output and aural comprehension by all of the parties involved. I hope that this activity enables you to enjoy the same results with your class.
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