The Language Teacher
03 - 2002

Prepositional Pennies

Michael P. Johnson

Inuyama City Board of Education

QUICK GUIDE

Key Words: Prepositions of location (on, in, under, by)
Learner English Level: Beginner
Learner Maturity Level: Junior high school, first year
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Activity Time: Coins from foreign countries (I usually use pennies)

Teaching communicatively oriented EFL classes in the Japanese junior high school environment can be a formidable challenge. Added to the usual challenges that exist in any language teaching endeavor are the additional hurdles of dealing with the motivational and social issues endemic to 12- to 15-year-olds the world over. While it may be difficult to sell all 40 of your students on the intrinsic value of learning English on any given day, the following fun activity encourages student motivation by offering extrinsic rewards for performance.

Procedure

This activity is best used as a closing activity after the target prepositions have been introduced and practiced through conversations, drills, or other presentation means.

Step 1: During the regular class activities (i.e. while students are engaged in pairwork) the teacher circulates around the classroom surreptitiously hiding coins while helping students. Coins should be hidden in a variety of locations: on top of blackboards, in students' pen cases, inside dictionaries, etc.

Step 2: When introducing the activity to students, tell them that you have some coins that you will hide around the classroom. Instruct them to put their heads down on their desks and cover their eyes so that you can hide the coins. As the coins have already been hidden, move around the class rattling desks and making noises that might confuse the students. This also throws off the students who might be inclined to peek when they should be covering their eyes.

Step 3: Proceed to write the target language on the board.

Student: Is it (on, in, under, by) the __________?

Teacher: Yes, it is. / No, it isn't.

Step 4: Tell students that if they can guess where any of the coins are, using the model language, they can have the coin. Instruct students to remain seated and to raise their hands if they want to guess where the coins are hidden.

Encourage the students to use the model sentence with Japanese vocabulary if they do not know the English equivalent for any particular word. For example, students may ask Is it on the kokuban? The teacher can then provide a correct model for repetition: Is it on the blackboard? When students correctly guess the location of a coin, allow them to leave their seat to retrieve it.

Conclusion

First-year junior high school students thoroughly enjoy this activity. It really promotes active use of the target language, as well as providing peer-generated listening practice as students keenly listen to locations guessed by their classmates.