Aim: To give Ss practice “verb + preposition”

Level: Upper-intermediate

Duration: 50 mins

The target vocabulary (verb + preps):

Rationale:

Part 1: Students have difficulty in using dependent prepositions with verbs so they need both controlled and freer practice in this aspect of vocabulary learning. The following gap fill task provides controlled practice in the context of sentences. It requires some dictionary work as Ss are going to be encouraged to use a monolingual dictionary and / or a collocation dictionary to check their answers or to find what preposition is needed. This part is meant to be a memory check and /or exposure to example sentences.  It has some cognitive depth as Ss will be seeing the items in the dictionary examples but there is less affective involvement as there will be more affective involvement in later stages.

Part 2: This exercise is consolidating practice with the element of pair interaction and requires some attention as Ss are both using their short term memory for some item as well as long term memory for other items. It is a little more challenging in terms of cognitive and affective involvement than the previous exercise.

Part 3: This exercise is the reciprocal of the exercise in Part 2 as now the tasked is reversed by getting one of the pairs beeping the verb this time; consolidating the verb + preposition phrases in the context of the same sentences. The numbers of sentences appointed for the pairs is also reversed to avoid tedium/sense of repetition.

Part 4:  This exercise is cognitively demanding and affectively involving as it requires oral production through personalised questions. Although controlled within 10 questions, each student is given their choice of 5 questions to ask, which provides some freedom.

Part 5: This exercise is the most cognitively demanding and affectively involving section as it requires written production of students’ own questions with two items of the target vocabulary to ask two other students in a class mingle, in a meaningful, communicative, and personalised way and takes notes of the answers.

Part 6:  In this exercises, students report their notes back to the classroom, which provides an appropriate follow-up for the practice/revision session.

Task 1: Fill in the gaps with the correct preposition. Use your dictionaries to check. (10 mins.)

in – on – at – from – about – for – against – to – of – with 

1.    The volunteers contribute their own time ________ the project.

2.    Teenage boys tend to rebel _________ their parents.

3.    Oliver made a fortune by investing _________antique furniture.

4.    Sheila applied _________a job with the local library.

5.    Craig suffers _________ a rare bone disease.

6.    Please be quiet. I am trying to concentrate _________my work.

7.    He often complains _________not being appreciated at work.

8.    The local council should deal _________any complaint properly.

9.    The audience consisted mainly _________teenagers.

10.   She stared _________me in disbelief.

Task 2: Work in pairs. Student A read the sentences 1-5 with beeps for the prepositions and Student B remembers and tells the preposition without looking at the sentences. Student B does the same with sentences 6-10. (5 mins)

Task 3: Work in pairs. Student B read the sentences 1-5 with beeps for the verbs in bold and Student B remembers and tells the verb without looking at the sentences. Student A does the same with sentences 6-10. (5 mins)

Task 4:  Work in pairs. Ask and answer the following questions.  Each pair asks 5 of the questions of their own choice. (10 mins)

1.    How do you feel when somebody stares at you? When was the last time?

2.    Have you ever contributed any money to a charity? Why (not)?

3.    How would you feel if your child rebelled against you?

4.    How many people does your family consist of?

5.    If you had 1.000.000 TL, what would you invest it in? Gold, foreign currency, stock market?

6.    Do you like dealing with your friends’ problems? 

7.    Would you like to apply for a job abroad?

8.    Have you ever complained about poor service? If yes, when was the last time?

9.    Do you know anyone who suffers from a deadly disease?

10.   Can you concentrate on your homework with the music on?

Task 5: Work in pairs. Write two questions with the verb + prepositions above. Stand up and ask your questions to two different students and take notes of their answers. (10 mins)

Task 6: Report back to the class what you learned about your friends.  (10 mins)

Level: A1

When: 1 day after the lesson / unit is completed

Time Allocated: 10-15 mins.

Book & Level: English File –Intermediate

When: 30-40 min. 1 week after the lesson

 | *believe in     *choose from     *look forward to      * pay for      *belong to    *be afraid of            *be different from   *be excited about    *be married to        *be fed up with  

 

Rationale:  Students have difficulty in using correct prepositions. They add a preposition when it is not necessary, they exclude a preposition when it is necessary, or use a preposition instead of the proper one. This recycling activity aims to help students use prepositions correctly.  

 Task 1 helps learners repeat dependent prepositions after some verbs and adjectives in a fun way. It is a competition! The winner of the competition will have a bonus for the second task! J 

Task 2 lets learners use dependent prepositions in a story. They need to be as creative as possible to make their story interesting.

 

Task 1: Students are divided into two groups and they line up. T puts a bottle on the desk and reads a verb or an adjective aloud. If the student who runs and gets the bottle first says the correct preposition, his/her group will earn one point. If the student cannot say the correct preposition in five seconds, the other student may say the preposition. (For example T says look forward  - S needs to say TO)  T writes each verb/ adjective + preposition on the board to use later. For the second task, there will a vote and the winners will earn extra two votes! J  (10 min)

 

Task 2: Students work in pairs. T dictates the following sentence. He was married….. T stops and asks students to write the preposition and a name. (He was married to a celebrity; He was married to an actress…) Now Students have the first sentence of the story. They are to use at least 5 of the verb/adjective+ prepositions and write a creative story.  T asks students to underline the verb/adj.+prep they have used in their story. (10 min)

 

Task 3: Students put their story on the board and they read all the stories.  Then they vote for the most creative story.  Remember winners of the first task will have extra two votes! (10 min) J

 

 

You will need:  at least 20 adjectives (printed on A4 paper), sets of these 20 or more adjectives (printed in a small, hand-holdable size).  Sets of 20 nouns (printed in a small, hand-holdable size).  The number of sets you need will depend on the number of students you have.  Students should be placed in groups of 4 or 5.  

Prep work: Print out a series of adjectives (preferably from their word list, if they have one).  If not, choose common adjectives.  Choose some you think they will know, and some you think they will not (about 50/50).  Adjectives should have both ‘ing’ and ‘ed’ endings.  Print at least 20 adjectives.  Make these adjectives large in size.  Put tape on the back so that they can be placed around a board.  Then, decide how many sets you need.  Print out and cut up the sets.

Also print out a picture of nouns (proper and otherwise) that will lead to funny responses.  You must also list what noun/noun-phrase the picture represents (ie: picture of tomatoes and cucumbers and cheese could be labeled ‘Turkish breakfast,’ a picture of Tarkan smiling while greeting fans could be labelled ‘Tarkan’).  For people, make sure they are making some kind of expression.  Print at least 20 nouns.  You will need a set for each group.  

Stage 1:  Write ‘describes an emotion’ and ‘describes a thing’ on the bored.  

Stage 2:  Put students into pairs.  Divide up the 20 large adjectives between the pairs.  Have students look up any adjectives that they do not know.  Students should look up and be prepared to explain the meaning of the adjective.  They can use pictures as a reminder, or a definition.

Stage 3:  Give students tape.  Have the pairs categorize their adjectives into ‘describes an emotion’ and ‘describes a thing’ by placing their word under the correct category.   

Stage 4:  Go through adjectives 1 by 1, pairs explaining the meaning of their word and then the class checking if its been correctly categorized.  

Stage 5:  T attempts to elicit the ‘ing’ and ‘ed’ distinction.

Stage 6:  Place students into small groups of 4 or 5.  Each group is given a set of adjectives.  The adjectives should be divided between the group at random, with no-one knowing what the others have.  

Stage 7:  1 person will choose a noun at random to be described.  S/he will be the judge of that round.  Each student must choose an adjective from their hand which best describes the noun, or they think will make the judge pick them.  When all students have picked an adjective, they can then try to defend their choice to the judge.  Any student who has chosen the wrong adjective form for the noun is automatically excluded from winning the round.  The judge chooses the best/funniest adjective.  The winner gets to keep the noun.  The next judge is the person to the right of the previous judge.  When all the adjectives have been played, they can be redistributed and a new the game can continue with different nouns.   When all the nouns have been played, the game is over.  The winner is the person who has collected the most nouns at the end.  

Time: 5-10 minutes

When students learn any new words during the lesson, I tell them to find a piece of paper. I write all the new vocabulary on the board that they’ve learned and ask them to write the word on the paper, then on the other side of the paper I tell them to write a reminder of the word, that can be a synonym, a basic picture or a very short definition. Then, we put all these words into a box. Next day, in the last 5-10 minutes of the lesson, I take the box, go around the class and ask the students to pick one from the box. Sometimes students tell the answer individually, and sometime we do pair work. In this case, one students picks o word and asks the meaning to his/her pair, and this goes on like that in a very short period of time, from 5 to 10 minutes.

Sometimes I ask them to choose more words and give them a question to write a short paragraph. Then, groups swap their papers and give feedback to each other. This is more challenging as the question and words may not always be directly related.