in, at, on

[moon unit]

Hi everyone

I've started to teach a private lesson weekly and it's going quite well. Today we did prepositions of time and place (in, at, on) and next week they want me to have conversation/speaking activities to practise this grammar point.

Does anyone have any ideas? There are two of them.

In addition, to teach these prepositions today I took all my information from Raymond Murphy's book (blue) but felt that it was not enough as this is mainly a student's book and I felt that as a teacher I should have had some supplementary material. However after searching the net for hours I found very little on these prepositions. Also are there set rules for prepositions, because it seems to be all over the place to me, with more exceptions than rules.

I am just a newly qualified teacher (6 weeks) so please overlook my ignorance on this matter

Thanks in advance

[eslweb]

I've got a resource that might help you with this, its at:
http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/beginner/roomsvocab.html

The exercise that might be helpful is the House Plan, which can be used to practice some of this vocabulary. A lot of books have pictures of rooms, so that you can ask, "where is..." It's on the table etc.

If it is safe I quite often play hide and seek and blind-fold students as they search around the room for an object.

James

[Lorikeet]

I use a triangle to teach this (I took the idea from a book I read almost 40 years ago--apologies to the author.) The triangle has the point at the top, and is divided into three parts with horizontal lines. The little triangle at the top has "at" in it; the middle part has "on" in it and the bottom part has "in" in it. On the left side is time, and on the right side is location. The "at" triangle goes to a point, just like a point in time (5:00, noon, 3:35) or a point for location (an address). The middle part is a little larger, like days (on Monday, on June 10) or streets (on Main Street). The bottom part is even larger, like months and years or cities and states. This doesn't cover all the uses of "at" "on" and "in" of course, but I found that a visual helps them remember. In addition, I've used these exercises to practice. If you have any more, please let me know.


http://www.eslpartyland.com/quiz%20center/preptime.htm
http://www.bradleys-english-school.com/ ... nonat.html
http://www.tcet.com/EAOnline/FlashedESL/CatsMX.swf

[moon unit]

Thanks a million. I think this will really help.

[CraigPeterson]

I just did a lesson on prepositions of place. We had quite a few extra than in, on, and at, but maybe this can help.

Activity One: 20 Questions Spinoff

I started the game so that they could have a good example before taking over. I picked a random object in the room, and they had to ask questions using prepositions to try to locate it. "Is it on the table?" "Is it... below the TV? etc. Whoever finally guessed the object, then chose a new object for the class to guess. It was loads of fun. Also, I limited it to 20 questions to give a sense of importance and thought to each question they asked. It was always guessed before 20 though.

Activity Two: Draw my...

This activity was really fun for practicing prepositions. The students were put into pairs and had to put their chairs back to back. One person described their office, bedroom, etc., and the other had to draw it. When they finished, they reversed roles. Afterwards, we analyzed the pictures, talked about what was not correct and how it could have been reworded so that is would be drawn in the right place. After refining their skills, they switched partners and did the activity again, this time making sure that those misplaced objects were put in the right place!

Well, I hope that helps. I know it's not perfect for just "at, in, and on," but maybe you can adapt it somehow.

Take care,

Craig
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