Note: this is a splice of an activi

Note: this is a splice of an activity I found in Trouble with Prepositions, Articles, Nouns and Word Order? and another I found on the British Council’s teaching English website, here. The vocabulary revised relates to household furniture.

Preparation: one copy of these worksheets for each pair of students (page one is where they work things out for themselves), if you don’t have a SMARTboard interactive whiteboard. Or download this SMARTboard file if you do!

Materials: whiteboard or interactive whiteboard; pens; a rucksack or bag; some objects (e.g., pens, tapes – the usual equipment you might carry with you to class).

Procedure:

If you have a SMARTboard interactive whiteboard, please download the file for the lesson (see above). If you don’t, please use the worksheets above. Pair students and ask them to match the preposition with the diagram. Ask students to shout “stop!” when they have finished. Go through the answers (on page two of the worksheet/ IWB lesson) as a class, awarding points for correct answers.
Board round, into, over, under, onto, around, from, to, out of. Then board a picture of a cat’s journey through a room, going round, jumping onto and off, going under and around, etc., various objects (chairs, books, tables, vases, etc.) and out of the window.
Encourage students to tell you the cat’s journey.
Optional: Ask them to draw their own rooms and imagine a cat’s journey through that. Monitor and help with vocabulary. Then pair the students and ask them to recount the journey to each other.
Or: with younger learners, play Simon Says (wherein players can only do the action you say when it starts with the words “Simon says” – e.g., no-one should move when you say “go behind your chairs!”, but all players should do the action when you say “Simon says ‘go behind your chairs!'”). Do this a few times with you calling the instructions, then ask different students to lead instead.
Or: with younger learners and teenagers, create a treasure hunt using bits of card stuck in various places around your classroom or (better) your school – perhaps with a sweet for the student who finds the treasure first. Give out instructions (which should use as many of the prepositions in the worksheet as possible) and ask them to find the treasure. When the treasure’s been found, the class can be split into teams and asked to hide some treasure of their own (this could be another bit of card, again perhaps with sweets as prizes). They then write accurate instructions for the other team (the punishment for inaccurate instructions could be that they lose any sweets they’ve won!), who have to go and find the treasure themselves. Give teams a point for each correct use of a different preposition from the worksheet.
To follow up, you can play a game of preposition basketball: screw up a piece of paper into a ball, and open your bag or rucksack; place the bag in the corner of the room furthest from the students; and throw a few objects (books, tapes, pens, etc.) around the outside of the bag. Stand at the other end of the room with the paper ball and ask students if 3 or 5 points should be awarded to anyone who can throw the ball into the bag from here. When the students answer, explain that they can also get 1 point for each correct preposition that they use to say where the ball is. Tell them that they will have 1 minute to use as many correct prepositions as they can. Demonstrate this activity: throw the ball (aim to miss), then use prepositions to describe where it is (e.g., “it’s by the door, it’s between the tape and the folder, it’s opposite the window, it’s under the ceiling,” etc.). Retrieve the ball and throw it towards one of the students, who starts the game by standing at the opposite end of the room from the bag and throwing the ball at it. NB: if any student gets the ball into the bag, give them 3 or 5 points (whichever the class has decided), then tip the ball out onto the floor and allow them a minute to accumulate even more points.