In this ESL grammar lesson the genitive case is taught to a group of young children. The lesson plan, methods, and learner outcomes are also discussed.
This ESL grammar lesson takes place in Italy - the students are young children. The lesson focuses on the genitive case - adding apostrophe s (‘s) to denote possession, relationship, physical features, characteristics, non-physical qualities and measurement [1] (however this particular lesson only teaches the genitive to show possession).
Lesson Plan
This grammar structure is taught through the specific aim of answering and creating interrogatives with the genitive utilizing possessive adjectives and pronouns. It is taught deductively as the genitive structure is consolidated at the beginning of the lesson after a series of questions:
Teacher: …And if, for example, I ask, ‘Whose car is this?’ and I want to say, e di Ciro [it is Cioro’s]?
Carla: His.
Teacher: It’s… yeah. OK. It’s his, if you want to use the pronoun. Se vuoi usare il nome, invece [if you want to use the name instead]?
Carla: Ciro’s.
Teacher: Ciro’s. OK. Ciro’s. It’s an apostrophe, S.
Outcome
After the structure is presented the teacher continues to ask several students questions based on the textbook that will instigate an answer using the genitive structure:
Teacher: Whose are the sunglasses, do you think?
Nancy: Ermm…I think, er…they are the girl’s.
Teacher: Whose is the razor?
Student: The man’s.
After openly questioning the class the students are divided into pairs to perform an information gap exercise using the same question/answer format as above. Each student has to guess and then ask whether his partner has any particular items from a list in their textbooks and if he does the student has to guess who in his partner’s home owns the particular possession. For added interest the students are able to score ‘points’ if their guess is right.
Methods
It is clear that the teacher is using the Presentation-Practice-Production model (PPP). This is where the teacher, ‘presents a grammatical structure to learners, asks them to practice it in controlled activities which focus on accurate reproduction of the structure, and then sets up freer activities in which students produce the target form [2].
Information gaps (a situation where information is known by only some of those present), like the exercise used, are thus perfect for original production otherwise, "activities and exercises will be mechanical and artificial." [3].
Alternative
Teaching possessives can be easily used with a ‘family’ theme as it will allow the learner to make a personal response as well as a referential response. For example, the teacher could draw her or his family tree on the blackboard and then students could create their own. Afterwards in pairs, ask their partner questions about his or her family.
Student A: Who’s Jim?
Student B: He’s my uncle. He’s my mother’s brother.
References:
[1] Michael Swan, ‘Practical English Usage’. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. p. 263.
[2] Tricia Hedge, ‘Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom’. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. p. 164.
[3] Jack Richards, et.al, ‘Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics’. Essex: Longman Group (FE) Ltd, 1985. p. 140.
