TeachingEnglish
      A PROPOSITION FOR TEACHING PREPOSITIONS

      Hello colleagues, hello everybody!

      Last Thursday afternoon was an exceptional success I'd ever seen in teaching prepositions. I had a group of 26 pupils. They all participated; it was a success of 100 per cent. I did the following.

      PROCEDURE

      1) Asking prompting questions:

               * Where are we now? Are we at the restaurant? 

                   - No, Sir. We are in the classroom.

           then I stood near the door and asked again:

                 * Where is the teacher?

                    - The teacher is ......... (they couldn't  say "near" or "next to" the door).

      2) Examplifying and imitating

            I gave them the answer: the teacher is near / next to the door.

      Then I moved to my desk and asked the same question again: Where is the teacher?

      They all answered: The teacher is near the desk. 

      Then, I orederd them to ask / answer one another about the location of their classmates. 

               * Where is Hager? 

                * Hager is near / next to Aya.

      I  randomly appointed  (08) pupils for this speaking activity (because of the time, only (55) minutes. This activity took about five (05) minutes.

      After that three students stood near the board and I wrote three sentences:

                   * Hamdi is on the right.

                   * Mouhammad is on the left.

                   * Nourhene is between Hadi and Mouhammad.

                   * Norhene is in the middle.

      I asked (02) leaners to read the sentences loudly. 

      I changed the positions of the two boys and the girl (respectively) and asked the two learners, who read the sentences above, to locate the new positions of their three mates by imitating the four sentences.They made it.

      Then, I appointed (08) other learners to ask / answer one another about the locations of their mates. They successfuly did it. This activity lasted nearly (15) minutes.

      3) Put into practice

                 a) Listening (15 minutes).

      The learners listened to a conversation about the location of rooms in a speaker's home. Then they had the following questions to answer:

                                   * How many speakers are there? What are their names?

                                   * Ali's House is:

                                                           - near the sea.

                                                            - in the sea.

                                    * Ali's bedroom is: 

                                                            - next to his parents' bedroom.

                                                            - on the right.

                                    * the living room is:

                                                             - on the right. 

                                                             - on the left.

                                     * the kitchen is:

                                                              - between the living room and the dining room

                                                              - near the garage.

                     b) Writing (15 minutes).

      Learners were asked to write a letter  locating the different parts of their homes. 

      The topic was:

       Write a letter to your friend in London and tell him / her about your house. Begin as it is shown.

      Dear ........................

      Thank you for you letter. Here are some answers to your questions. In our house there are (number) ......... rooms: They are the ............... room, the .............. room, the .................. room, and (number) ........... bedrooms.

      My bedroom is ......................................... My parents bedroom is ........................................

      The ................................. is between the .................................. and the ................................ ..    The..............is next to ................................... The ......................................is on the right but the ............................................. is on the .................................................................. The garage is ........................................ The garden is ...........................................................

      Next time I will send a picture of our house.

       Yours,

      faithfully.