Let’s start with the main aim of the lesson:
Main aim
To familiarise students with the demonstrative determiners this, that, these and those and enable them to use them in the context of “classroom objects”.
What do I need to know?
The focus of this lesson is demonstrative determiners, but you can adapt it to demonstrative pronouns, or both, depending on your students’ level. If you choose a context with vocabulary that is already familiar to your students (this lesson uses classroom objects) you can focus more on the determiners without your students having to acquire too much new vocabulary as well.
Materials
Here’s what we’ll need:
- Some pictures of classroom objects and the objects themselves (example included in the “Lead in” section of the downloadable plan, but your choice will depend on what classroom objects you have)
- Sentences to match your objects (examples included in the “Lead in” section)
- Guided discovery worksheet, one per student
- Strips of paper for the sentence race
Download the lesson plan and materials
The lesson
Okay, on to the lesson itself. Here are the different stages with the aim of each stage, the approximate timing, and what to do:
Lead in
To set the context and generate interest (6-8 minutes)
Before the lesson, place or hide some classroom objects around the room and write a list on the board of all the objects you’ve hidden. The more you hide the better – you can even hide 10 pencils in different places and write “10 pencils” in the list. Divide your students into two teams. Tell them that they must find all of the objects on the list and bring them to the front of the class. The team that finds the most objects is the winner. Set a time limit of just a few minutes for this task.
Vocabulary
To introduce/review classroom objects vocabulary and singular/plural nouns (8-10 minutes)
Now stick (or project) your pictures of the classroom objects on the board. Have the two teams form lines in front of the board. Read one of your sentences containing the singular or plural form of one of the items, for example:
- I always write with this pencil.
- Those pencils are colourful.
As you read each sentence, the first student in the line from each group has to run to the board and identify the correct picture. The first to identify it wins a point for their team. Repeat with your next sentence for the next students in line, until all the pictures have been identified.
The sentence you read can contain the target language for the lesson (this, that, these, those) but at this stage the focus is on identifying the correct object and whether it is singular or plural.
Presentation
To present the target language (5-7 minutes)
Now use the classroom objects again to highlight the target language. Take one pencil (or marker, or ruler…) and place it in close proximity to you. Take another pencil and place it further away from you.
Make sure you have all the students’ attention, point to the pencil close to you and say “This pencil is red (blue/green…)”, emphasising the word “this”. Repeat the statement once more. Now point to the pencil further away from you and say “That pencil is green”, emphasising the word “that”. Repeat the statement once more.
Next, make an exaggerated point of adding several more pencils to the ones you just used. Make sure that your students see you do this. Point to the pile of pencils close to you and say “These pencils are red”, emphasising the word “these”. Repeat the statement once more. Now point to the pile of pencils further away from you and say “Those pencils are green”, emphasising the word “those”. Repeat the statement once more.
Don’t elicit any feedback at this point. Instead, move on to the Guided Discovery, where your students will see more examples of what they have just heard, and identify or reinforce the differences in meaning for themselves.
Guided Discovery
To reinforce the target language (10-12 minutes)
Divide your students into pairs and hand out a Guided Discovery worksheet (included in the downloadable plan) to each student. At this level, the worksheet can be simple, just reinforcing the meanings you have presented.
Monitor as the pairs work through the Guided Discovery. If necessary, repeat your earlier statements for the benefit of individual pairs by pointing to the pencils again.
When the pairs have finished, do open-class feedback on the task.
Restricted practice
To provide restricted practice in using the target language (5 minutes)
The Guided Discovery worksheet includes some gap-fill questions for restricted practice, but we also need to drill the pronunciation of the target language. You can either split the Guided Discovery into two, asking them to stop before they reach the gap-fill exercise, and do the drill at this point, or you can wait until the Guided Discovery is complete and do it then.
For the drill, focus on:
- the final /z/ sound in these and those
- the relative lengths of the sounds /I/ and /i:/ in this and these
- the relative lengths of the sounds /æ/ and /əʊ/ in that and those
Less restricted practice
To provide restricted practice in using the target language (15 minutes)
Organise a sentence race. Divide the class into groups of 3 or 4 and have them sit in the corners of the room, with you sitting in the middle of the room. Give each group a number of strips of paper. Tell them that they must write as many true sentences about things they can see in the classroom as possible, using this, that, these and those. You can restrict them to the classroom objects you’ve already used, or for more of a challenge, allow them to write about anything (and anyone) they can see in the room.
Once a group has a sentence which they think is both true and uses the target language correctly, one member of the group should run to the middle of the room and hand it to you. If it is correct, shout “correct!”. The student then has to run to the board and write their sentence in a column designated for their group. If it’s incorrect, give the piece of paper back, which they must take back to their group for revision. Once a sentence is on the board, it can’t be used by another group.
Set a time limit for the game, and then declare a winning group.
Conduct feedback as a class, highlighting some of the good use of the target language from the sentences on the board, and pointing out any recurring errors that you noticed during the game.
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That’s it. Feel free to download a printable version of the whole lesson plan and all the materials.
Any comments, or suggestions of other ways to teach this, that, these and those are welcome below…
