Teacher's Question: This & That, These & Those

Q: One thing I always kind of avoid is teaching "these and those". If there would be something to make this topic easy for the kids, I would be happy.

A: I learnt a game last week that may help here. It's called the Queen and Servant game.

1. Pick two kids.
2. Ask which one wants to be the Queen or King.
3. The one who is most keen, make them the servant!
4. The other kid is the ( King or ) Queen and sits down.
5. The Queen shouts out "Bring me that!" and points in a random direction.
6. The servant has to go and get something, anything and bring it back to the Queen.
7. The servant presents it and says "This?".
8. The Queen says "No! That!" again pointing in a random direction.
9. Repeat from step 6 until the Queen is presented with something she likes!

I would imagine it would be quite easy to change this to "Bring me those!" and "These?".

The trick is to get the kids to really ham up the acting. It then becomes a drama lesson where the focus is on the emotion of the characters and the English effortless sinks in.

be genki,

Richard

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Be genki,

Richard

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