home     ES     JHS     HS     articles     donate     blogs     forum     links     non-textbook     submission forms     volunteers     warmups      

Demonstrative  Pronouns & In/Definite Articles

指示代名詞　(しじだいめいし) 　 &　 冠詞　（かんし）

FUN FACT: "The word 'therein' contains only seven letters, but it contains 10 words that can be formed using consecutive letters. Can you find all of them?" <answer below>

...this page is also related to the Pronouns page 

NOTE: I combined Demonstrative Pronouns and In/Definite Articles because they are usually taught together. However, the Definite Article (the) isn't really tackled by Japanese JHS English teachers at this juncture in the textbooks. In a perfect world, these two articles should be taught at the same time, but unfortunately the status quo is quite different. After sitting down with a JTE and discussing this problem, we both agreed the Definite Article would probably be easiest to teach when teaching Prepositions.

 

Also, be careful of the word 'it'. It's easy to understand why 'it' would be labeled as a demonstrative pronoun after teaching in Japan. The Japanese often mistranslate 'it' as the Japanese demonstrative pronoun 'それ,' which is incorrect. 'It' is simply a regular 3rd person pronoun.

 

EXAMPLE: This is a cat. That is the dog.

 

OFF-SITE DEFINITION 

 

                     

A & The: (3rd grade) Students fill in the gaps to confirm their understanding of in/definite articles.

 
Attack 25 Halloween: This is a fun hands-on activity for students to practice using: "What's this?" and "This is..." This game works great as a Halloween lesson.
 
Blind's Man Bluff: Students wear 'crowns' with picture/word flash cards on them and walk around trying to figure out what they are wearing.

 

Double D: Double D stands for 'Devastating Demonstratives'. Students draw pictures based upon a secret demonstrative pronoun sentences and post them around the class The name of this activity contains the word 'devastating' because if you're like me, you find it difficult just to draw a stick figure. 

 

Fourth of July Food Match: A simple matching worksheet with a Fourth of July food theme using the phrase "It's ~."

 

How's the Weather: Students learn weather vocabulary and then interview each other in this information gap activity.

Introduce Japan: Students listen to the ALT talk about things in their home country and then they introduce things from Japanese culture.

 
Introducing Characters: Students mingle and exchange character cards whilst introducing the characters to their friends. The aim is to try to find out the relationship of as many characters as possible within 8 minutes.
 
Is This Gap?: An information gap activity where students ask their partner to work out the pictures on the worksheet.
 
Pen Glasses: Students decorate their own crazy paper 'glasses', which they can't actually see through, then try to identify which of the pens in the group is their pen.
 

That's My Bag: The ALT and JTE "steal" items from the students' desks and the students must claim them using demonstrative pronouns.

This/That Animal: This is a speaking activity for the introduction and/or practice of the target sentence: 'This is...' and 'That is...'
 

This/That Memory (this/that): Students use a memory card game to practice Demonstrative Pronouns.

 

This/That Relay: Students race to make sentences using visual clues.

 

Triple D: Because the original title of this activity was too long, I shortened the name from 'Demonstrative Daimeishi Dice' to 'Triple D'.  Daimeishi is Japanese for pronoun. In this simple, fun yet educational dice game, students learn to string multiple sentences together using demonstrative pronouns alongside third person pronouns.

 

What's that Doodle: Get the students to practice asking 'What is that?' by drawing some wild art.

ANSWER: The, there, I, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, herein

This page was last modified on Thursday, December 22, 2011 04:21:46 PM