לומדים אנגלית / קוראים ספרי ילדים

Last week we finished the Basic Verbs: BE, DO and HAVE.

Let's focus on the pedagogical aspect this time: a few teaching suggestions.

Teaching Be, Do and Have

We should always try to teach Grammar in context, as part of the overall process of teaching a language, Grammar being a means towards reaching a high level of verbal and writing proficiency.

We might start with an oral conversation about who and what I am: woman, mother, teacher, Israeli citizen, etc. (practising verb BE). Then we can move on to my possessions: I have a house, a car, books, clothes; we have programs for the weekend, plans for the future, etc. (practising verb HAVE). We can also talk about my activities: what I do every morning, in the evenings, over the weekend, in the summer vacations, for a living, etc. depending on the age level and the language level (practising verb DO).

The next step might be peer-work or group-work in which each student writes a few sentences to introduce himself, telling his classmates who he is, what he has, and what he does.

This could also be an oral activity in which students tell secret things about themselves (what they are, have and do) that their classmates may not know yet.

Another possibility might be a game. A student describes a classmate by saying who or what he is, has and does and the others have to guess who he is talking about.

And last but not least,

Homework:

Write a short autobiography using verbs BE, DO and HAVE.

Write a short description of a member of your family, a friend, a teacher, a singer, etc. using the basic verbs as often as possible.

And that's all for today.

In my next post we will deal with the expressions: THERE IS and IT IS. 

You can find short texts introducing the basic verbs and many exercises in:

The Lively World of English, Book 1, p 56-60.