As this grammar point is overwhelmingly taught when students are
still young, this article concentrates on young learners. However, most
of it is relevant to or adaptable to low level learners
“It is” and “They are” might be the first piece of grammar that young
learners at class V and is an important one in class as it can be
endlessly recycled once it is presented by the simple expedient of using
some flashcards with two or more objects on when doing future areas of
vocabulary. It can also help reinforce the need for –s after plural
nouns. The ideas below should hopefully make this structure a pleasant
introduction to English grammar for kids. As mentioned in some of the
game ideas, this can also be tied in with minimal pairs and/ or phonics
by getting the kids to spot that “They are both sh words” and “It is a
ch word”.
Issues with It is/ They are
Before first teaching It is/ They are, there are several points to
think about. The first is what you want to do about the contractions
“It’s” and “They’re”. The six possible approaches are:
- Just use the contractions, perhaps avoiding “Yes, it is” and “Yes, they are” to make that possible.
- Just do the full forms and leave contractions until later.
- Present the full forms but use natural contracted forms during
listening comprehension, e.g. the listen and touch games described
below.
- Use both forms in the right contexts (e.g. full forms in writing
but contractions in speech bubbles) but don’t explain the differences or
force the use of one form or the other.
- Use both forms in the right contexts and expect students to do the same, but without explaining.
- Use this as a chance to present the idea of contractions, doing both forms and explaining the differences.
As briefly mentioned in the list above, the main differences between
uses of contractions and full forms are that the full forms must be used
in short positive answers and tend to be used in writing. It is
possible to explain this and/ or prompt the relevant form without use of
L1 with tactics like holding up your index finger and middle finger
apart to represent the full form and together to represent the
contraction. You can also draw a speech bubble around the contraction
and draw a pen next to the full form.
The main argument for going to all this trouble is that native
speakers almost always use contractions where they can in speech, making
comprehension difficult without some work on this point. There is also
the slight danger of unintentional overemphasis by saying “It IS a pen”.
However, I have recently become very doubtful that these two things
make it worth all the effort, especially at this early stage, and
especially when most of their communication will probably be with other
non-native speakers who will also avoid contractions.
The next issue once you have that one sorted is “It is” and “This
is”, including the common but possibly confusing “What’s this?” “It’s a
pen” classroom exchange. In many classroom interactions such as
presentation of vocabulary “This is” is the more natural option and
sentences like “What is it?” can sound strange. The same thing is true
of many of the games below. However, This is/ They are doesn’t really
work as a grammar point to present and “It is” will be more useful for
their later lessons introducing other subject pronouns, the Present
Continuous tense, etc.
As there is no chance of explaining the difference at this stage even in L1, your four choices are:
- Stick to “It is” even when it sounds unnatural.
- Use whatever sounds natural but design activities so the production will mainly or entirely be “It is”.
- Use them naturally but don’t correct mix ups from the kids.
- Use them naturally and correct (some) mix ups from the kids, but without explaining why.
My own choice tends to be the second of those options.
Presenting It is/ They are
This is such a simple point that I tend to present it for the first
time in the middle of one of the practice activities below, for example
doing some normal “What’s this?” “It’s a stocking” practice with the
slow reveal flashcard game and then adding the twist of a flashcard that
has more than one object on it and so cannot be got from the teacher by
saying “It is…” as has been the case until then.
Another way of introducing the point by stealth can be used if they
already know S for plurals. You can smoothly move on from getting them
to draw, label, draw a line between etc “apple”/ “apples”, “orange”/
“oranges” etc to doing the same with “It’s an apple” and “They are
oranges” without needing to present the grammar at all. A variation on
this can also be used to lead up to a grammar presentation for those who
don’t know S for plurals yet, with “It’s a banana” and “They are
houses” possible to match just from knowledge of how to read the nouns,
but “It is a chair” and “They are chairs” needing the grammar point of
the day.
Practising It is/ They are
The activities below start with games and then move onto more general
activities. The games near the top are ones I often use also to present
the language for the first time.
Games for It is/ They are
It’s a ball/ They are balls
Throwing a ball around can be a great activity for revision at the
start of any class, e.g. with students asking and answering basic
questions or counting as they do so. I often finish this stage with
“What’s this?” “It’s a ball” before moving onto presenting or revising
vocabulary with the same phrases, and it is an easy and amusing step
from this to trying to throw and catch two balls with “What are they?/
What are these?” “They are balls”.
Run and touch games for It is/ They are
Another thing I like to start lessons with is students running around
and touching that classroom objects that I say like “table” and
“ruler”, shouting out a sentence to identify it like “It’s a table” when
they do so. This can be extended to include “They are” in several ways.
One is for them to touch only one object if they hear “It is” and more
than one object (perhaps at the same time if it is possible) if they
hear “They are”. A more manic version is for them to touch every example
of that thing in the classroom before they say the relevant sentence.
These games can also be played with students deciding for themselves
whether they need “It is” or “They are”, touching and shouting out the
former if they think there is only one example in the classroom (e.g.
“It is a door”) and doing the same with the latter if they can find more
than one (e.g. “They are windows”).
A simpler variation, and maybe the most suitable for presenting the
language for the first time, is to very slowly say what they should
touch starting with “It is…” or “They are…”, so that they hopefully
start to use that as a clue about which of the things in the classroom
they have to touch. This could also be extended by the person speaking
never saying the name of the thing but just clues like “They are toys”,
“They are round” etc until someone guesses, touches and shouts out the
name in a full sentence.
Any of these games can also be played with flashcards on their
tables, spread across the floor, stuck up around the classroom or hidden
around the classroom.
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