Possessive 's
Elementary level
Description
Materials
Main Aims
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To introduce possessive 's in the context of families and to help students distinguish between this and apostrophe 's in contractions.
Subsidiary Aims
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To speak in the context of families.
Procedure (32-45 minutes)
Mention about the family tree of Robinsons used in the previous lesson, by distributing the hand-out of the family picture and elicit some sentences according to the tree. "Bill is Pat's husband" and "Pat is Bill's wife". Then ask the students who Lisa, Sally or Chris are. Students may answer that Lisa is Tom's wife or she is Bill's/Pat's daughter, Sally is Max and Anna's daughter and she is Chris and Emma's cousin, Chris is Emma's brother, he is Tom and Lisa's son.
Give students ex. 5 as handout and get them to decide which are true or false first individually and then discuss in pairs. Then ask about their answers and ask them to correct the false sentences. Give two or three more false sentences and ask them to correct on the whiteboard.
Focus students on one of the sentences and look at possessive 's and try to get some ideas from the students regarding the meaning of it and depending on the answers explain it's meaning. Also mention that they had lessons about the possesions. Explain that "We use the possessive 's to show that something belongs to someone or something." Then ask students to complete the rule according to the examples on the board. Then drill some of the possessives from ex. 5 to practice pronunciation. Then explain that "if there are two names, we put the apostrophe s after the second name only." For example Lisa has two children called Emma and Chris and we say Lisa is Chris and Emma's mother (write on the board and highlight the 's with Emma.) According to the family tree of Robinsons in the handout ask them to find similar examples with two names in pairs. They may say "Kate is Bill and Pat's daughter", "Max is is Bill and Pat's son", "Lisa is Bill and Pat's daughter", "Sally is Max and Anna's daughter", "Chris is Tom and Lisa's son" Write them on the board by highlighting the 's. Then explain that for plural nouns, the apostrophe is used after s. Ask the students "Who are Chris and Emma's parents?" They may say "Tom and Lisa". Then say Chris and Emma's parents' names are Tom and Lisa. Ask "Who are Chris and Emma's grandparents?" They wmay say "Bill and Pat" Then say "Their grandparents' names are Bill and Pat." Write them on the board and let them repeat.
Give students the handout of ex.7 and have them complete it individually. They should check in pairs and then check with the whole class. The one who answers writes the answer on the board
Mention that two days ago we were talking about the celebrities, check if they remember. Show students the picture of the celebrity family from the Turkish series called Ask-i Memnu - Forbidden Love and elicit who is in the picture. Give them a smaller copy of the picture (in A4 format) and ask them to work in pairs to make sentences using family vocabulary and the possessive 's. Then let them tell their examples and write on the board and check if they are correct all together.
Tell the students that the apostrophe s can be seen in the same form but with different meanings. Write on the board three sentences "Lisa's beautiful" "Lisa's got two childen" "Kate is Bill's daughter" and underline the 's in the sentences. They look same but are they same? Ask their ideas and explain the differences. Give them the handout of ex. 6b in the student's book and let them do in pair and then check with the whole class.
Continue with the exercises in the workbook. Give students handout of ex. 4a from the workbook and get them put 's in the correct place. Have them pair check, then check with the whole class and then move on the ex.4b and work all together. If there is more time, ask the students to draw their own family tree and let them discuss about it by asking questions to each other. Then they can share them with the whole class.