HOW to MAKE A PREPOSITIONS ROLE-PLAY (with a cloze-listening exercise)

The meta-language associated with grammar instruction can be rather ineffective with many students.  However, if students have been subjected to acquisition practices for years, and they still don't get it, why not try to use the meta-language as an alternative method of instruction.  We introduce it as such, but we don't labour the point once it has been used as such.  Of course, we still refer to it as articles, prepositions and conditionals, but we make an extra effort to get the students using each compartmentalized language function in context and relatively authentically.  That said, the activity I wish to explain today does involve the terminology, but only at the beginning of the role-play we did with our teenage students.

Having done the preposition Presentation we then did some drills to accustomize all our students, with varying levels of English, of the need for using prepositions, and even more importantly, the correct prepositions. This takes time, but it is my experience that with the vast majority of EFL students (in Turkey at least) accurate grammar acquisition simply does not happen.  A more focused approach is required over several brain-wrenching years. But that topic is for another post. Today is all about role-playing after a listening exercise as the starting-point.

STEP ONE

Put students into groups of 3/4 depending on the size and number of your class.  If you don't have the fourth student, you can have another student enter for effect towards the end to assist in completing the role-play.

STEP TWO

Have the students choose one "listener & recorder" from their group. That student will listen to the narrated story from the teacher, and record the prepositions in the spaces provided throughout the text. (a section of the  document is below)

STEP THREE

After you have finished dictating the story, at normal speech-pace, the students go back to their groups to start the role-play.  They get three minutes to run through the acting/miming themselves, also friends can help add missed prepositions while they practise.

STEP FOUR

The students, now ready to perform in front of their peers, are asked to gather together at the back of the class, while each group steps up to perform the role-play. 

A video of the only group to complete the role-play is below.  The groups were allowed THREE PREPOSITION MISTAKES before being asked to sit down.

The take-away for the students was by asking them why doing such an activity can benefit their understanding and show that prepositions are necessary for both speaking and writing, if what is being read or said is to be understood by the reader or listener.