If you are teaching English to speakers of other languages, you should include articles such as a, an, and the.It is important to be thorough with articles because they can be confusing for students.Introduce your students to articles using review, examples and explanations.Encourage your students to ask questions and engage in activities to solidify their understanding of articles.You should ask questions throughout the lesson and repeat concepts that are hard for students to understand.
Step 1: Have your students look at examples of both nouns and adjectives.
Students need to have a firm grasp of nouns and adjectives in order to recognize articles.Just before you start talking about articles, review this concept with them.Ask them to come up with some examples of their own.You can give examples of the words, such as dog, girl, Paris, and keys.
Step 2: On the board or piece of paper, write the letters a, an, and the.
Write the 3 articles on the board and read them to your students.Explain to your students that articles help us to describe nouns.
Step 3: If the subject is specific or general, explain it.
The main function of an article is to indicate what we are talking about.The articles "a" and "an" are called indefinite articles because they can be used to talk about a specific topic, while "the" is a definite article.If there was only one item you were talking about, such as the girl, the yellow umbrella, or the garbage can, you might explain to students that you would use the word "the" instead.
Step 4: Examples of sentences with articles in them are provided.
You can distribute a handout with examples in it that you can read with your students.Make sure you include a variety of different uses of articles in your examples.You could include sentences such as, "The dog chewed on a bone," "Sally wants to borrow the black dress I wore last weekend," and "I'm ordering an aperitif for dinner."
Step 5: When the word starts with a vowels, explain to use "an".
Depending on the first letter or sound of the word, "A" and "an" can be used in different ways.Instruct students to look at the first letter of the word and sound it out.If you need an indefinite article and the word has a vowels at the beginning, use "an"There are a few instances where the word may begin with a vowels, but make a consonant sound.
Step 6: Students don't usually need an article if they use the word "plural."
Unless you are talking about a specific group, you can often leave articles out.Provide a number of examples of when to use an article and not use one to help them see the differences.Some examples of when not to use articles include, "Black bears are native to this region," "Apples are my favorite fruit," and "Pink is a stereotypical color for little girls."The black bears invaded our campsite overnight, the apples were delicious, and the three little girls all said the color pink was their favorite.
Step 7: Explain that you shouldn't use articles before most geographical nouns.
Any geographical feature does not need an article.Instruct students to not write about a specific country, lake, city, state, street, mountain, or continent.Mountain ranges, such as the Rockies and the Andes, are exceptions to this rule.
Step 8: There are no articles for nationalities, languages, sports or academic subjects.
Chinese, Italian, and German do not need an article.French, Spanish, and Hebrew do not.When discussing sports, such as hockey, basketball, and baseball, you can leave out articles.
Step 9: Students will be given a handout and asked to circle the articles.
You can show the students how to do this by reading out loud and circling the articles.Give your students time to do it on their own.Allow your students to circle all of the articles while reading through them.
Step 10: Discuss the differences between the articles with students.
Ask your students to talk with a neighbor or two about the articles and how they change the meaning of a sentence.To get every student to explain an article and how it affects the meaning of the sentence, call on students at random or go around the room.Allow about 10 minutes for this exercise.
Step 11: Compare the English articles to the ones in the native languages of the students.
Mention the articles in your students native languages if you have any familiarity with them.If there are more articles in your students' native languages, this may help solidify the concept of articles for them.If your students speak Spanish, you can list the articles for comparison.It would take about 5 minutes to include this activity in your lesson.
Step 12: Students can be asked to read missing articles to see the difference.
You can show students why articles matter by reading through examples of missing articles.Take the articles out of a few sentences and write them on the board.To show how awkward the sentence is, ask a student to read it out loud.You can write something like, "Bear walked to the river and caught fish" or "I wanted sandwich, so I went to store."
Step 13: Students should fill out blank spaces with articles.
You can give your students a blank space where articles should be.Students should fill in the blanks with the correct articles.To assess your students understanding of articles and to determine if you need to spend more time on the topic, you should collect the worksheets and grade them.Students should be given about 5 minutes to complete the assignment.