To Be – Nouns / Adjectives

To Be – Nouns / Adjectives

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Daily Grammar Sentences

Instructions:  Give the student the sentences in the second column (Sentences to be Corrected).  Students write corrected sentences and turn them in to the teacher to be checked.

Theme: Self	Sentences to be Corrected	Corrected Sentences
Monday	He are tall.  She be short?  They is no big.	He is tall. Is she short? They are not big.
Tuesday	Is we fast?  You not slow.  I be athletic.	Are we fast? You are not slow. I am athletic.
Wednesday	They am noisy.  Quiet she not.  Be he playful?	They are noisy. She is not quiet. Is he playful?
Thursday	I no am mean. We be nice.  When is they helpful?	I am not mean. We are nice. When are they helpful?
Friday	You good at math.  Reading I is good at?  He not smart.	You are good at math. Am I good at reading? He is not smart.

Assessment can be made on three levels in Daily Grammar Sentences:

1. Did the student recognize the mistake?
2. Can they fix it?
3. Can they produce a sentence using that grammar point in free speech?

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Activity
Who Am I?
Type of Activity:  Independent
Materials Needed:  Paper, pencil, vocabulary cards with adjectives
Directions for student:
Write a story for the class newspaper introducing yourself.  Your story should tell your name and many things about you.  Tell things that you are and things that you are not!
Assessment:   Written, based on teacher observation.

All About Me
Type of Activity:  Independent
Materials Needed:  Paper folded to make a book, pencil, crayons, markers, vocabulary cards with adjectives
Directions for student:
Write and illustrate an “All About Me” book for the class library.  Tell many things that you are and things that you are not.  Read your book to the class.  When you read it out loud, read each page in English and then tell the class how you would say that in your home language!  Ask if you can share this book with other classes.
Assessment:   Written and oral, based on the quality of sentences produced.

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Grammar Explanation The system of auxiliary verbs is often one of the most difficult areas for learners to perfect, especially if their native language does not involve conjugations for different cases (e.g. many Asian languages).
Often it is helpful to show the students a chart of the conjugations:
 

	singular	plural
first person	I am	we are
second person	you are	you are
third person	he is she is it is	they are

Key points to understand are the different pronouns and the different forms of the verb to be.  Often this is very difficult to do without referring to the learner's native language.  If the learner has difficulty understanding, ideally, the teacher should find another native speaker of that language (preferably another student) to explain it.
Nouns are practiced with familiar titles and descriptions:

I am a teacher .
He is a boy .

Adjectives are practiced in the same way:

She is tall.
They are hungry.

Negation is straightforward, but be careful about contractions:

He isn't a teacher.
We aren't thirsty .

But not

I amn't a student.

Questions
Yes/No questions
These are formed by putting the auxiliary verb at the beginning of the sentence.

Am I tall?
Is he a student?

Of course the same effect can be achieved by giving the sentence a rising intonation:

He is the math teacher?

5Ws
Question words are placed at the beginning, before the auxiliary.  Note that, as in a yes/no question, the auxiliary is before the rest of the sentence.

What is she?  She is the principal.