In the Classroom: Adventures in Teaching Prepositions

This week in my class at JETS, I have been teaching prepositions to my students. For those of you who don’t know, this area is one of the most persistent sources of errors for English speakers of other languages. We have had some interesting discussions in the process of trying to explain the meaning of such words as at, on, and in.

I have discovered that there are many challenges in coming up with examples when teaching English outside of America. For example, the classic illustration for helping students to identify a preposition is to tell them that anything a squirrel can do to a tree is a preposition. I quickly realized one thing though . . .no squirrels in Nigeria. Hmmm . . .okay, anything a monkey can do to a tree! Later in the discussion, a student asked me the difference between at, on, and in. He had no idea how to tell the difference. I told him to think of a car . . .at the car, in a car, and on a car all have very different meanings. (The students all laughed at the thought of this student being on top of a car.) The light bulbs started coming on so I quickly tried to think of another example to drive the meanings home. I told him to think of an elevator . . .,but I had to abruptly stop. The blank stares of 39 students were looking back at me. I thought to ask a key question . . .”How many of you have ridden in an elevator?” Not one person raised their hand . . . Okay, bad example!!! (Though one of my students was very quick to enthusiastically inform me that he thought there was one in the big city 3 hours away!) (By the way, Jos is a city of 600,000+ and not a small city.)

My favorite question of the day though was from one of my strongest students. Some prepositions must be deleted where we would normally use one. Ever wondered why you say, I’m going to the store, I’m going to the mall, but say I’m going downtown or I’m going home(no preposition)? After finishing up this short discussion, a young man raised his hand. “Mam, there is a club in Jos named Downtown. If I am going there, what would I say?” Managing not to laugh out loud, I told him that it was okay to say,” I’m going to Downtown” in that case.

Teaching these students is a lot of fun!

Despite the fun (there’s a prepositional phrase for you), the goals of my students are very serious. They are studying to be future pastors, small Bible college teachers, and missionaries in the African bush. Some of them are active in ministry already. They need/will need English to communicate effectively in their work. I consider it an honor to work with these students, and I pray for them regularly as they are the future spiritual leaders of Africa.

Lisa