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Possessive adjectives

Free
Low-resource ESL lesson plan
Beginner/A1
Low-resource ESL lesson plan
Grammar
Low-resource ESL lesson plan
45-60 min
Low-resource ESL lesson plan
Low-Resource
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Overview

Welcome to our beginner ESL lesson on possessive adjectives. In this lesson, we use a basic conversation to explain possessive adjectives in a way that learners can easily understand. By the end of this session, students should be familiar with the function of possessive adjectives and use them correctly in their communication.

This lesson plan includes suggested boardwork and a range of low-resource classroom activities. These are designed to enable students to interact with and practice the target language. At the end of the lesson, students will play a classroom game to review and apply what they have learned about possessive adjectives.

Lesson Outline
Activities
Low-resource ESL lesson plan
Boardwork
1Drill: Possessive adjectives
2Match the pronoun
3Whose item is this?
Games
1Whose ... is it?
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Classroom activities

Low-resource ESL lesson plan

Use of the board

The students are taught possessive adjectives through a simple dialogue incorporating their usage.

Start by translating some simple possessive pronouns on the board and doing a basic drill using your fingers. Next, draw the two images in the lower corners, and ask the class what they see. Finally, introduce the question structure that they'll be using for the lesson and elicit a simple dialogue in the centre of the board.

EFL - ESL Lead-in activity for teaching possessive adjectives

Low-resource ESL activity

Drill: Possessive adjectives

The students learn a simple drill for possessive adjectives.

Use the following instructions to create a drill for possessive adjectives.

My: Put your finger on your chest.
Your: Point at the student in front of you.
His: Point at a male student.
Her: Point at a female student.

Low-resource ESL activity idea

Match the pronoun

Students work to connect pronouns to their corresponding possessive adjectives.

Test your students' understanding of possessive adjectives with this ESL grammar activity. Start by writing the pronouns I, you, he and she in a random fashion on the left-hand side of the board. Then, the possessive adjectives my, your, his and her in a similar manner on the right-hand side. Have the students copy the board and draw connecting lines from the pronouns to the adjectives.

Low-resource ESL activity idea

Whose item is this?

For this speaking activity, you'll query the students trying to elicit the correct usage of possessive adjectives.

Move around the classroom pointing at different possessions, asking individual students “whose ___ is this?”. Vary your questions so that you are testing each possessive adjective. After a while, you could have a student take your place.

Classroom games

Low-resource ESL classroom game

Whose ... is it?

A fun memory game where students have to remember the owner of an item.

This fun little ESL game idea works quite well kids. Divide the class into two teams. Fill a bag or box with a possession from each student. On each turn, a student has to use the correct possessive adjective to determine the owner. You will randomly select the object, and students get one point for naming it and another for identifying the owner using the correct possessive adjective.

More ESL lesson plans for beginners

We hope that you've found a few of these ideas useful. Our suggested next lesson is on using 'have' and 'have got'. Be sure to check out our complete list of ESL lesson plans for beginners (A1 Mid-level), as well as our entire collection of ESL lesson plans, from beginner to advanced.

And remember, if you are an Android or iOS user, this lesson plan is available for free on the TEFL Handbook app. An ESL lesson planner for English teachers.