Demonstrative Pronouns Lesson Plan
Demonstrative Pronouns Lesson Plan
Demonstrative Pronouns Lesson Plan
Lesson:
Demonstrative pronouns
(this/that/these/those)
General:
Time: 40 mins - 1 hour
Objectives: Pointing to specific things using “this / that / these / those”
Structures: "What is this / that / that over there?”, “What are these / those / those
over there?”
Target Vocab: various classroom objects
Notes:
Your students will have heard you use demonstrative pronouns in every lesson as part of
your classroom discourse (e.g. “What is this?”, “Can you pass me that ball?”, etc.). In this
lesson, students can practice using these pronouns correctly to point specific things out.
Lesson Overview:
Warm Up and Maintenance:
1. See our "Warm Up & Wrap Up" lesson sheet.
Wrap Up:
1. Set Homework: "this, that, these, those 2" worksheet
2. See our "Warm Up & Wrap Up" lesson sheet.
Lesson Procedure:
Warm Up and Maintenance:
See our "Warm Up & Wrap Up" lesson sheet.
Before class, cut out the “Demonstrative pronouns structures cards” at the end of this
lesson plan. Also prepare 9 objects – I use 9 plastic animals to make it fun, but anything will
do, e.g. 9 pens, 9 fruit, 9 toy vehicles, etc.
Start the lesson by standing at the front of the class. Tell everyone to stand up and come up
to the front of the class, standing behind you. This will result in a bit of mayhem. Make sure
you make enough space between you and the wall for everyone to fit comfortably in.
STAGE 1
You will now have any empty classroom of desks and chairs in front of you. Take out one of
your objects (I’ll use plastic animals - in this case a toy cat) and place it on the desk in front
of you. Point to it and ask the class “What?” and elicit “A cat”.
Next place a cow on a table in the middle of the classroom and again elicit what it is simply
by saying “What?” and pointing.
Finally, place an elephant on the table at the far end of the classroom and elicit what it is.
Now, take out the 3 “What is” cards from your demonstrative pronouns card set and put
each one next to each of the 3 animals. Then go back to the front of the class and show the
three cards for “this?”, “that?”, “that over there?”. Give each card to a student and ask
them to place the cards where they think they belong to complete the questions. You can
give help if necessary, but I usually find that some students in the class will be able to direct
the students correctly.
By this point you should have the cards laid out in the classroom as follows:
Next take out the “This is a/an”, “That is a/an” and “That over there is a/an” cards and ask
three different students to place them next to the questions on the desks. You should end
up as follows:
Put students in pairs and give them a couple of minutes asking and answering the questions
for the animals on the desks.
STAGE 2
Now we’ll introduce plurals. Take out two of the same animal (e.g. two dogs) and place
them on the nearest table. Elicit the animals (“What?”, “Dogs.”). Then do the same for the
other two desks (e.g. 2 horses and 2 monkeys) until you have two pairs of animals on each
desk.
Take out the three “What are” cards and also the cards “these?”, “those?” and “those over
there”. Ask three students to place the cards on the correct tables.
Finally, ask three more students to place the “These are”, “Those are” and “Those over
there are” cards on the correct desks.
Then put students into pairs to practice asking and answering the questions.
Then in the space to the right of each sentence ask different students to draw the animals
that were used (e.g. a cat next to “This is a/an”, a cow next to “That is a/an”, etc.).
Let the activity run for around 5-10 minutes. Then do a class check by asking different pairs
to stand up and show the class one of their conversations.
As everyone plays the game, circulate around the class checking for correct usage.
Teacher: (reading from page 3 and 4) "Suddenly, Sue noticed something. “What’s …?”
(pause as you wait for someone to say the missing word).
Student: “… this?”
Teacher: Yes, that’s right! (reading) ... "What’s this?, she asked". What do you think it is?
Student: A tail!
Teacher: Let’s check … (reading) … “It looks a bit like a tail”. Yes, well done!
Continue through the story, getting everyone to say the pronouns and guess what the things
in the cave are.
After reading the story, give out a reader worksheet to each student and have pairs or small
groups fill in the answers. Finally, quickly read through the story again to check the answers.
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Alternatively, watch our video version of the reader on our website.
Wrap Up:
1. Assign Homework: "this, that, these, those 2" worksheet.
2. Wrap up the lesson with some ideas from our "Warm Up & Wrap Up" lesson sheet.
• All flashcards, worksheets, craft sheets, readers and songs used in this
lesson plan can be downloaded at eslkidstuff.com/esl-kids-lesson-
plans.html
• More free Lesson Plans are available at eslkidstuff.com/esl-kids-lesson-
plans.html
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What are
What is
these?
this?
What are
What is
those?
that?
What are
What is
those over
that over
there?
there?
This is
a/an
That is
an/an
there is a/an
Those over
That over
there are