Activity 2

Prepositions Associated With Time

   The prepositions associated with references to year, month, date, and hour are a problem for many language learners.  The following activity will help the students identify these prepositions.  The teacher will set up a display of a cup on a desk, the big hand of the clock is at the six, and the ball is in the box to show a concrete visual of these prepositions.  The teacher will give three examples of this using different sentences.  "I will meet at the dance."  "The birthday party will be in her house."  "The cake will be on the table."  The teacher then should have a calendar available that has slots for hourly appointments.  The teacher should ask students to consider the following:  A year is a SPACE, and so is a MONTH or a WEEK.  Therefore they would require the preposition IN.  An example of this is: "In 1997, in August, in the fifth week of August."  Next, the teacher should show that the actual dates is a column or line IN that week/month.  And thus, requires ON Monday.  The hour would be a point on the day line and thus requires AT, as in "At 6."  The teacher will tell students to walk around the class and find out exactly when other students were born and see if they can find someone who was born IN the same year or IN the same month, or perhaps ON the same day.  Students should then report their findings, who they interviewed, and when that person was born.    The teacher can read a short book that deals with year, month, day and time. 

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