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How to help learners of English understand prepositions
By Adam J. Simpson
26 August 2014 - 10:56

'Prepositions mark special relationships between persons, objects, and locations.' Photo
uncoolbob, licensed under CC BYNC 2.0 and adapted from the original.
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Why
are
words
like 'on', 'at', 'for' and 'about' so tricky for learners of

English and how can teachers help? Adam Simpson, winner of the British
Councils Teaching English blog award
(http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/category/articlessite
structure/community/featuredblogmonth) for his infographic on prepositions
(http://www.teachthemenglish.com/2014/07/infographicprepositionsoftime/) ,

explains.
Prepositions and their importance in English
Prepositions are tricky little beasts. The relative shortness of the words (most are six
letters or under) and their often misplaced role in the overall scheme of things (why
should prepositions be less important than nouns, adjectives or verbs?) mean that we
should treat them carefully and perhaps give them more time in the classroom than is
usually the case.
What exactly are prepositions and how are they used in English?
In a list of English prepositions
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_prepositions) you will find very

common words such as 'in', 'up', 'behind', 'from', and 'with'. Prepositions hold a
privileged position as parts of speech in that they are a closed class. In other words,
they are a select group of words that dont accept new members to their club. This is in
contrast to nouns, adjectives and verbs, which welcome new additions
(http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/05/newwordsmay2014/) to their
respective groups all the time.
While prepositions are limited in number, they are important because they act as vital
markers to the structure of a sentence; they mark special relationships between
persons, objects, and locations. For this reason, we should think carefully about how we
incorporate the teaching and learning of prepositions into our classes.
What problems can prepositions cause for learners of English and their
teachers?
Its very difficult to use prepositions correctly in English and they present a number of
problems for both teachers and learners.
First, most prepositions, especially the common ones, have several different functions.
The preposition at, for example, has as many as 18 different functions, depending on
which dictionary you consult. As vocabulary items in their own right, prepositions can
therefore present a major challenge and it's not unusual for learners of English to ask
teachers to explain what a word such as 'at' means.
Second, there is no logical way of deciding which preposition goes with a particular

noun, verb or adjective. Consider these examples: the reason for, arrive at,
angry with somebody, on a train. In many instances, the correct preposition cannot be
guessed, so the expression must be learned as a whole. The problem is compounded
when a particular vocabulary item again its those commonly used ones that are often
guilty flirts with many different prepositions, making teaching and learning a longer
process than we may initially account for. Consider the adjective 'available'. As a
teacher, which of the following would you prioritise?
Tickets are available from the box office.
Not enough data is available to scientists.
No figures are available for the number of goods sold.
There are plenty of jobs available in the area.
All of these sentences are correct, yet in each case the adjective goes with a different
preposition. We need to consider how we would deal with phrases such as 'the reason
for' and the best way to teach words such as 'available', that go with multiple
prepositions.
Finally, learners' native language can 'get in the way' of the learning process and
interfere with correct English usage. This is perhaps never more true than in the form
of prepositional errors. For example, some expressions in English do not use a
preposition but the same expression in another language does, and vice versa. In my
teaching context, where the majority of learners are native Turkish speakers, I
constantly hear sentences like he married with her, I hate from that and I
accessed to the internet. Another problem I regularly encounter among Turkish
learners relates to the multiplicity of uses of particular prepositions. Turkish has one
preposition serving the same purpose as 'in', 'on' and 'at' in English, making it difficult
for my learners to distinguish between their various uses.
A few tips for learning and teaching prepositions of place and movement
Go with the tried and trusted basics
Following the pattern that most course books take, i.e., dealing with prepositions in
manageable chunks, is not a bad way to go. Teaching prepositions of time, place and
movement, for instance, at different times, will enable learners to build up their
knowledge of prepositions slowly and steadily. Doing so will be much more effective
than, say, trying to teach every use of 'in' at the same time.
Engage learners in physical movement
The game Simon Says is great for reviewing prepositions of place and movement with

young learners, as you can give directions for students to move around, such as Simon
Says stand on your chair or Simon Says get under your desk. Learners respond well to
the movement and start using the prepositions naturally.
With adult learners, a competitive timed review game can work really well. Start by
dividing the class into teams, say a sentence and then have them take turns drawing it
on the board. If you say the dog is behind the chair, the learners have to draw a
corresponding image, which can be graded according to speed or accuracy, depending
on which is more enjoyable for the class.
Use visual stimuli
In my blog post (http://www.teachthemenglish.com/2014/07/infographic
prepositionsoftime/) , I showed a visual representation of prepositions of time. I
used two of my favourite forms of visual communication for this: infographics and
cartoons. Infographics provide learners with strong images to help visualise the
prepositionPicktochart (http://piktochart.com/) is a great resource for creating
these. Bitstrips (http://www.bitstrips.com/) is a great resource for creating cartoon
images, which are universally popular and very easy to comprehend. You can start off
by preparing infographics and cartoons for your learners, but an effective way to get
them working with the language is to have them prepare infographics themselves.
Join our Teaching English Facebook community for further tips, resources
and discussions, or see our offer for teachers
(http://www.britishcouncil.org/teachenglish) .

You might also be interested in:

What are the correct rules of English grammar?
How infographics can help teach the rules of English

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MD Yusuf

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Actually English language very essential for us because of this is an international

language. However main theme is English is an essential language.

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