This is.. these are

Question

Hello everyone.

Maybe you can help me. I want the children (4th graders) in my class to learn the phrases : "What is this?" "This is..." and "What are these?" "These are..." Is that correct English??? For example: "What is this?" "This is a vampire", "What are these?" "These are vampires."

Thank you!
Andrea (Germany)

Cool Breeze · Accepted Answer

Yes and no. There is nothing wrong with the grammar but it wouldn't be natural for a pupil to use the same pronoun the teacher uses if the teacher is holding something in his hand, for example. If I were a teacher, I could ask: What's this? The pupil would reply: It's a pencil. Even that's a pencil would be better than this is...
"What are these?" "They are pencils."

CB

AlpheccaStars · Answer

I have taught English as a Second language to new learners.

The question/answer pair "What is this?" / "This is a ..." is lesson 2 (after introductions "Hello, my name is...", "What's your name?")

t teaches students how to ask for vocabulary words.

It teaches that English uses a change in word order to make a question from a statement.

It is a basis for teaching the word order for adjectives:

"This is a pencil."

"This is a red pencil."

"This is a yellow pencil."

The question/answer pair "What are these?" / "These are..." is the next step.

It reinforces the idea of word order, and the question word "what".

It teaches subject/verb agreement for the most important verb in English, making plurals by adding -s, dropping the article "a" in the plural, and that adjectives are not inflected.

"These are pencils."

"These are red pencils."

"These are yellow pencils."

That's a lot of grammar for one lesson!!

Later on, you can teach more complex rules such as the difference between this (something near) and that (something far) and pronouns such as "it" and "they".

BarbaraPA · Answer

That may be, but CB's point is that in natural language, the student wouldn't use "This" if the teacher is the one holding it.
What is this?
That is a big red pencil. It's a big red pencil.
Only if the teacher hands it to a student does it become natural for the student to say "This is a big red pencil."

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Depending on the class size, I will pass around the pencils and have the students repeat the question / answer, or have them point to the object and ask "What is this?".
Sometimes I use puppets to model the conversation.

It is a real challenge to teach ESL when I, as a teacher, do not speak the student's language and the students speak no English.

So you have to think about the purpose of the lesson is and what would be most beneficial for the students. I try to keep it as simple as possible in the beginning.

This is.. these are

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