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Lesson title: Subject / Verb Agreement
Skill focus: Grammar
Length: 10 mins
Year levels: Years 8-10
Instructions:
Subject-verb agreement can be a particular issue faced by teachers of ESL
students where students speak a first language that has a different verb
inflection system to English (which is nearly all languages other than English).
It means that students write sentences like:
The dog come to our house.
The people is not very good.
One way we can build students’ subject-verb agreement skills and also work
more generally on their vocabulary and writing skills is to engage in an
activity called Physical Subject Verb Matchup. Here is how it works:
1. We begin by generating a list of nouns in singular and plural form as well
as a list of verbs in singular and plural form. In total, there should be as
many words as there are students in our class and there should be as
many singular verbs as there are singular nouns and the same for plurals.
These words could be based on a text students are studying or a topic
they are writing about. The example words below (also attached as a
resource) are based on the short film The Black Hole (watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5_Msrdg3Hk ).
sounds
dramatise
symbol of
means
© Tomorrow’s Class 2014
the protagonist
seeks
the black hole
symbolises
close ups
force
the lighting
establishes
the empty office
seems
the protagonist’s clothing
appears
the protagonist's appearance
demonstrates
the sound of the photocopier
emphasise
the protagonist's actions
show
the safe
represents
some of the messages of the film
include
2. Type the words in a grid, cut them up and shuffle them.
3. Distribute one word to each student in class.
4. Explain to students that there are two types of words that have been given
out: Nouns (the names of things), like ‘protagonist’ and ‘sounds’ and verbs
(action words), like ‘represents’ and ‘force’. Explain to students that some of
the nouns are singular (they name just one thing - like ‘the safe’) or they are
plural and refer to a number of things (like ‘close ups’). There are also some
singular and some plural verbs. Single nouns need to go with single verbs.
Point out to students that one of the crazy things about English is that plural
nouns end in ’s’ but plural verbs don’t end in ’s’ - but singular verbs do!
5. The task of students is to move around the room and to match their noun
with someone’s verb. Explain to students that by ‘match’, you mean they
must grammatically match (i.e a single noun must go with a single verb, or a
plural noun with a plural verb) and they must match in meaning as well. You
should be able to use both words together in an effective sentence.
6. Give students time to move around the room and speak to at least six
other students before finding a match for their words. Ask each pair of
students to use their two words in a sentence.
© Tomorrow’s Class 2014