Practice with prepositions

Time, place, space and direction

Prepositions are tricky, but also very important. A preposition is a sentence element that expresses a relationship between the word group it belongs to and another element in the sentence. Without prepositions, you cannot indicate time, place, space, direction or relationship between words in a sentence. It is important for learners to master the use of prepositions because mistakes with prepositions can lead to misunderstandings or ambiguity in communication.

No rules, no patterns with prepositions

Learning prepositions is complex. In fact, there are often no rules or patterns for a learner to adhere to. Moreover, sometimes prepositions can have multiple meanings. Take the preposition in, for example. This can express multiple relations of meaning, for example, place (in the car), direction (going into the woods, going into the army), duration (in an hour), time (in winter), condition (in bloom, in patches), means (paying in kind). Go figure how complicated this is for an NT2 student.

Idiomatic meanings

But it gets even trickier. Many prepositions have a meaning that cannot be derived directly from the meaning of the word that makes up the preposition. For example, the preposition over in the sentence I will think about it again,has an idiomatic meaning that is not literally translatable to over in The rug is over the table.

Practice with fixed preposition combinations in NT2 lessons

Fortunately, there is also some regularity in preposition use. In fact, some verbs often occur in combination with a fixed preposition. Some familiar examples are: separate from, doubt about, pay attention to, look at, and love. Most of these combinations will not yet be addressed at levels A1 or A2. But with B2 or C1 students, it may be good to practice this list. There are several handy lists on the Internet of these fixed preposition combinations. 

Mother tongue interference

For many NT2 students, prepositions are also complicated because they do not occur in their native language or in a different way. Some languages, such as Tarifiet, use prepositions in a different way than Dutch. For example, Tarifiet has one preposition to express both to and at and knows no difference between op and over. The preposition in is also used in a different way than in Dutch. For example, in Tarifite you say He is in outside.

Getting started with prepositions in NT2 lessons

Especially the lack of rules and patterns makes teaching proper prepositional usage difficult. Therefore, make sure that you offer enough repetition and variation so that the student can learn to use the different prepositions correctly in different contexts. Below we provide a number of methods for practicing prepositions in your NT2 classroom. Of course, everything depends very much on the level of the group you are teaching.

#1 Watch a video

Watch a piece of video together. You can tailor the video to the level of your group or student. Afterwards, ask the student some questions, such as:

• Where was the book?
• Where was the bicycle?

If you have more advanced students in your group, you can have the students ask the questions to each other in pairs. It may be a good idea to put the pair in front of the class, watch the excerpt together, and then have each other ask the questions. Then instruct the rest of the group to make a list of prepositions that were also covered but that the pair missed.

#2 Cutting newspapers

In your exercises, separate prepositions, suffixes and interjections. This makes students more aware of the different forms and places where prepositions can occur. For example, a fun and simple form of work is the following.

Cut out newspaper articles and have students use a marker to mark all the prepositions in the article or on the page. For example, for prepositions they use a yellow marker, for suffixes a green one, and so on. This way they also make some extra reading meters immediately. The point of this exercise is to make the student aware of the quantity as well as the position of the prepositions.

Of course it is important to find an appropriate text for each level. Have the students check each other's work with a different color highlighter. That way they can see which prepositions they have missed. 

#3 Employ game forms

Make the exercises lively. Just as grammar should be taught in a context-rich environment so that students can extract meaning from it, it is also important for prepositions that students learn them in a visually rich environment where they can make connections and visualize the meaning. This improves comprehension and reproduction.

Some fun game forms you can use:

• Use a talking plate to practice prepositions. Talking pictures can be used to practice all aspects of the Dutch language, especially prepositions. For example, take a look at this talking plate from Boom NT2.
• Hide objects in and around the classroom and give students a list of prepositions to find them (e.g. find the pen under the desk, find the book between the two chairs).
• Play a game of Hints with your students in which they have to act out word groups with prepositions.
• Divide the group into teams and have them race to complete a set of preposition-related tasks (e.g., run to the wall and touch it, jump over the box, crawl under the table).
• For younger learners, use familiar games such as memory or pictionary.
• Have students work in pairs to create a story with as many prepositions as possible. After writing, they should also read the story aloud. That way you catch writing and speaking right away.
  
  

#4 Spin the wheel

Also check out Wordwall for fun ways to work (or easily create your own). Thousands of teachers are active here and have created fun methods you can use as well.

#5 Find out on Kahoot!

Just like on Wordwall, on Kahoot! many teachers are also active. Among many other topics, you will also find many exercises with prepositions. You can work with these on different levels: practice with the beginners the prepositions that indicate a place and practice with the advanced with fixed prepositions to words and verbs.