Possessive pronouns can be tough. Especially because they are so similar to the verb “to be” when doing contractions. To a student, what is the difference between “She’s on the phone.” and “Karen’s car is outside.” One uses the verb “to be” and the other a possessive.

At the beginning, you can start by showing a PPT which highlights the grammar point. If you don’t have access to a projector or a smart board, you can skip this step.

PowerPoint Presentation

This PowerPoint gives example sentences and asks students to circle the apostrophe ‘s in the sentences. Afterwards, there are a few sentences some of which are correct and some of which are incorrect. Test student’s understanding with those. I often ask students to write down the correct sentences in their notebook.

You can also use the blackboard for this:

Firstly, I would highlight 5 sentences that use the verb “to be” and 5 sentences with the possessive ‘s. This will help compare the two.

Sentences with “to be”	Sentences with Possessive ‘s
I think he’s over there.	My dog’s fur is brown
He’s always doing fun things.	My friend’s backpack is green.
She’s always distracted.	His mom’s cellphone is big.
My brother’s at school.	Dad’s car is yellow.
She’s on the phone.	Johnny’s bicycle is fast.

Guided practice:

Students are asked if the sentences are the same and how they are different. The teacher can then write down the sentence without contractions, so students are clear that the first column is different. Example: She is always distracted.

The teacher should also ask students to identify the noun in the second column. After the students identify the noun, the teacher can clarify that the possessive serves to gives possession of the noun to the agent.

Individual practice

The teacher can then make sure that the students have understood by asking for items in their possession and asking: “Whose pencil is this?” The students may answer: “It’s Jaime!” The teacher can correct it to “It’s Jaime’s pencil.”

Worksheet

When the students are comfortable with the new topic, this worksheet can serve as practice. If there is no time in the classroom, it can also be used as homework.

Download each file here

I hope you liked it. Let me know how it goes!

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