Grammar Fix: I have 12 years: English ages differently

Objective & content

students correctly use be (am/is/are) to state and ask about age, and keep have for real possessions instead of dropping it everywhere. The printable is the unit's class pack: one A4 pupil sheet (recognition items, then fill-in and word-order drills) printed once per pupil, and one teacher sheet with the answer key and the notes below.

Pedagogical guide

five of our eight markets — French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Polish — express age with their own equivalent of "have" (avoir/tener/avere/ter/mieć: "j'ai 12 ans", "tengo 12 años") and transfer that calque directly into English as "I have 12 years." This is not universal across our markets: German/Austrian (sein) and Dutch (zijn) already express age with "be," exactly like English, so learners from those two markets do not produce this error at all. Expect the slip mainly from French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Polish speakers, not from every class. Use it after the class has watched the unit, or on its own as a targeted repair when the mistake shows up in written work.

Suggested procedure

1. (3 min) Write the target sentence on the board and ask what is wrong with it. Collect the class's answers.
2. (10 min) Pupils work through the pupil sheet alone: recognition items first, then the drills.
3. (5 min) Check with the teacher sheet. Read the explanation of each recognition item aloud.
4. (2 min) Exit line: each pupil writes one correct sentence with the structure on a slip of paper.

Adaptations

• [S] Do the recognition items together as a class before pupils try the drills alone.
• [A] in pairs, students take turns asking and answering "How old are you?" and "What do you have in your bag?", making sure to catch themselves if they reach for have with age or be with a real object.

Materials & prerequisites

One pupil sheet per pupil, one teacher sheet. No audio needed; the Grammar Fix unit video is an optional lead-in. Watch for: the core calque itself (have instead of be for age — "I have 12 years," "She has 10" — most of this sheet's recognition and fill-in-blank items test this directly, across statements and questions); the question form making the same substitution ("How many years do you have?" instead of "How old are you?"); and, once the rule lands, an overcorrection in the other direction — dropping have even for things students really do own ("I am a bike" instead of "I have a bike"). A third of the recognition items and roughly a third of the drills are built specifically to catch that overcorrection, not the original mistake, so a student who has clearly learned "age uses be" can still fail these if they over-apply it.

Curriculum alignment

Grammar tags: be-affirmative. Filed at A1- (the level where the mistake starts to appear); the example sentences stay inside that band.

Assessment & extensions

The exit line is the check. Extend with the Grammar Fix unit itself, or with the grammar sheet on the same structure when one exists.