Grammar Fix: He go?: the one ending English kept

Objective & content

students correctly add -s (or the irregular has/does/goes) to the verb after he/she/it, and avoid over-applying it elsewhere. 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

every one of our learners' first languages marks the verb for person more heavily than English does — French marks it in spelling only (il parle / ils parlent are homophones), while German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish and Dutch all mark person audibly and richly. English kept exactly ONE ending (the -s for he/she/it) after dropping nearly everything else, so that lone survivor reads as noise, not as a rule, to learners from every one of our markets. Expect the same slip ("he go", "my brother play") from any class, not just from one language group. 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] ask students to describe a family member or friend in 3 sentences using he/she, then swap with a partner and check each other's -s.

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: omission (dropping the -s after he/she/it — most of this sheet's recognition items test this directly); over-application (once the rule lands, learners often swing the other way and add -s everywhere — "they lives", "I likes" — at least a third of this sheet's items are built to catch that swing, not just the original mistake, so don't be surprised if a student who "gets the rule" still fails these); three irregular spellings — have→has, do→does, go→goes — that don't just add -s.

Curriculum alignment

Grammar tags: present-simple. 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.