There is, there are

Objective & content

Everything to teach there is and there are in one pack of four parts: slides to project, a three-level practice sheet, a team game and a 10-minute quiz with answers. The pack starts from a short picture story, Yara's new house, in which pupils notice there is and there are before they meet the rule. It then covers there is with a / an and there are with a number or some, a / an / some and plurals, the negative with there isn't a and there aren't any, questions with Is there ...? and Are there any ...? and short answers, and How many ...? By the end, pupils can say and write what there is in a room, a house, a town or a park, make negatives and questions, and count things.

Pedagogical guide

The rule is given in Remember! boxes, not left to be deduced; the story and the pictures make the form easy to notice first. The practice sheet is one A4 sheet at three levels: every page has a Bronze, a Silver and a Gold task, so the whole class works on the same page and each pupil moves up when they finish. The game puts the same language under time pressure, in four rounds, and the quiz gives a mark out of 20. The pack stays at A1+ level: countable nouns only, with in, on, under, next to and near as the places, and no past (no there was) and no present perfect. The key page of the practice sheet holds the answers, teacher notes and common mistakes (for example "There is two chairs" and "Is there any shops?"). Spelling is British English.

Suggested procedure

The pack fits two lessons of about 45 minutes. Lesson 1 is Teach it and Practise it; lesson 2 is Play it and Check it. The four parts can also be used alone.

1. (25 min) Teach it (lesson.pdf, lesson 1): show the story and ask "What is there in Yara's house?", read the Remember! boxes aloud, then let pairs ask and answer about the pictures on the Look, ask and answer slide and do the quick check with the class. The last slide is for the teacher and is not projected.
2. (20 min) Practise it (practice.pdf, lesson 1): give each pupil the three pages and a start (Bronze, Silver or Gold); correct page by page, with one pupil from each medal reading an answer.
3. (20 min) Play it (game.pdf, lesson 2): make teams, show each question, give 20 seconds to write the answer, then show the answer slide and keep the score. Round 4 is worth double points.
4. (10 min) Check it (quiz.pdf, lesson 2): pupils work alone on page 1; mark out of 20 with page 2.

Adaptations

[S] Start every pupil at Bronze and keep the Remember! slides on screen during the practice and the game. Accept a short answer in the game and do the quiz in two halves.

[A] Send fast pupils straight to Gold and then to the Gold task on page 3, where they read their room or town to a partner, who answers one of their questions. As an extension, pupils draw a room in secret; a partner asks Is there ...? and How many ...? and draws the same room.

Materials & prerequisites

A projector or screen for lesson.pdf and game.pdf (one PDF page per slide, turned with the arrow keys), and paper for the teams' answers. Print practice.pdf (3 pages for pupils; the key page is for the teacher) and quiz.pdf (page 1 for pupils, page 2 is the key), one copy per pupil. Pupils should already know the verb be, numbers up to twenty and basic words for rooms, furniture and places in town. It goes well after a lesson on this is and these are, and before any work on the past (there was, there were).