Teaching Preposition of Time ‘In/On/At’ to Seventh Graders (Classroom Activity)

By Irfan Nugroho
Teaching preposition of time ‘in/on/at’ would be much more interesting if the amount of the students within a class is less than 40. And it was my unfortunate that I teach more than 30 pupils for the seventh grade, and 40 pupils for either eight or ninth grades.

It is because I divided the class into three large groups, in which each group is named after each preposition – in/on/at. It means that if a group consists of large students, then the effectivity of the activity I used here would be less achieved.

Here is my complete procedure of teaching preposition of time ‘in/on/at. (I modified this classroom activity from a book “Play Games with English 3”).

A. Aim
Students are able to:
- Understand and properly use preposition of time ‘in/on/at.
- Understand and properly use ‘simple past tense, simple present tense, and simple future tense.’
- Understand and properly use ‘WH-question’ especially ‘when.’

B. Activities
- Presentation Stage on preposition of time ‘in/on/at’
- Presentation Stage on WH-Question of ‘when’
- Practice Stage in the form of quiz

C. Procedure
- Presentation Stage
I started the lesson by asking them, “When did you do your homeworks?” Some of them rightly answered it, but the rest kept silent saying nothing because indeed, the level of students’ knowledge vary significantly.

Then, I told them that there is only one preposition of time in Bahasa Indonesia, that of ‘pada.’ Indonesians say, “Pada tahun 1997” (In 1997), “Pada hari Ahad” (On Sunday), and “Pada pukul tujuh malam” (At 7 pm).

Some students will find it hard to properly used them. For that reason, I wrote on the board about the use of ‘in/on/at.’

Since then, I wrote on the board about WH-Question sentence pattern, especially on ‘when.’ Here is what I wrote on the board.

- Practice Stage
I then prepared three cards written ‘in,’ ‘on,’ and ‘at.’ I then divided the class into three groups in. I distributed the cards to each group.

I told the students that I would recite some questions using WH-question when. As they have had their preposition cards, one representative of each group must answer my question based on the cards they were holding.

I set the score as such:
Three points: for the group that could answer the fastest.
Two points: for the group that answer the second fastest.
One point: for the last-answering group.

I did emphasize their answers on the proper use of preposition of time. Likewise, I put concern on the right use of simple past tense, simple present tense, and simple future tense.