Using "These are the Daves I Know" to teach Articles to Refer to Groups

(TESOL Materials--Articles to Refer to Groups, Using Songs to Illustrate Grammar Points)

Picture: These are Daves

Video: These are the Daves I Know

Recently, when teaching articles to refer to groups, I used the song "The Daves I Know" (W) from the kids in the hall.

First, I showed the students a picture of famous Daves.  I told them "These are Daves".  I then asked them which Daves they knew.  (In my case, because I was teaching in Vietnam, my students knew almost none of the famous Daves.  But it still generated some discussion.)

I then told them that I would like to tell them about the Daves that I knew, and I played the song.

Afterwards, I wrote on the white board:

These are Daves.

These are the Daves I know.

...and I asked the students to try to guess what the difference in the grammar was.  

Kids in the Hall: The Daves I Know

Kahoot Game: Articles to refer to groups

This is a Kahoot game for articles used to refer to groups.  

I made this game when I was teaching out of Reflect Reading & Writing 6, and this game was essentially just me converting two of the textbook exercises (exercise C and exercise D from pages 165-166) into a Kahoot game.  However, I hope that this Kahoot game can still be used as an independent resource for any teacher who is teaching a lesson on articles to refer to groups.

Because I was using the Reflect Reading & Writing 6 textbook as my basis when I created this game, I imported some questions that the textbook uses, but which I'm not entirely sure qualify as "articles used to refer to groups".

Question 1 (world vs. the world) I think could arguably be classified as Geographic Use of "the".

Questions 5 (the deaf) and 7 (the elderly) are examples of The+ Nominalized Adjectives, but Reflect Reading & Writing 6 includes  the + normalized adjectives in with articles used to refer to groups.

Articles to Refer to Groups

(TESOL Ideas and Worksheets Subdivisions)

* Kahoot Game: Articles to refer to groups

* Using "These are the Daves I Know" to teach Articles to Refer to Groups

One of the textbooks I taught out of (Reflect Reading & Writing 6) included the + nominalized adjectives as part of "Articles to Refer to Groups".  (What do you think?  Does the use of "the" + nominalized adjectives count as an example of "Articles to Refer to Groups"?)  At any rate, below is my activity for the + nominalized adjectives.

* The+ Nominalized Adjectives with a Joke

The+ Nominalized Adjectives with a Joke

(TESOL Materials--Articles, Using Jokes to Illustrate Grammar Points)

Google Slides: slides, pub

This joke is repurposed from my collection of jokes.  I use it in my class to teach  t"The + nominalized adjectives".

In class, I run through it as you would do any other joke/riddle.  I give students the question, challenge them to solve the riddle, and then show them the answer.

After giving them the answer, I highlight some of the sentences like "The poor have it" and "The rich need it".  I ask the students to identify what part of speech "rich" and "poor" are.  If the students say that "rich" and "poor" are adjectives, I then ask the how "the rich" and "the poor" are being used in the sentence.

I then give them the rule that "The + adjective" can refer to a group of people.