Dependent prepositions are a crucial part of English. Being able to correctly use them with their adjectives, verbs or nouns is important, not only for the speaking and writing exams but also in the Use of English paper, particularly in parts 1 and 2 where a good knowledge of dependent prepositions can help you to identify the correct answer. Students tend to struggle to remember the many different combinations so regular practice is important. Here is a quick and easy game that can help students develop their dependent preposition knowledge.
Divide the class into two teams. Draw a noughts and crosses (tic-tac-toe) grid on the board and fill it with numbers, letters or, to challenge students further, phonemes, like this one:
One team chooses its square by saying the phoneme (or number or letter) and the teacher gives them a noun, adjective or verb which they then have to give the dependent preposition for. If they get it wrong, the other team has a chance to win the square. You can make the highly coveted centre square really tricky to make the game a little more difficult. The first team to get three in a row is the winner. Easy to do, very low-prep and can be used at any point in the lesson.
Download the PDF of FCE Dependent Prepositions to play the game and for further individual practice
Learning lessons from TEFL 