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Home > Articles > Teaching Tips > How to teach prepositions of time

How to teach prepositions of time

Summary: Teaching tips and classroom games and activities for time Featured Article
expressions with at, in, on, no preposition etc
Featured 70 ways to improve your
English Learning a new language
By: Alex Case
can be hard work, so here are 70
Audience: Teachers
practical tips for improving your
Category: Teaching Tips
Topic: Prepositions English that you can do outside of
First Published: 14th May. 2018 school or college
Last Edited: 17th Mar. 2021

Studentsʼ hatred of prepositions is understandable when you think that it is Other Articles of Interest
classified as grammar but actually has the almost infinite possibilities of a
Prepositions AT & IN in Manner,
vocabulary point, especially when it comes to phrasal verbs and dependent
Place & Time
prepositions. However, with prepositions of time there are actually simple rules How to teach past time
and comparatively few options, and it is actually one of the simpler and more fun expressions
points to teach, learn and practise. How to teach present time
expressions
This article concentrates mainly on the basic prepositions of time “at”, “on”, “in”
How to teach future time
and “no preposition” that can be used to talk about all three of the present, the
expressions
past and the future, but most of the activities would also work with other past
How to teach telling the time in
prepositions of time like “…ago” and future ones like “within…” There are also
English
three specific articles on this site on past, present and future time expressions. Concepts of Space & Time in
English
What students need to know about prepositions Hobbies, leisure and free time
of time with young learners
How to teach be used to and get
used to
How to teach like and would like
How to teach used to, be used
The rules for the most basic prepositions of time are: to and get used to

“at” for points in time (“at seven oʼclock”, “at the end of this week”, etc)
“on” for days and dates (because they are the same thing, as in “on Xmas Day”, “on
25 December” and “on Sunday 25 December”) Article Categories
“in” for some time within longer periods such as months, seasons, years, decades
English Grammar (39)
and centuries (“in January”, “in the early 1980s”, “in the middle on June”, etc)
English Language Examinations
no preposition with expressions with or meaning “this”, “next” and “last” (“last
(20)
week”, “yesterday”, etc) and similar expressions for times just before and after that
General Articles (28)
(“the day after tomorrow”, “the week after next”, etc)
Learning English (46)

The “point in time” and “somewhere within a larger time” explanations for “at” Punctuation (4)
Spelling (5)
and “in” correspond to “a point in space” for “at” and “within a larger space” for
Teacher Training (1)
“in” meanings of the same prepositions when they are used as prepositions of
Teaching English (128)
position. For example, we say “I was born in London” because it means
Teaching English for Specific
somewhere inside that city, in a very similar way to “I was born in 1977” meaning
Purposes (14)
somewhere within that year. And we say “Meet you at the corner of Oxford Street
Teaching English in Asia (7)
and Tottenham Court Road” because it is a point in space, similar to the point in
Teaching English Using Games
time of “At seven minutes past eleven”. & Activities (18)
Teaching Tips (53)
Somewhat confusingly, “at” is also used for a somewhat miscellaneous bunch of
Telephoning (14)
expressions which are longer than one day but less than a month such as “at
Vocabulary (3)
Xmas” (meaning the whole Xmas period, not just Xmas Day) and “at half term”.
Writing (7)
“At the weekend” also follows this pattern, but in this case other prepositions of
time are also possible! And “at night” seems completely illogical, in contrast to “in
the morning/ afternoon/ evening”, which follows the “somewhere within a longer
time” meaning of “in”. Submit Your Article

Submit an article about any area of

Typical student problems with prepositions of the English language for
time publication on our web site.
As the basic rules are fairly simple to understand, studentsʼ biggest problem with
Submit Article
prepositions of time tends to be just getting used to saying the right prepositions
quickly in fluent speech. However, confusions can remain with expressions which
have the same meaning but different grammar such as “next Wednesday” and
“on Wednesday (next week)” (but not “on next Wednesday” X). I tend to tell e-Books For Learners
students to just use “on …day” where possible, both because they are less likely Learn telephoning phrases with
to make a grammar mistake with that form and because “next…” can cause over 100 pages of stimulating self-
confusion even between native speakers when it is Sunday and so there could study practice in preparation for
be confusion over whether “next Wednesday” means in three days or in ten your own real-life telephone calls.
days.
Really Learn the Most
The preposition of time that students have most problems getting their head
Useful Telephoning
round is the additional meaning of “at” for miscellaneous medium-length
Phrases
periods, with “at Xmas” having a very different meaning to “on Xmas Day”.
However, this is also the one which is most likely to cause comprehension Download our compiled lists of
problems and so I tend to teach it at all but the lowest levels. idioms - perfect to use offline for
reference or for use in class!
It can briefly be confusing for students that the same words take different
prepositions depending on which goes first in the time expression, as in “on 150 British English
Monday afternoon” and “in the afternoon on Monday”. However, this follows a Idioms
pattern of just matching the next word in the sentence that can also be seen in
“an orange bed”/ “a bed which is orange” and “There is a bed and two pillows”/ 100 American English
“There are two pillows and a bed”. Only thinking about the next word also Idioms

involves less thought when speaking, so should be easy enough to get used to.
225 Animal Idioms

How to present prepositions of time

The simplicity of (most of) the rules for this point means that it is perfect for the
approach that I call URA (Use Recall Analyse), in which students communicate e-Books For Teachers
using some time expressions with the prepositions still attached, try to remember The latest e-books providing you
what prepositions they just used, try to make rules for how those prepositions are with interactive classroom
used, then use them again for communication. Most of the prepositions of time activities.
communicative activities below can be used with this format of lesson. Most of
the ideas also work for other prepositions of time such as “since”, “within”, “by” Teaching IELTS Writing:
and “until”. Interactive Classroom
Activities New
How to practise prepositions of time
Prepositions of time drilling games Teaching Social English:
Interactive Classroom
Prepositions of time stations
Activities (2nd Ed.)
Students listen to time phrases and/ or gapped sentences and run and touch
walls representing “at”, “on”, “no preposition” etc depending on which they think Teaching Telephoning:
Interactive Classroom
is suitable, perhaps shouting out the same phrase with the correct preposition in
Activities
when they reach the right place. For less lively practice, including with older
classes, you can get them to point at or throw things at walls or other targets
Teaching Presentation
representing the same prepositions. Alternatively, you could reduce the game to Skills: Interactive
just two prepositions and get them to raise one of the two cards that they have Classroom Activities
been given.
Teaching Emailing:
Interactive Classroom

Prepositions of time tennis Activities

Students test each other on prepositions of time as they send a real or imaginary
ball back and forth, with rules on who “serves” and how to score points perhaps
taken from volleyball, badminton, tennis or table tennis. Possibilities on how they
test each other include:

Saying more and more examples with one preposition of time (or no preposition),
with the first person to make a mistake, repeat something said before, give up or
pause too long losing the point
Saying an expression without the preposition for their partner to repeat back with
the correct preposition
Saying a preposition for their partner to repeat back in a suitable time expression
Saying a whole time expression for their partner to reply to with different example
of the same preposition in context

Preposition of time brainstorming games

As well as brainstorming back and forth in the top variation of the tennis game
above, there are many other suitable speaking and writing games involving
brainstorming suitable examples of each preposition. Oral practice includes
brainstorming round a circle of students, perhaps clapping three times between
each additional idea. However, I prefer to do it as a written race, with additional
points for examples of the preposition being brainstormed that no one else had
thought of. For additional practice they can do it on paper and then pass it to
another group to check, or for additional excitement they can do it on the board
with teams lining up and writing only one example before they pass the pen to
the person behind them and moving to the back of the line.

Prepositions of time pelmanism and snap

Make a pack of cards with around 40 cards with prepositions of time missing
such as “___ Thursday” and “___ midday”. To play pelmanism (also known as
“pairs” and “the memory game”), students spread the cards face down across
the table and take turns trying to find pairs of cards which have the same
preposition missing. The faster game Snap can also be played with exactly the
same cards. Students deal out the cards but arenʼt allowed to look at them.
Instead, they take turns quickly turning them over and placing them one by one
on one of two packs on the table. Whenever the two top cards have the same
preposition of time missing, they race to shout “Snap” as quickly as possible and
get all the cards that have been turned over so far if they are correct. If they
shout “Snap” when the two cards actually take different prepositions of time,
they have to pay a penalty such as giving two cards to the other player(s) or all
the face up cards being taken by the other player(s). The person who has most
cards at the end of the game is the winner.

Communicative practice for prepositions of time

Prepositions of time hangman

One student writes a true sentence with a preposition of time that they have
been given (on a card or worksheet) such as “I have breakfast at six forty five on
Sundays”, without showing the sentence to their partner(s). Instead, the write the
sentence out with gaps for each letter, e.g. “_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _...”. The
other students try to guess letters that go in the gaps, using clues like knowing
what kind of time expression there must be because they have got the
prepositions of time or vice versa to help them guess. This can be played with
the traditional rules of hangman (making a picture line by line as they guess
letters that arenʼt there), but I tend to find it is enough just to write such letters up
with a cross through them, and anyway with such long sentences there is little
chance of completing a whole hangman before they have guessed every letter.

To make the game more challenging, you can do a different kind of hangman
game in which each letter is guessed one by one in sequence (“I”, then “H”, then
“A”, etc for the example sentence). If any letter is guessed wrongly the right letter
is given and the person who wrote the sentence gets one point.

To add speaking practice to either variation, you could ask the person who wrote
the sentence to give hints about what kind of sentence they wrote like “Itʼs about
the morning” and “You probably do the same thing, but later”.

Prepositions of time things in common

Students try to make sentences that are true for both/ all the people in their
group with prepositions of time such as “We both go the gym on Sundays” and
“We never go the beach in (the) spring”. To make for more of a variety of
prepositions, you could give them a worksheet with each prepositions only given
two or three times to be crossed off when they are used, or they could take a
card and try to find a suitable sentence about both/ all of them before they can
take the next card.

Prepositions of time closer and closer guessing game

Students choose a past or future time that has some special meaning to them,
preferably one with a precise point in time such as “At 11 a.m. on Monday 14
March 2021”. They give a hint such as “That is when Iʼm getting married” or
“That is (exactly) when I will be 18”. Their partner tries to guess first the
millennium, then the century, then the decade, then the year, then the month, etc
until they get the exact point in time, with hints like “Thatʼs right. How about the
month?”, “Slightly later” and “A lot earlier”. If you want to score, you could give
one point for each correct guess (at each level, starting with millennium!) and/ or
one point for each wrong guess they get from their partner.

Prepositions of time sentence completion guessing game

Give students gapped sentences that include or need prepositions of time such
as “I _______ on _______”, “_____________________ Friday” and “My mother is
happiest _______________”. Students complete as many as they can with true
information in about five minutes. Then they choose one of those sentences and
read out just the part that they have added (e.g. “on Sunday afternoons” for the
last example), not the part that was printed on the worksheet. Their partner then
tries to guess which sentence they put that information into, thinking about the
meaning, matching prepositions of time with time expressions, etc.

Prepositions of time answer me

A student takes a card with a preposition of time on it, thinks about a question
they can ask their partner that will have that preposition of time in the answer
(e.g. “What time do you…?” for “at” or “When did you last…?” for “ago”) and
writes the time expression with that preposition that they think their partnerʼs
answer will be (“at nine thirty” or “many years ago”) on the card. They ask the
question that they thought of and can discard the card if it says the same as their
partnerʼs answer. However, if their partner said something different (e.g. “At
9e25” when they wrote “At 9e30”), they have to keep asking different questions
until they get exactly that answer.

Prepositions of time lining up game

Think of a few questions whose answers include different prepositions of such

as “What time did you get up this morning?” and “When is your birthday?”
Students ask each other the same question and use their answers to line up in
order from the earliest to the latest. Note that you will need to be very strict about
insisting on no L1, full questions and full sentences in their answers for this
activity to produce many prepositions of time in their speaking.

Prepositions of time lying games

Students think of a past, present or future action and the time that it happened,
happens or will happen. The time must have at least three parts such as year,
month and day or day, a.m. or p.m. and time. They change one of those three
things to be false, e.g. “I will next see my father at 7e35 on Monday next week”
when the real information is “I will next see my father at 7e35 on Monday the
week after next”. After asking for more details with questions like “Why wonʼt you
see him before then?”, their partner guesses which part is not true and then
maybe tries to guess the real time.

Prepositions of time projects

School schedules projects

Students design both the regular daily timetable and calendar of special events
for the next twelve months for their class or school. After presenting their ideas to
each other or reading posters that other groups have written, they can then vote
on which schedule they like best (not being allowed to vote for their own).

Public holiday projects

Students decide together on a new public holiday, talking about what season,
what month and then what day one would be most suitable. They then decide
what events will happen in the morning, afternoon and evening of that day and
then when.

Prepositions of time history projects

Teams of students choose three from a century, decade, year, month, day or
moment in time in history that they think are both important and interesting (e.g.
“the 1930s”, “2007” and the moment when Kennedy was shot). They present
their ideas and/ or posters to other groups, then they vote on which other groupʼs
they like best.

Copyright © 2018 Alex Case

Written by Alex case for UsingEnglish.com

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