PYJAMA PARTY
   

This game is a communicative drill to distinguish between and practise their, they're or there. This means that the sentence patterns are predetermined.

The exercise is not creative writing, though of course you can make it more fun by insisting that loads of adjectives need to be included and they must all start with the letter "p".

In groups or individually, students plan a pyjama party. They need to answer several questions, and then make up more questions and answers of a similar type.

Initially the teacher introduces the theme and models the first Q and A on the board, highlighting the three target words with different colours:

Where are my friends going to sleep?

They're sleeping in the lounge room and their beds will be on the floor over there.

To reinforce the point the sentences can be broken down into phrases and written on large sheets of paper.

They're sleeping/ in the lounge room /and/ their beds will be/ on the floor/ over there.

OPTIONAL EXTRA:
Some students hold up these pieces of paper in front of the class and the teacher elicits from the class what combinations of sequencing are possible and why.

Consider:
Their beds will be on the floor over there and they're sleeping in the lounge room.

This is grammatically correct but the syntax is clumsy as we would mention the general point of the lounge room before the particular point of the floor.

Consider:
They're sleeping in the lounge room and their beds will be over there on the floor.

This variation is fine.

Students then plan the food, the drinks, the games, the music etc. USING THE SENTENCE STRUCTURES.

Another situation that generates a sentence structure contrasting their, they're, there is:

LOOKING AFTER THE BABY TWINS
Students imagine they are with a friend in a neighbour's house, which is in a mess as baby twins have newly joined the family. The neighbour has had to go out and the two teenagers are going to look after the the twins. They are not familiar with where everything for the babies is kept. The babies are hungry and need a change of clothes.

Model questions and answers are:

Have you seen their bottles?

No... ah, yes! they're on the floor over there.

Students then imagine where they can find their pants, socks, dummies, etc.