I know that apostrophes should only be
used to show possession or in contractions, yet when I am typing I
often throw in extra needless apostrophes out of habit.
In the same way, most students know the
difference between you're and your, they just get overwhelmed when
writing and make the mistake without thinking.
So, how to get students to use your and
you're properly?
First make sure they know the
difference. The Internet is fantastic here. There are
grammar comics, songs, and websites
that point out the difference as well as many memes. Find some funny
examples and come up with some on your own if need be. Check out the
Venn diagram on the right for a basic guide on the differences and
similarities between you're and your.
Check that they understand by giving
them some sentences and having them explain what it means. You can
use YouTube clips to make this a bit more fun, or just say them
yourself. For example.
“'You're the one that I want' did I
mean you are or your?”
What does: Your "you're" you're using
may be wrong mean?
The “you're” that belongs to you
that you are using may be wrong
It can also help to compare it to
similar word pairs in English. He's vs His (which sounds similar), or
She's vs Her, I'm vs. My and finally It's vs Its (which has its own
set of problems).
Remember: “Good grammar is the
difference between thinking 'You're tops' and 'Your tops'.”
Next, discourage contractions.
When speaking we use contractions naturally, and that's fine since
you don't have to worry about pronouncing your differently than
you're. Informal writing also tends to have contractions; however try
to encourage students to write out words in full whenever possible.
This tends to be the fastest way to get rid of this mistake as they
won't likely use “you are” when they mean to say “your” and
vice versa.
If that doesn't work, or your students
are disinclined to write out entire words make sure they double check
their work out loud. I try to avoid grading written work around
people as I end up reading their essays out loud. That's because I
can hear mistakes more clearly than I can read them. If your students
read their work out loud and read contractions in full (so they would
see can't but read cannot) they will likely find all their mistakes.
If their brains keep auto-correcting their mistakes, have them read
backwards, starting with the last sentence .
Activities!
This opens itself up to SO
many games! It can be done with
flyswatter. Just put Your and You're
on the board. It works even better if you rotate which word is where and you only
have two groups. Say a sentence, “Your shirt is ugly” and then have
the students race to hit the correct word. In this case hitting the
wrong word would result in the other team getting the point.
This also works very well with
dictoglosses since students would have to figure out if your or
you're made more grammatical sense.
What activity
would you do to review? What tips do you have when teaching the
differences?
