TEFL: Countable/Uncountable Nouns

Cailin CoisFarraige

Would really appreciate some advice and ideas for teaching countable and uncountable nouns. My usual go-to TEFL sites only seem to be giving me lists of rules, which doesn't generally work in my class.

My students range from 9-16 years, and with grammar they find it easiest if we do some relevant speaking or hands-on activities first and then start talking about rules afterwards.

Thanks in advance

eager tortoise

As an introduction I used to play a game whereby I would make up a character with a silly name (perhaps even draw a picture in the middle of the board) and tell the students that there were certain things that this character did/didn't like. For example: he likes rice, milk, bread but he hates potatoes, biscuits, sandwiches. I would write these in two lists on the board and get the students to ask me questions about other things he does/doesn't like which I would then add to the lists. I would then get the students to try and figure out why he likes some things but not others (the idea of course being that all on one side of the board are countables and on the other are uncountables). There are variations you could do with this, but I find it's a good way of getting them to think about the topic just as we're beginning.

http://edition.tefl.net/ideas/games/countable-uncountable-noun-games/

There are some game ideas on this page that may or may not be suitable but sometimes I find just a basic idea will give me some inspiration and I can adapt it to suit the class

See Ye

The thing is that most of the issues with countability are related to form (or which words to use) so at some stage you'll need to look at the rules unfortunately.

I generally start things off by "proving" to the learners that some things are uncountable. I take in a lot of props and get people handling things - a sachet of sugar which gets ripped open at some stage for some poor sod to start counting the grains, a carton of juice and some glasses etc.
Key questions are Can you count it ? What are you counting ?

Once they're happy with that a bring out something like 2 apples & a pot of apple sauce or a bar of chocolate & a box of chocolates to get them seeing how some nouns change depending on context.

After that I give the learners cards with various nouns on them which they have to sort into countable or uncountable - in pairs, groups or as a class.

To try and make the rules more engaging write a short text (about someone's diet/eating habits or a nutritionist answering questions & giving advice) which includes plenty of much/many/a few/a lot/some etc. Split the class into two teams & give them a table to fill in with the words used with either countable or uncountable nouns.
After the set time limit get the answers on the board so everyone has a copy of all the
answers.
Good luck.