Life Without Pronouns

January 28, 2013 by Sra. Brown Leave a comment

As sixth-grade students learn subject pronouns in Spanish, I find it useful to give them an exercise that helps them to see why subject pronouns exist in the first place.  Sometimes the best way to learn the utility of something is to try to live without it.  I ask students to try to eat a meal without using a single subject pronoun (I, you, he, she, we, they, it).  The next day we have a discussion about the function of subject pronouns.  Students usually conclude that subject pronouns shorten and streamline conversations but they are vague and sometimes ambiguous.  This experience helps students develop a nuanced understanding of pronoun usage in English and in Spanish.