Mistakes With Prepositions

Teaching students how to avoid common preposition mistakes is a key part of building accurate grammar and natural-sounding English. Here’s a practical guide for how to recognize, teach, and correct prepositional errors.

GET FREE ENGLISH LANGUAGE SONGS AND WORKSHEETS HERE

📌 Why Preposition Mistakes Happen

Prepositions are small words (in, on, at, to, for, of) but carry big meaning. They’re often tricky for learners because:

  • They don’t always translate directly from other languages

  • One preposition can have many meanings

  • Prepositions often follow fixed patterns (e.g., interested in, good at)

Understanding how and why students make these errors helps teachers plan better instruction.

🧑‍🏫 How to Teach Students to Avoid Preposition Mistakes

1. Focus on High-Frequency Errors

Start by identifying the most common mistakes. Some examples:

  • ❌ I’m good in English → ✅ I’m good at English

  • ❌ She depends of her friends → ✅ She depends on her friends

  • ❌ He is married with a doctor → ✅ He is married to a doctor

  • ❌ I arrived to school late → ✅ I arrived at school late

✅ Tip: Create a “Top 10 Preposition Mistakes” board in class.

2. Teach Prepositions in Chunks

Instead of teaching prepositions alone, teach them as part of phrases:

  • interested in, afraid of, good at, listen to, talk to, arrive at This helps students remember them more naturally.

✅ Use visuals and context to support understanding.

3. Compare and Contrast

Use side-by-side examples to show correct and incorrect usage:

  • He lives in Canada vs. He lives on Canada ❌

  • We met at 5 PM vs. We met on 5 PM ❌

✅ Activity: “Correct the mistake” sentences

4. Use Contextual Practice

Give students real-life situations to use prepositions:

  • Talking about time and place: in the morning, at the park, on Monday

  • Describing relationships: married to, angry with, interested in

✅ Role-plays and sentence-completion games work well here.

5. Highlight Fixed Phrases and Collocations

Some verbs, adjectives, and nouns require specific prepositions:

  • responsible for, afraid of, rely on Teach these as chunks, and encourage memorization through repetition and use.

✅ Create preposition “families” with mind maps.

6. Error Correction with Sensitivity

When students make mistakes:

  • First, check if the meaning is still clear

  • Gently reformulate the sentence

  • Ask guided questions: “Do we say ‘interested on’ or ‘interested in’?”

✅ Use peer editing and group work to review errors together.

🛠️ Extra Teaching Tips

 

image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/133912735@N07/34158547833/

📅 LESSON PLAN: Preposition Mistakes

Level: Intermediate ESL
Time: 45–60 minutes
Focus: Grammar (Prepositions), Error Correction, Collocations

Objectives

  • Recognize and correct common preposition mistakes

  • Use common preposition + verb/adjective/noun collocations accurately

  • Practice in context through sentence correction and communication tasks

Materials

  • Preposition mistake worksheet (included)

  • Preposition error list (included)

  • Whiteboard or digital projector

Warm-Up (5 mins)

Ask students: “Which prepositions are the hardest for you?” Write answers on the board.

Presentation (10 mins)

  • Show 3–5 incorrect example sentences on the board (from the error list)

  • Ask students to identify and correct them

  • Explain common confusion patterns (e.g., L1 transfer, false friends)

Guided Practice (15 mins)

  • Work through Part A and B of the worksheet as a class

  • Emphasize memorizing common collocations (e.g., interested in, married to)

Pair Work (10 mins)

  • Students complete Part C in pairs (short dialogue correction)

  • Then act out or read their corrected version

Wrap-Up (5 mins)

  • Review tricky examples from the worksheet

  • Assign one preposition phrase for each student to teach the class tomorrow

GET FREE ENGLISH LANGUAGE SONGS AND WORKSHEETS HERE

WORKSHEET: Fixing Preposition Mistakes

Part A: Correct the Mistakes

Correct the incorrect prepositions in these sentences.

  1. I’m good in cooking.

  2. We arrived to the airport late.

  3. She’s married with a dentist.

  4. He’s afraid about spiders.

  5. They talked about the phone.

  6. I depend of my sister.

  7. This book is full from mistakes.

  8. I dreamt on winning the lottery.

Part B: Match the Verb/Adjective with the Correct Preposition

Match each phrase correctly.

  1. Interested ___
    a. on b. in c. for

  2. Angry ___
    a. with b. of c. to

  3. Rely ___
    a. to b. on c. for

  4. Afraid ___
    a. at b. from c. of

  5. Responsible ___
    a. for b. in c. of

Part C: Fix the Dialogue

Fix the preposition mistakes in the dialogue.

A: Are you married with someone?
B: No, I’m married at my job. Haha.
A: I’m interested on starting a new course.
B: Really? What course are you good in?

Write the corrected version:

❌ COMMON PREPOSITION ERROR LIST

Incorrect Sentence Correct Version
I’m good in math. I’m good at math.
She arrived to the party late. She arrived at the party late.
He’s married with a nurse. He’s married to a nurse.
I depend of my parents. I depend on my parents.
She’s afraid about the dark. She’s afraid of the dark.
It depends of the weather. It depends on the weather.
I’m interested on history. I’m interested in history.
Talk about the phone. Talk on the phone.
Responsible of the project. Responsible for the project.

Teacher Tip: Create flashcards with common collocations (e.g., good at, afraid of) and quiz students in pairs!