This or that? (demonstrative pronouns)

Olia | Dec 21, 2025Dec 19, 2025

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this ESL lesson on demonstrative pronouns are to:

• describe the surroundings and discuss things in various places;
• practise demonstrative pronouns;
• listen to the recordings of people in different contexts.

Students talk about things they see around them, review the terms ‘near’ and ‘far from’ and learn the use of ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’ and ‘those’. They also listen to recordings in which people use demonstratives. Students also create short conversations for pictures.

WARM-UP AND DEMONSTRATIVES

This ESL lesson on demonstrative pronouns begins with a warm-up. Students name things they can see in their room or outside. After that, they match sentences with ‘near’ and ‘far from’ with pictures. Following that, students create sentences about the room they are in using ‘near’ and ‘far from’. Next, they look at pictures and complete the rules for using ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’ and ‘those’. Afterwards, students read what people in photos say about what is around them. They then complete the gaps in the sentences with ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’ or ‘those’. Moving on, students listen to a recording of people saying various things and choose the words or phrases they hear (e.g. I’ll take this/the scarf). 

LISTENING PRACTICE

In this part of this ESL lesson on demonstrative pronouns, students work in pairs. They look at boxes with questions and phrases with ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’, ‘those’ and ‘the’ (e.g. Look at this/the cat!). Students choose one of the words in each sentence and read their sentences out to their partner. The partner says which word in each sentence they hear. After that, students put words in the correct order to create questions in dialogues. They then match each dialogue with photos. Finally, they create short dialogues for pictures, using questions with demonstratives.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This ESL lesson on demonstrative pronouns also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students read a dialogue and choose the correct words. They then identify which things are near or far from the person. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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