Third person -s is by far the most difficult part of learning the Present Simple tense, and famously resistant to improvement through error correction, even in English-speaking kids. Although people are unlikely to misunderstand “He have three brothers X”, it could make the listener assume that the person who said it has a very basic level of English and so needs to be talked to like a child. Students can also sometimes have problems understanding and producing verbs which take another syllable in the third person like “passes”. This article therefore gives some ideas for presenting and practising this tricky language point.
What students need to know about third person -s
The main thing students need to know is that Present Simple verbs need a final “-s” (or similar) when the verbs go with the third person singular pronouns “He”, “She” and “It”, as in “He likes…”, “She lives…” and “It makes…” The same is obviously true of words which mean the same thing as “he”, “she” and “it” in sentences like “John goes to…” and “Our cat sleeps…” Less obviously, some words which don’t mean one person but are grammatically singular in English like “no one” and “everybody” also need third person -s (because they are never “no ones X” or “everybodies X”).
Students will also benefit from knowing something about the pronunciation of this ending. Students rarely have problems with the /s/ pronunciation of -s after unvoiced sounds like “t” (“lasts”, etc) and the /z/ pronunciation after voiced sounds like “d” (“grows”, etc). This is perhaps because it is simply physically easier to pronounce those sounds correctly than it would be to switch so quickly between voiced sounds to unvoiced sounds. However, quite a few students have problems with adding or even recognising /iz/ endings in words like “passes”, “buzzes”, “pitches” and “washes”. The explanation for the /iz/ endings is that /s/ and /z/ are almost impossible to say straight after these other sibilant sounds. This is easy to demonstrate and for students to understand, especially with the sound /s/ in words like “fuss”, for which “fusses” cannot be pronounced “fuss-s” and so must be pronounced “fusiz”.
It is also fairly easy to get students to count the extra syllable as they hear and produce such verbs. For example, the one-syllable word “splash” becomes the two-syllable form “splashes”, because the number of syllables is basically the number of vowel sounds, and this has the extra vowel in the /iz/ ending. In contrast, both “need” and “needs” have just one syllable, because the /z/ ending has no extra vowel sound, and so both forms have just one vowel sound and hence just one syllable.
/iz/ and an extra syllable after sibilant sounds, /s/ after unvoiced sounds and /z/ after voiced sound is an almost completely fixed rule. The only truly irregular forms are “has” (because it isn’t “haves X”), “does” (because it is pronounced “duz”, not “dooz”) and “says” (which is usually pronounced /sez/). The Present Simple of “be” is also irregular, but is another whole topic that should be dealt with in another lesson and so is talked about in a different article on this site.
To summarise all that:
- Words ending in sibilant sounds (“ch”, “sh”, “x”, “j”/ “dg”, “s” and “z”) take the ending /iz/ and so gain another syllable, as in the two-syllable form “preaches”
- Words ending with voiced sounds like “d” take the voiced ending /z/, as in “feeds”
- Words ending with unvoiced sounds like “t” take the unvoiced ending /s/, as in “wants”
- “Has”, “says” and “does” have irregular pronunciations (not “haves” X, “say+/s/” and “do+/s/”)
Spelling rules are similarly complicated but regular:
- Most words take just a final -s
- The /iz/ pronunciation after sibilant sounds like “-x” and “-ch” is spelt “-es” (except after words which already end in -e like “change”/ “changes”)
- Verbs with final vowels, usually meaning ones with final -o like “do”, “go”, “echo” and “veto”, also take final -es, but without an added extra syllable (as in the single syllable forms “goes” and “does”)
- A final -y usually changes to -ies (as in “try”/ “tries”) but words with a vowel plus -y like “buy”, “obey” and “play” just take -s (as in “prays”)
- The only truly irregular spelling is “has”
Students will obviously also need to understand the meaning and use of Present Simple more generally, but this is dealt with in other articles on that topic on this site.
Typical student problems with third person -s
The most common problem with third person -s is simply missing it out, making typical mistakes like “My brother like… X” and “One of my cousin work… X”. In my experience this is just as common with people whose L1 conjugates verbs more than English (Spanish speakers, etc) as it is with people whose L1 has no such changes from person to person (Japanese speakers, etc). Also confusingly, students seem to have less problem with the more complicated “I am”, “You are”, “He is”, etc than with the simpler “I go”, “You go”, “He goes”, etc. This could perhaps be because the almost unchanging simplicity of such verbs subconsciously convinces students that they don’t need to pay much attention to them. Alternatively, they could be unconsciously mixing Present Simple up with other simpler forms of the same verbs like “I went”, “You went”, “He went”, etc.
Once students have got the hang of adding a final -s, hopefully often with the right pronunciation, the next step is often to overuse it, including in questions like “Does he has any cheesecake?” X. This is a natural next step in language development that will usually just take time to get over, but if students do need an explanation then you can tell them that only one word needs third person -s, and in “Where does your brother live?” that verbs is “does”, not “live”.
In a similar way, students who have spent time thinking carefully about the pronunciation can sometimes start stressing the endings, as in “needZ” and “finishES”. This will fade away with time, but teachers can reduce the problem by not stressing such endings when they model them.
How to present third person -s
For low-level students, a first lesson on Present Simple should avoid third person -s by sticking to “I” and “you”, as in “What do you do?” “I work for an engineering company called Mitsubishi Heavy Engineering”. This can naturally move onto needing third person -s with (more) personal questions like “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”, “Are you married?” and “Do you have any kids?” The same can also happen naturally with questions about English study like “Do you have any foreign friends, colleagues, customers or other business contacts?” Alternatively, after asking each other questions like “Where do you live?”, you could ask them to introduce their partner to someone else. They should then be ready for a presentation on the language that they needed in order to say “He comes from Galicia” etc.
Whatever you then want to present about third person -s can then be put in a similar text, e.g. one in which someone introduces their family. At the most basic level, this could simply show the contrast between third person -s with “he”, “John”, “my brother”, etc and without -s with “I”, and possibly with “they”, “my brother and sister”, “John and Mary”, etc. More difficult texts could also include the various third person -s spelling rules and/ or pronunciation rules (if they listen to the text), including perhaps the few irregular forms. Students could then search for examples of and work out rule for what happens with a final -o, what kinds of verbs need an -es spelling, etc.
Particularly with low-level young learner classes, it is sometimes a good idea to present third person -s through one particular verb, with the most popular choice being “like”. For example, after teaching “I (don’t) like…” and “Do you like…?” with personal questions, students can listen to a similar text where two other people answer similar questions and mark statements like “He likes cheese” as true or false and/ or answer questions like “Does he like cheese?” After answering those questions, they can analyse those statements and/ or questions for how to use third person -s. They can then make up similar statements and questions for each other, for example testing each other on what they can remember about their classmates’ answers in the first personal questions stage.
It’s also quite good to get students to compare different people described in reading or listening texts, e.g. finding which person has the greenest or most stressful lifestyles. This can also be done in the practice stage, perhaps including at least one text in first person which they have to talk about using the third person for more challenge.
Some practice activity below such as the list dictation are also good in the presentation stage.
How to practise third person -s
Third person -s drilling games
Particularly with young and/ or low-level learners, this is a language point where some very controlled drilling can be useful. This can be done just as first person/ third person (“I like, he likes. I go, he goes. I…”, “I get up, John gets up. I…”, etc) or with a more extensive list of pronouns (“I like, you like, he likes, she likes, it likes, we like, they like. I go, he goes, she goes,…”. etc). To make it more fun, this can be done while keeping a ball or balloon in the air, while stacking blocks, or while clapping three times between each one.
Third person -s bluffing games
Students make a mix of true and false statements like “My grandfather lives with me” and “My father has a beard” and their partners try to work out if the statements are true or false, perhaps after asking questions to find out more details. This can be organised in many ways, some of which are explained below.
Third person -s coin bluffing games
Students can flip a coin to decide if:
- the next third person S sentence should be true (heads) or false (tails)
and/ or
- if they should use third person -s (heads) or talk about “my siblings” etc (tails)
Third person -s sentence completion bluffing games
Give students 12 to 20 sentence stems which some people should be able to fill with true information with third person -s like “__________ lives in the same building as me” and “______________ likes spiders”. These can be used two ways:
- one student chooses a sentence for their partner to fill as quickly as possible, using their imagination if they can’t think of anything true
- each student fills them with a mix of true and false information, then they take turns reading one out
Perhaps after follow-up questions, they then guess if each sentence is true or not.
Third person -s bluffing card game
Make a pack of cards which have vocabulary which some people should be able to use to make personal statements with third person -s like “my oldest cousin”, “my great grandmother” and “makes”. One student picks a card at random and makes a personal statement as quickly as possible, using their imagination if they can’t think of anything true. Perhaps after follow-up questions, other students then guess if it is true or not.
Third person contrasts
One student makes a contrast with a classmate like “I have a cat. He doesn’t have a cat” or “I like vanilla ice cream but Steve like chocolate ice cream”. The other students can then guess if that is true or not, and/ or the speaker can get a point if it is true.
Third person paired personal statements
Students try to make double true personal statements which has third person -s in the second part about each other like “You have one brother. He has black hair” and “You have a pet fish. It lives in your garden”.
Third person -s guessing games
There are many possible guessing games for practise of this point, including:
- describe one person’s routines until the others students guess who is being described (a bus driver, your father, etc)
- do the same for singular animals, objects, etc (“a cat”, “the whiteboard”, etc)
- name one person you know and see how many true sentences other people can make about that person’s routines
- do the same for singular objects, animals, etc (“a bus”, “a cockroach”, etc)
Third person -s storytelling activities
Students take turns describing the typical daily routine of an imaginary person, an alien, a witch, etc. For example, the first person can say “Wenda the Witch always gets up at 11:30 p.m.”, the second person can add “Then her magic teapot gives her some tea”, and they continue the story from there. To help, you could give them a list or cards with suitable language for describing routines on like “wash(es)”, “after that” and “always”.
Third person -s drawing games
Students make sentences of things that they want added to a picture such as “He has three eyes” and “A cow lives in a cave”. The drawing can be done either by the person who made the sentence or by someone else, depending on which activity you think they would prefer. To help come up with suitable sentences, this can be done with a table with suggested objects, verbs, etc, or it is more fun if you give them cards to put in order to make suitable sentences of things to draw. You can also add the possibility of making sentences with “I” (for a drawing of the person making the sentence), “you” (the person drawing) to contrast with third person -s, and “they” (for two people such as a boy and girl together).
Note that many suitable sentences for this drawing game would be naturally in Present Continuous, so you can’t really realistically use verbs like “wear” unless it goes with something like “every day” or “always”.
Third person -s mazes
Make a table of about six cells tall and six cells wide. Put a continuous string of similar words in the table, starting from the top-left corner and ending at the bottom-right corner. Then fill in all the other squares with different verbs. For example, the top left corner and all the squares which link from it through the maze could have a single syllable with third person -s, in which case all the other distractor squares should have two or more syllables. Students trace a route through the maze by checking the spelling or pronunciation, make sure that they ended up at the right place, double check that the squares which they skipped are different, then check their answers with the answer key or as a class. They could also then use a blank table to make up a similar maze to test another group with.
Third person -s list dictation
This is a way of presenting or practising all parts of third person -s spelling and pronunciation with a reasonably manageable task. Students listen to the teacher reading out lists of verbs with the same third person -s ending or verbs which would take the same third person -s ending and shout out when they are sure what they have in common, e.g. that they all take /iz/ and so would have another syllable in the third person -s. The same thing can also be done for number of syllables, e.g. that “passes” and “reaches” both have two syllables.
Students can then test each other in the same way, try to work out or remember the rules from the examples, or try to remember or think of examples of each group/ each rule.
Third person -s pelmanism and snap
These are two more activities based on similar third person -s forms, this time on cards. Make a pack which has between two and four different groups of words, e.g. cards with third person -s forms which have one syllable, ones with two syllables and ones with three syllables. Make sure there are enough cards in each category.
For Pelmanism, students spread all the cards face down across the table and try to find two verbs which have something in common (like the card game “pairs”/ “the memory game”). Any acceptable similarity related to third person -s is okay as long as they can explain it, e.g. that they both need “-es” or that they both have a /z/ pronunciation.
For the faster game Third Person -s Snap, students deal out the cards but don’t look at them, take turns turning one card over face up on the table, and race to shout out “Snap!” whenever they think the last two cards match in some way. If they are right, they can take all the cards that have been put on the table. However, if they say “Snap” when the cards don’t match, they have to pay some kind of penalty. The winner is whoever wins all the cards, or the person with most cards in their hand when the teacher stops the game.
Both games can be played with the same pack of cards. Before, between or after those games, you can get students to work together to put the cards into columns by spelling, by pronunciation of endings, by number of syllables, etc.