[abctj]

denis,

thanks for that reassurance!! i wrote it on the white board and it didn't look right so tried to change the poem (and that didn't work), so all in all might have made a confusing situation worse. it's even harder since i don't speak chinese and have to rely on a native teacher (who is hell bent on teaching for exams!!) that i had to fire since the 'styles' of teaching are so different from the usa and china.
in other words... thank the gods this is the last week of the summer session before i can take some semblence of a vacation.

oh... i have a bad habit w/ using it's in the wrong context! thanks for that reminder.

i'm glad i found this forum! it may be one of the few places i can 'vent'... thanks for listening!

~ tj

[Denis DNT]

At first my students couldn't get it too.
I had a huge copy of it pasted on the wall.
After we did the Jack version of the poem:

(Jack has a toy
The toy is for Jack
It is Jack's toy
The toy is Jack's)

They completely understood it and helped me to explain the possessives to lower level students.


And yeah you are right, in schools where they target just exams, it's hard to get them to look at some other language areas that don't really show up in the exams.
Good luck mate!