Teaching prepositions is not an intellectual exercise. It is work of the soul responding to rhythm and music. Teachers should try as much as possible to develop skills within a context. This occurs in teaching prepositions that follow verbs and adjectives.
We should not just have students memorize interested in, aware of, punished by, spoke against and dozens of others.
We promote such words in context. We place words within a framework of rhythm. We understand that prepositions are connector words with weak stresses. Strong stresses are on the core words in the phrase or sentence and are in red:
interested in the work
abused by his parents
hanged by the neck until dead
worried by what had happened
congratulated by the teacher
wary of the group of men
arrested by the police
punished for his crime
immunized against smallpox
not clear about what happened
taught by his father
discussed by the parents at the meeting
Students need to memorize the combinations above and more. We first language speakers do not have to memorize the prepositions. We just know what comes next.
interested in
aware of
provided by
provided for
insured against
So students learning English as a second language need to be given a systematic technique to absorb the combinations as above. Then the combinations should be used in context.
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