This document discusses reflexive pronouns and provides a step-by-step guide for teaching reflexive pronouns to students. It defines reflexive pronouns as pronouns that refer back to the subject of the verb. Examples of reflexive pronouns include myself, yourself, himself, etc. The document then outlines five steps for teaching reflexive pronouns: 1) introduce them in context, 2) explain what they are, 3) provide practice with examples, 4) do an exercise, and 5) do an activity to reinforce learning.

1. REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS

2. • What Are Reflexive Pronouns?
• A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that refers back to the subject
(person or thing) of the verb. Examples of reflexive pronouns are
words like himself, herself, myself, itself, yourself, yourselves,
ourselves, and themselves.
• Reflexive pronouns are used when the subject and object of a
sentence are the same. For example, “I hurt myself when I was
playing soccer yesterday.“. They are also used when you want to
emphasize the subject. For example, “We made this cake
ourselves.“.

3. • Reflexive Pronoun Example Sentences
• To help you understand how reflexive pronouns are used, here are
some example sentences:
• I washed the car myself.
• Chris paid for dinner himself.
• He did everything himself.
• Kelly painted the picture herself.
• She cried herself to sleep.
• The car door locks by itself.
• We baked this cake ourselves.
• Make yourself at home.
• I hope you enjoy yourselves at the concert.
• Young children can’t take care of themselves.

4. • How To Teach Reflexive Pronouns
• Now you know what reflexive pronouns are, let’s look at how to
teach them, step-by-step.
• Step 1: Introduce Reflexive Pronouns In Context
• When teaching new concepts or grammar to students, its always
best to explain them in context. A great way to do this when
teaching reflexive pronouns is to give each student a piece of paper
and challenge them to draw something (a dog, an airplane, etc).
Give them 5 minutes or so to draw their picture and at the same
time, draw a picture yourself.

5. • Once you and all the students have finished, hold up your drawing
and say, “I drew it myself.” Write this on the board and underline the
word ‘myself‘. Next, tell students to turn to their partner and hold up
their drawings and say “I drew it myself.“
• Next, walk around the class and point at individual student’s
drawings and ask, “Who drew this picture?” and elicit the response,
“I drew it myself.“
• Once you have practiced this enough, explain to students that
‘myself‘ is a reflexive pronoun and that these words are the focus of
today’s lesson.

6. • Step 2: Explain What Reflexive Pronouns Are
• Now that students have been introduced to reflexive pronouns, it’s
time to explain in more detail what they are. Using the sentence, “I
drew it myself.” that you wrote on the board earlier, explain that the
words ‘I‘ and ‘myself‘ are referring to the same person.
• Next, explain that when the subject in a sentence (i.e., the
person/thing doing the action) and the object in a sentence (i.e., the
target of the action / the person/thing receiving the action) are the
same, then we use reflexive pronouns.

7. • Step 3: Practice With Many Examples
• Next, it’s time to give students lots of examples of reflexive pronouns
being used. A great way to do this is to choose one of the male
students and have them hold up their drawing. Then say, “Chris
drew it himself.” and have the class repeat after you. Then, have a
female student hold up their drawing and say, “Kelly drew it herself.“
• Next, hold up your drawing and have all students hold up theirs and
say, “We drew them ourselves.“. Then, have half the class hold up
their drawings and have the other half say “They drew them
themselves.“

8. • Step 4: Do A Reflexive Pronoun Exercise
• By this stage, students should have a good idea about
the different reflexive pronouns and how they are used. It
will, however, take a lot of practice for students to use
these words accurately and confidently. This is where
practice exercises can be particularly useful.
• There are many ways to create such exercises, but the
simplest way is to provide students with 10 or so
example sentences with the reflexive pronoun missing
and have them fill in the blank with the correct word. For
low-level students, you might consider putting students
in pairs or small groups to complete this task.

9. Here is an example of a reflexive pronoun exercise you can download,
print, and use in your class:

10. • Step 5: Do A Reflexive Pronoun Activity
• To wrap your lesson on reflexive pronouns be sure to play a fun
activity to help reinforce what students have learned. A great
activity to play is one in which you ask students to plan an event.
This could be a surprise party for someone, a school dance, a
talent competition, etc.
• Once you have chosen the event, brainstorm with students about 5
to 10 tasks that need to be completed to prepare for the event.
Next, put students in small groups and tell them they must decide
who in the class will do each of the tasks. They must then write this
down using the reflexive pronouns that they have learned. For
example, “The teacher will blow up the balloons himself.“, “Kelly
will bake the cake herself.“, “We will decorate the room ourselves.“,
etc.

11. REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS
TAKE A LOOK
I
YOU
HE
SHE
IT
WE
YOU
THEY
MYSELF
YOURSELF
HIMSELF
HERSELF
ITSELF
OURSELVES
YOURSELVES
THEMSELVES
OURSELVES
YOURSELVES
THEMSELVES
PAY ATTENTION!!!

12. When to use:
• We use the REFLEXIVE PRONOUN when the
SUBJECT and the OBJECT are the same.
Susan cut herself.
a) Who cut Susan? Susan did.
b) Who did Susan cut? Susan cut Susan.
SUBJECT – SUSAN
OBJECT – SUSAN

13. Let’s check it!
• Hugo must be crazy! He is talking to ______________ .
• You owe ____________ a break. Why don’t you two travel?
• Poli is cooking ____________ some Miojo.
• Bia is buying ____________ a new BMW.
• Claudio usually hits ____________ when he is angry.
• Bianca thinks she is really beautiful because she usually sees
____________ at the mirror for hours.
himself
yourselves
herself
herself
himself
herself

14. Reflexive or not?
• Francisco is hitting ____________ because he didn’t
give all the exercises.
• Samuel is dancing with ____________.
HIM
HER

15. • Beth is talking to ____________.
• Fred is playing with ____________.
• The children are enjoying ____________.
HIM
HER
THEMSELVES

16. • Harold loves ____________.
• But loves ____________.
HER
US