I taught English for one year in China. Here are some materials and ideas that teachers and students may find helpful.

He/She Tests

These are tests that I devised and wrote to help Chinese students master the pronoun systems of English. Mastering English pronouns is particularly difficult for Chinese speakers because "he" and "she," though written as distinct Chinese characters, are pronounced the same way in spoken Chinese (at least in the Mandarin dialect). I believe this leads to a "conceptual sameness" regarding the spoken pronouns in the minds of Chinese speakers (and in many "gender neutral" languages--e.g., Finnish), and since pronouns are learned at such a young age, the "conceptual difference" of gender in English pronouns is a very big difference indeed. In my experiences teaching English in China, many native-Chinese speakers used the correct gender of English pronouns only 50% of the time--i.e., their choices were more or less random.

So I created the following exercises. Give each student a copy of the he/she test, and make sure to define any new vocabulary. Then explain to the students how it works, as follows. The teacher will call one student to come sit in a chair in front of the class, facing the class. The student will give the teacher two names: the name of a man/boy the student knows and the name of a woman/girl the student knows. The names could refer to a friend or a relative, but it's important that these be the names of real people that the student knows personally, not cartoon characters or animals or names from literature. Also, the student's name and the teacher's name should not be used.

On the he/she test are several paragraphs, each containing many sentences. Every sentence contains one or more blank lines. The blank lines indicate that one of the following pronouns is missing:

Subject	Possessive	Possession	Reflexive/Emphatic
He	His	His	Himself
She	Her	Hers	Herself

Each student that comes to the front should be given one paragraph to read. The teacher confirms that the student is ready, and then says "begin" and one of the two names. For example, suppose the student gives the names "John" and "Mary". The teacher could start by saying, "Begin--Mary." The student must then visualize Mary in his/her mind. This is very important. The student should always try to visualize the person about which he or she is talking; this will help him/her choose the correct pronoun. In this case, the student should visualize Mary and choose the correct feminine pronoun when s/he comes to a blank line.

So the student begins reading, and when s/he comes to a blank line, s/he must say the correct pronoun. If the student makes a mistake, the teacher should correct the student immediately; then the student should continue. At least every two sentences the teacher should say (loudly) the *other* name given--in this case, "John"--at which point the student must now visualize John and choose the correct masculine pronoun when it comes time to fill in the blanks.

If this is the first time for the students to do a he/she test, then the teacher may wish to demonstrate a few sentences for them; or alternatively, if there is at least one student who has done the test before, have that student demonstrate. The teacher may also wish to read the whole he/she test once before starting, using only masculine or feminine pronouns, just so that the students know how to pronounce the words in the test.

As an alternative method of administering the test, especially for large classes, the teacher could have each student read just one sentence, using the names of well known celebrities for the two names. (For example, "Brad" for Brad Pitt and "Angelina" for Angelina Jolie.)

This exercise should prove helpful for native speakers of other languages in which no distinction is made--at least verbally--between "he" and "she". Mastering "he" and "she" can be very difficult, and I hope this exercise helps. Another exercise I have found helpful is to break students into pairs, and have each student describe first a male friend/relative, and then a female friend/relative; when the student uses the wrong pronoun, the other student should correct him/her. This allows all students to participate simultaneously, with the downside that students are doing the correcting. Students should be cautioned to gently, rather than harshly, correct their partners.

Here are the tests. (Note to Google Chrome users: Adobe Reader does not appear to function properly in Chrome. You may wish to "right click" and download these PDF files to your computer rather than view them directly in Chrome.)

My Amazing Friend
My Magic Friend
My Amazing Monkey
My Amazing Robot
My Philosophical Roommate

Sample answers:

My Amazing Friend
My Magic Friend
My Amazing Monkey
My Amazing Robot
My Philosophical Roommate