travelling lesson #1

Lesson breakdown

Aim: Lexic + geography: Greece

Coursebook: Go Getter 3, Unit 3 p.34

Travel

Stage: warming up, eliciting some lexic

Look at the picture and describe what they have on their minds.

Tasya went on, she could describe every picture in those bubbles using her language - surprisingly she managed to put it in her own words - using not a single word from the book! Wow! It was an utterly different language. 

I stopped for a moment. Do I even have to teach her anything? She can express her ideas no problem. Is it a big deal if she says this:

"to spend a night in a tent" - instead of "to go camping"

or "to eat in a restaurant" instead of "to try some local food", 

or: "to ride a bike" instead of "to go cycling" 

or : "to listen to a guide" instead of "to go on a guidd tour" etc.

(Eliciting the target language)

However I listened to her carefully and took the notes. And then I said: There are so many ways to put ideas into the words, let's see if you can make the word combinations for the following verbs:

Stay - Where do people stayon holidays?

stay in the hotel

Visit - What do they visit?

Visit museums, galleries, places of interest

Do - What do people do on holidays? 

do watersports, new kinds of sports like horse riding, surfing, paragliding..

Go - Where do they go?

go sightseeing, hiking, swimming

Read - What do they read?

read books and magazines, guidebooks

Compound nouns: watersports, sightseeing, guidebook (mark the roots)

Stage: Practicing

Role-play a dialogue as if we've just met at the swimming pool area. I asked these questions:

What's your name? Where are you from?

The weather is nice, isn't it? 

How long have you been staying here? Where are you staying? Have you already seen anything special/ visited any places? Have you tried something new? What would you recommend to do?

Stage: Geography

Find Grece, Crete on Google maps.

Let's read a page from a guidebook:

What does this island look like?

What is its shape? Let's say it's like a long fish, shall we?

Does it sretche out from North to South? - No.

Then which way does it stretch?

From the left to the right? Let's say "from East to West". 

What country does it belong? (immediate testing :) - Greece! Right. What is the flag of Greece? - Blue and white, stripy, with a little cross on the top left corner.

Stage: Practicing target language

Take a look at the pictures and describe what you see:

To go on a boat trip, sightseeing, watersports

try local food

Would you like to try some of these octopuses?

no? They are deliscious! I love sea food.

to go on a guided tour, to explore the city

Stage: having fun :)

Let's imagine you are on the skype with your granny but your microphone is dead, you probably dropped it ito the water, so your gran can not hear you and you gonna mime, show what activities you've already had.

(I did my best not to give the right answer right away, just for fun, just to make her play more, show better, more carefully)

Ex 4. (not matching - GUESSing! Open-ended task! Your version. I've covered the part of the exercise with the picture of the castle - in order to make the ex. OPEN-ENDED (freer practice).

Homework

Write to your friend about Anapa. How it is a good place for a holiday?

This is how she performed her writing task (with lots of spelling mistakes - but she is never short of words - which is good! It took her not more than 5 minutes to compose this, isn't she good?

Shopping #2

You're so HOTS I want to role-play with you. 

The more I teach Tasya the more I think what a bright student I am dealing with. I would love to be wise enough to always encourage her frolics and sence of humour and not to push hard enough to perform well in close ended tests.

Recently I've discovered that she may somehow fail to find opposites to simple words (such as heavy/light, strong/weak, etc.) which worrield me for a wile. But at the same day she showed herself as a pretty good communicator and a story teller. Testing is tricky. Don't fall into its trap. I've analysed that Tasya prefers the  tasks that engage Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) more than those of the Lower ones (LOTS) (according to Bloom's taxonomy, check it out).

Taya can be very creative and comes up with very nice ideas for another word of the day comic strip. She loves to role-play any life situations very emotionally applying all her artistry and charm. She is my dream student! 

And on top of that she has just become an independent reader. She has her bed time stories in English and I think I should do some research on how to provide her with more authentic literature. (Today she read Pippi Longstockings on her own, I could hardly believe it, my dear).

LESSON BREAKDOWN

Duration: 60 min.

Course book: Go Getter 3rd, SB  P. 23, Audio 35, 36, 37

Topic: Shopping 

Aim: Lexic

Stage: Warm up

Roleplay game. We used our toy shop set 'A vegetable stall' with some plastic goods, basket, scales, cash desk and money. Taya loved this game because now she knew how to say this everyday language:

How can I help you?

It is our special offer.

Here is your change and the receipt.

Would you like to pay in cash or by card?

*In terms of common usage it's often shortened to just "cash or card", so you'll probably most often hear "You can pay with cash or card" in shops. Sometimes a cashier will just look at a customer and ask "cash or card?" as the whole sentence.

Stage: new lexic with a focus on spelling 

Guess what's the phrase:

* to stand in a queue (the word 'queue' sounds the same with the letter 'Q')

Taya's got sense of humour! See what the word 'queue' should look like - written in red letters below the picture:

it says: Qyghery

She must have known the word ought to be tricky: it takes more letters to write it than sounds to pronunce! And since those letters are silent why should she care what those letters are? There might be silent friends "ght" whatever! :D

3 words to memorize: queue, receipt, cashier

Focus on pronunciation and spelling, silent letters.

We role-played the situation:

A husband is in a que, calling her wife on the phone, who is still roaming around the store:

- What might be keeping you, honey?

- I've been looking for my favourite squash caviar, darling. Now I've got it, but where can I find you?

- I am standing in a queue, catch up soon!

- Sure!

- I don't want to keep the cashier waiting too long.

- I'm coming! Which queue are you in?

- The cashier number 5.

- Right, I can see you now.

Audio 1_35

(A litlle of TPR) Listen and jump up when you hear the new words:

• Queue, 

• cashier, 

• special offer, 

• receipt, 

• change

Picture p.22

Ex. 2,3,4

ex. 6 and 7

Stage: home task - make the word of the day comic strip

Isn't it adorable? ❤

Shopping #1

Lesson plan. 

Duration: 60 min.

Course book: Go Getter 3rd, SB  P. 24, Audio 38, 39, 40

Topic: Shopping 

Aim: Lexic

Stage: Warm up

Snow ball game:

In my shopping bag there is a carton of cream.

In my shopping bag there is a carton of cream and a can of corn.

In my shopping bag there isa carton of cream, a can of corn and a jar of jam. 

(I used beautiful alliteration here! Can you make the list longer by adding up one item at a time and starting over each time?)

Stage: Lead-in

Word map for shopping:

• Shopping bag, basket, list, trolley, center…

• To do shopping, to go shopping

• Who usually does shopping in your family?

What is shopping?

Tasya believed shopping was about buying some clothes. I explained that we do everyday shopping when we want to bring some milk and bread home.

Stage: Pre-listening - pics

Tasya performed this task amazingly! She said: There must be something with her bag, that made her worry, because she frowned her face. And on the second picture I can see the boys are surprized. There must be something wrong with the delivery, it is not what they had expected.

Listening.

The audio story about Harry and George was funny. 

Stage: post-listening ex.2, reading the prices, matching

Lexic: 

Remember the opposites:

Size: (Big/small) 

Weight: (light/heavy)

Price: (cheap/expensive)

Design: (nice/beautiful/ugly)

I've noticed how hard she gets through this type of task: words don't come easy. She can not say what's the opposite to 'hard'. It took a while till she said 'easy', and I accepted that. But she tried to think of another meaning of 'hard' (as hard as stone) and then she could not come up with any ideas at all, till I said: "is it the word 'soft' that you are trying to call to mind?"

It keeps me thinking - was the sask tiresome? How can she fail with this "Lower Order Thinking Skills" and perform brilliantly with "Higher Order Thinking Skills" anyway?

Comparatives: 

Big-bigger-the biggest

Bad-worse-the worst

Expensive-more expesive-the most expensive

I reminded her the episode from "Frozen" where two sisters see each other for the first time on the ceremony of coronation.

Elsa: You're beautiful!

Anna: You're beautifullER. Oh, no! sorry, I didn't mean 'FOOLER' but 'more beautiful'.

Tasya knew it quite well, the comparatives for short and long words okay, still I believe it was worth paying attention to. Done ✔

****

But Tasya fell off her chair because she could not sit still without putting her feet above her head and prop them against the wall. She pushed the wall too hard so it made her chair topple over LOL :D

 Shall I set the rules for her to remember how to sit, how to behave and show respect - or probably add some TPR activities...

However, we went on with the task and listened to the second part of the audio (it made her relax a bit and forget the chair accident)

****

The boys ordered a toy bag by mistake. 

Inferred meaning:

Granny: Do you like my new bag?

Boys: Yes, it's a good, big bag.

New listening episode: 

https://www.esl-lab.com/easy/shopping-centers/

The story is so sweet! It is about a 6-7 year old girl trying to buy a present for her daddy using some money from her piggy bank.

Target words: wallet, purse, piggy bank

Did you like the dialogue?

What title would you give to it?

Did you hear the jingling coins? What does it say? (money from a piggy bank) isn't it sweet?

She has been collecting it for days and days by helping her mom around the house.

What would you do if you were a shop assistant?

Stage: Post-listening

Do the quiz (on the same webpage)

Done ✔

Tasya learned to read the prices, numerals like $34.99

Target phrase: Let's say it went on sale.

****

60 min Lesson is over.

Tasya gets the "Hometask" which she goes on doing immediately ♥ My girl!

Production Task: Make a dialogue.

She did! A cartoon! Good job! I made a video of her reading it. Watch here