Teaching English: How to Plan a Great Lesson

WEEK 1 UNDERSTANDING LEARNERS

Motivating speaking activities

Speaking activity steps

Activity 1: What’s in the bag?

Aim: Presenting or reviewing vocabulary (anything small enough to put in a

bag!) e.g. food, stationery. This could also be done with flashcards.

Procedure: Collect a series of small objects. Put them in a bag.

One by one, take out the objects very slowly. Learners guess what the
object is.

Variations:
Put learners into groups. Give each group a bag of objects. They take
it in turns to take out the objects slowly.

Learners take it in turns to put their hands in the bag and pick an
object and to guess what it is without looking.

Timing: 5-20 minutes

Activity 2: Today I’m wearing…

Aim: Practising clothing vocabulary, colours, present continuous

Procedure: Ask some or all of the class to bring in clothes from home. Ask them
to put on the clothes they brought (over their uniforms!)

Allow learners time to prepare, help with any vocabulary they need.

Ask learners to come to the front of the class, in groups of four, and
say what they are wearing.

Variations:
Older learners can take it in turns to describe what someone in the
class is wearing, the others listen and guess who. Use photos.

Timing: 10-25 minutes

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