5th edition

Unit 9 Grammar
The best place to live  SB p92 Elementary

1 Complete the questions with the superlative form of the adjectives. Then write the answers for
your country. Don’t always choose your own city/region!

Where’s the best place to live? Answers

1 Which city has (BIG) population?

2 Which city has (bad) architecture?

3 Where is (beautiful) countryside?

4 Which region has (good) reputation for food?

5 Where are (interesting) tourist attractions?

6 Which airport is (busy)?

7 Which region is (expensive)?

8 Who are (friendly) people?

9 Which city is (dangerous)?

10 Which region has (modern) public transport?

2 Work in groups and discuss your answers. Give reasons for your answers.
3 Work as a class. Tell your classmates about the best city/region in your country. Try to
persuade them to live there!

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 5th edition
Unit 9 Grammar Teacher’s notes
The best place to live  SB p92 Elementary

Pre-activity  (5–10 minutes)

Aim
• Write the following four adjectives on the board: hot, dangerous, large,
To practise superlative adjectives to describe tall. Ask students if they can remember the comparative and superlative
places to live form of each. Check word stress and spelling.
Language • Then write the following groups of three items on the board, or adapt
them to your own ideas:
Superlative adjectives
islands: Madagascar, Greenland, Borneo
Skills cities: Beijing, Dubai, São Paulo
Speaking countries: Egypt, France, Iran
Materials • Ask students to give you a sentence using one of the superlative
adjectives to describe a place in each group, e.g. Greenland is the largest
One copy of the worksheet per student
island. Dubai has the tallest building. Iran is the hottest country.
• Tell students not to worry if they don’t really know the answers, but to
make sensible guesses or give their opinions. Encourage students to
give you any combination of adjectives with each group of items and
Answers to justify their ideas.
1 the biggest
2 the worst Procedure  (20 minutes)
3 the most beautiful
4 the best • Explain that students are going to complete and discuss a
5 the most interesting questionnaire to practise superlatives and talk about cities/regions in
6 the busiest their country.
7 the most expensive • Give out a worksheet to each student. Check comprehension of
8 the friendliest reputation. Give students enough time to complete the gapped
9 the most dangerous questions. Check the answers.
10 the most modern
• Students write their answers to the questions. Remind them that when
they are giving an opinion, they should not always choose their own
city/region, but they should try to vary their answers.
• For exercise 2, put students in groups of three. Pre-teach/Check useful
language for the discussion stage, e.g. What did you put for question (1)?,
I think … , I agree/don’t agree with … , I prefer … . Get students to discuss
their answers. Monitor and check for accurate use of superlatives.
• For exercise 3, bring the class back together. Elicit a number of
examples promoting different cities/regions. Encourage students to
persuade their classmates to accept their choice. This should lead to
the natural use of comparatives and superlatives, and to some lively
debate! Don’t interrupt or over-correct students, as this is the fluency
stage of the activity.
• With monolingual classes, you could extend the activity by getting
students to decide on the best/worst place to live in their country.

Extension  (10–20 minutes)

• Put students in small groups to write a quiz. The quiz should be on
the topic of places, and for each question students should provide
three answer options (one correct, two incorrect). Elicit what type of
things they could ask questions about, e.g. cities, countries, buildings,
attractions, population. Allow students to use smartphones and/or
other devices to research, if necessary, and which are appropriate to
your context.
• Each group then reads out their questions and answer options to the
class. The other groups write down their answers. Once all questions
have been read out, the group with the most correct answers wins.
• Don’t worry if some of the answers are contested in the class – the
content should lead to lively discussion. The debate will naturally
require students to use superlatives and comparatives.

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Unit 9 Vocabulary
Town and country crossword  SB p96 Elementary

Student A
1
M
2 3
A
4
R
K
5
S T R E E T
6
T

7 8
P A V E M E N T
9
L
10 11 12
F P U B A
13
I K
14
E C O T T A G E
L
15 16
D R I V E R

Student B
1

2 3
V C A S T L E
4
I P
L A
5
L T
6
S A H
T G
7 8
A E M
9
T O
10 11 12
U U F A R M
13
B R I D G E N
14
T
A
15 16
W O O D I
N

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 5th edition
Unit 9 Vocabulary Teacher’s notes
Town and country crossword  SB p96 Elementary

Aim
To complete a crossword by asking for
and giving definitions for town and
country words
Language
Town and country vocabulary
Skills
Speaking and Listening
Materials
One copy of the worksheet per pair of
students, cut in half
Pre-activity  (5 minutes)
• Write the words shopping centre and hill on the board. Ask Which would
you normally find in the town and not in the country? Elicit the answer (a
shopping centre – a hill could be in both).
• In pairs, ask students to make a list as long as they can for each
category – town and country, saying what can be found there. After five
minutes, pool ideas and check vocabulary and pronunciation.
Procedure  (25 minutes)
• Explain that students are going to think of definitions for town and
country words, which they will then use to complete a crossword.
• Put students in two groups: A and B. Give Student As crossword A and
Student Bs crossword B.
• Put students in pairs within their groups. Students work in their pairs to
think of definitions for the words on their crossword.
• Monitor while they work, and help them with different ways of giving a
definition (e.g. It’s the opposite of … , It’s similar to … .).
• Ask students to find a new partner from the other group to work
with. Tell students not to show each other their crosswords. They then
complete their crosswords by taking turns to ask each other questions,
e.g. What is number one? and giving their definitions.
• When students have finished, they can check their answers are correct
by looking at their partner’s crossword.

Extension  (15 minutes)

• Ask students to turn over their crosswords so they can’t see the words.
Ask What things can you find within five kilometres of your home? Ask
students to make a list individually (e.g. a supermarket, a post office).
• Ask students to compare their answers in pairs, and discuss which
things are most important to them.
• Have a short feedback session in which students tell the class about
their discussions.

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 5th edition
Unit 9 Communication
Giving directions  SB p97 Elementary

Information A Directions A
The train station car park is on Links Road next to the railway You want to go
line. The cinema is on Wood Road next to the tennis courts. The from the to the
petrol station hotel
school is in The Square, on the corner of Bell Street and Main
hotel bank
Street. The tourist office is next to the town hall on Links Road. bank sports centre

Information B Directions B
The hotel is on the corner of Bond Street and Park Road. There’s You want to go
a pedestrian crossing in front of the hotel. The sports centre is on from the to the
petrol station bike shop
New Road, next to the library. The bus station is behind the town
bike shop museum
hall, on Main Street. The market is opposite the shoe shop on the museum train station
corner of Main Street and Hall Street. car park

Information C Directions C
The bank is on Bell Street, next to the café. The post office is on You want to go
Main Street, opposite the town hall. The bike shop is on Main from the to the
petrol station school
Street, next to the ice cream shop. The museum is on Hall Street,
school bus station
next to the church. bus station cinema

Start here
petrol
station

Wood Road

car tennis
New Road

High Street

park courts

library restaurant

Church Road Low Street

Bell Street
Hill Farm Road

Hill The
Farm shoe Art Square
Hall Street

shop café
Main Street Main Street
ice cream
town
shop
hall
Park Road
Bond Street

outdoor
train pool
station Park

Links Road

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 5th edition
Unit 9 Communication Teacher’s notes
Giving directions  SB p97 Elementary

Pre-activity  (10 minutes)

Aim
• Ask students to name a few places/rooms in your school/building.
To find out where different locations are Write these on the board.
on a map • Ask students to work in pairs. One person is new to the school and asks
Language for directions to some of the places on the board, and their partner
describes how to get there.
Directions; prepositions of movement
and place • After a few minutes, swap roles.
• Ask students in pairs to describe how to get somewhere in or near
Skills the school (without saying where). Their partner must say/guess where
Speaking it is.
Materials
Procedure  (45 minutes)
One copy of the Information ABC cards per
• Put students in three groups: A, B, and C. Give each student in group A
group of three students; one copy of the
a copy of Information A, each student in group B a copy of Information
Directions ABC cards per group of three
B, and each student in group C a copy of Information C. Give every
students; one copy of the map per student
student a copy of the map. Ask students to read the information cards
and ask them to work together to find and label the places on their
maps. Monitor and check with each group. (It would be useful for you
to prepare a completed map in advance to act as an answer key.) When
students have labelled their maps, take the information cards back and
give each group their directions cards.
• Ask students to read their Directions card. Check that each group
understands they all start at the petrol station where the arrow says
Start here, but after that they will go to different places and move from
one place to the next place, e.g. from the petrol station to the hotel,
from the hotel to the bank.
• Demonstrate before putting students into their working groups. Stand
with Group A and say that you are a Student A. Ask Groups B and C
Excuse me, could you give me directions to the hotel, please? / Do you know
where the hotel is? (Answer: Bs have the hotel, Cs don’t know). Tell all Cs to
listen as well and follow B’s directions, so C and A both mark the hotel
on the map. Students can also mark the route they take on the map.
• Put students in ABC groups of three. Students can start from the
beginning or continue from where you left off, if they are confident.
• Monitor and check all groups at the start to make sure they are
following the instructions correctly. Then monitor and help only as
necessary, making notes of common errors for feedback later.
• When all groups have finished, give feedback on the board in open
class. If you have a copy of the map on display, use this to give
examples of errors and good use of language.

Extension  (5 minutes)
• Put students in pairs or groups of three. Using the completed map, one
student describes how to get somewhere (without saying where). Their
partner/others in the group must say/guess where it is.
• Swap roles and follow the same procedure.
D000924

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