TITLE: Cultural Traditions Conversations

AIMS: To encourage students to talk about cultural traditions at home and in the UK

TIME NEEDED: 15 - 30 minutes

MATERIALS: Once copy of the board per group of four students (counters and dice optional)

TAGS: ELE, PRE, INT, UPP, ADV, RM

WARMER FINISH

For lower level learners:
 Review and drill the names of months and
ordinal numbers, e.g. 1st, 2nd in order to
enable students to say dates correctly
For intermediate and higher levels (and warmer
extension for lower levels):
 Ask Ss to stand up and in silence line up
according to their birthdays (date and month
only) starting in January and finishing in
December
TEACHER’S NOTES
 Whole class feedback on information that was
shared in the groups under headings Same or
Different? Comparing and contrasting
traditions in their countries to the UK.
 If students didn’t know much about the UK,
this is an opportunity for the teacher to feed
in more information by extending this into a
question and answer activity, i.e. Ss turn their
findings into questions about the UK, e.g. Do
you give children gifts for their name day in the
UK?

 This encourages Ss to think of body and sign

language as communication tools in addition
to speaking
 When Ss are happy with their line up, check
they’re correct by asking every student to say
their birthday

MAIN ACTIVITY
 Put Ss into groups of four
 Each student gets a counter (they can make
their own by drawing a picture on a small
piece of paper) and a dice (a coin would be
equally useful, Ss flip the coin, heads move 1
forward, tails move 2 forward)
 Ss can choose individually which month they’d
like to start on
 First student starts, flips the coin and moves
accordingly
 For the month they are on, they have to
choose one of the topics in the circles and
make a true statement about a date in that
month, e.g. My father’s birthday is on 15th of
September. The statement can be about a
© Oxford International Education Group 2014

celebration in the UK, in their home country

or their family.
 If the student pronounced the date correctly
using ordinal numbers (the other players
decide), the student gets a point.
 For higher levels, ask Ss to give extended
answers.
 November December January

February
Gift giving
October

March
National
celebrations

Annual
celebrations
September

April
Family
celebrations
August

Rites of
passage
May

July June

© Oxford International Education Group 2014