Countable / uncountable nouns_some /any
Elementary level
Description
Materials
Main Aims
-
To provide clarification and practice of Countable and Uncountable in the context of food
Subsidiary Aims
-
To provide accuracy and fluency speaking practice in a discussion in the context of food
-
To provide specific information listening practice using a text about fussy eater in the context of food
Procedure (49-61 minutes)
-By playing a short video clip and asking some questions about the clip I set the scene and engage them in the lesson. "watch this clip and tell me who is in the film? (Mr. Bean) Where is he? (in a restaurant) -Pause the video after a minute and proceed by projecting a picture of a fussy eater, I elicit the meaning of that word. it will be like this: "Does Mr. Bean like his food? (No) What do we call a person who does not like a lot of food? (fussy eater) Does a fussy eater eat all kinds of food? (no) Does a fussy eater avoid a lot of food? (yes) -After teaching fussy eater I project following questions on the board: 1. Which foods did you like as a young child? 2. Which foods didn't you like? 3. Were you a fussy eater?
-I project the picture on the board, and ask the students: what do you see in the picture? (two boys) who are they? (Duncan and Nick) After that, I explain that we are going to listen to their conversation, and they will answer three questions. After instruction, I have ICQs: Are we going to listen carefully?(yes) Are we going to answer the questions?(Yes) -then students are provided with the handout and I play the audio. After second playing they have pair check, and then they are provided with the answer key on the board.
-I hold the book to my chest asking students to look at the task. Then I give instruction to them that goes like this: "look at these pictures on the right. what are they? (food) Now, look at this table. There are two columns. what are these words? (food) great, you are going to match the pictures a-x on the right to these words on the left." I ask ICQs; "Are you going to match these words and pictures? (yes) Are you going to do it alone? (yes) you have two minutes." -I give the hand out to the students and monitor if they are on the right track. when they are about to finish, I start to count down from 10. when I come to zero, I draw students' attention, put them in pairs, ask them to check with their peers. Then I project the answer key on the board and ask students to check their answers. - Ask students to look carefully at the table and draw their attention to the word "bananas". Elicit the number of the syllables in the bananas. Ask them to notice the highlighted part of this word and then ask why the second part is highlighted. (because the stress is on the second syllable of the word) let them know that all of the highlighted parts of the words is because of word stress. Mind them that the words with one syllable are not highlighted since they receive the word stress. Then ask them to listen carefully and point to the word in their book. Then listen again and repeat.
-I ask the students to look at the list of the food on the board, and I point to the picture of three bananas and ask Ss "How many bananas are there in the picture? (three) Can we count them? (yes) if we can count them what are they called? (countable) Look at these foods in column B Are they all plurals? (yes) How do you know? (they have -s or -es) I write the bananas and clarify the plural form. for Bananas, if it is one banana what do we say? (a Banana. ) I write this on the board and elicit what comes before apples when we talk about one? (An apple) - I point to the picture of wine and ask them: " Can we count wine? (no) can we say A wine or wines? (no) " what do we call the nouns that we can not count? (uncountable) Look at the column A are they all countable or uncountable? (uncountable) - I run a quick exercise. I project 16 words on the board and assign the numbers to the students and ask them to come to the board and write C for countable and U for uncountable. ICQs are going to be like: "What are you going to write on the board next to countable words? (C) What are you going to write on the board next to uncountable words? (U) After they all write their answers on the board I check the answers and elicit from students for wrong answers. - Then by projecting the table to the board, I elicit the kind of verb that we use after countable and uncountable nouns. I ask the students "what do we use after the nouns in column A is or are? (is) why? (because they are uncountable) I write on the board: (uncountable + is) "what do we use after the nouns in column B is or are? (are) why? (because they are plural countable) I write on the board: (countable plurals + are) What about a banana, what comes after it is or are? (is) why? (because it is a singular countable noun) I write on the board: (countable singular + is) - Turn to the handout and set the task for the students followed by ICQs, pair check, and class check respectively.
- Students are supposed to listen to the previous conversation again and complete the fill in the gaps exercise. After giving the instruction, I give them a time limit to read the sentences, then play the audio two times and let them fill the gaps.After pair check, I ask the fast finishers to write the answers on the board. - tell students Nick was talking about tomatoes. What did he say about tomatoes? Elicit the marker sentence "we have some tomatoes." Write the sentence on the board. -ask students if this sentence is positive or negative? (positive) What is the word after some? (tomatoes) what kind of noun is it? (countable) is it plural or singular? (plural) write the positive sentence: some + plural nouns -Did Duncan like fruit? (yes)" how do we know? (because he said: "I like some fruit, but not all" After eliciting this sentence to the board, you ask concept questions: Did Duncan like all fruit? (no) How do we know? (Because of some) is this sentence positive or negative? (positive) What is the word after some? (fruit) what kind of noun is it? (uncountable) write the positive sentence: some + plural nouns / uncountable nouns -Pronunciation should be highlighted pointing out that when some comes before a noun, it is in a weak form and pronounced /səm/. -Did Duncan like green vegetables? (no)" how do we know? (because he said: "'I didn't like green vegetables" After eliciting this sentence to the board, you ask concept questions: Is this sentence positive or negative? (negative) What is the word after any? (green vegetables) what kind of noun is it? (countable) is it plural or singular? (plural) write the negative sentence: any + plural nouns -look at sentence 4 in your exercise 2. Is this a sentence or question? (question) Do we use some or any in question? (any) question / negative sentence: plural nouns / uncountable nouns -Pronunciation should be highlighted pointing out that any doesn't have any strong form.
- I put students in pairs of A and B and then give them the instruction of "spot the difference" game. I tell them: "I give you these envelopes named A and B. You are going to open your envelope and then you are going to describe your picture with "I have some .. and I don't have any.... Do you have any...) I model with one of the pictures and ask ICQS. then give out the envelope and set a time limit. Following class check, I provide a feedback on some common errors.