Productive skill (speaking)
Elementary level
Description
Materials
Main Aims
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To provide fluency speaking practice in a conversation in the context of character and appearance discription
Subsidiary Aims
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• To provide clarification of meaning, form and pronunciation of language used for asking and giving general description in the context of character and appearance description
Procedure (35-45 minutes)
Greet Ss, then present a chocolate poster pictures and ask Ss why chocolate companies choose celebrities on their ads/chocolate posters. I elicit from their answers some adjectives such as pretty, beautiful, attractive. After I elicit "appearance", I show Ss some photos of famous people and ask them in pairs to describe their appearance using the sentence form (he/she's or he/she has got.) To be more student-centered I nominate few of them and write their suggestions on the board with a content feedback.
Pre-teach new lexis and adjectives: 1) Outgoing (adjective) Definition: what do we call a friendly person who likes meeting new people? CCQs: If you're an outgoing person: 1- Do you like meeting new people? (Yes) 2- Are you a friendly and energetic person? (Yes) Model, drill and highlight the stressed and the velar nasal /ŋ/ sound 2) attractive (adjective) Synonyms: beautiful, pretty 3) Middle-aged (adjective) Context: what do we call people between the ages of 40s and 60s? Give Ss 5-10 sec to think, then I can say it twice first, drill and highlight the stressed sound on the board. 4) overweight (adjective) Visual & synonym: overweight is more polite than (fat) 5) slim (adjective) Visual & synonym is more attractive than (thin) 6) Good-looking (adjective) Synonyms; usually for men means beautiful for women. Set the listening task: 1) Introduce the speakers, "you're going to listen to a conversation between two speakers where Tina is asking Leo about his new girlfriend." listen and match the questions to the answers. 2) Chest the HO1 and tell Ss that the questions are in order. 3) Ask ICQs: - How many people are you listening to? (Two) - Whom are they talking about? (Leo's new girlfriend) - How many sentences will you match? (Three for each column) 4) Distribute HO1 and allow them 30 seconds to read the questions, and try to match them up before they listen. 5) Play the audio then, pause to check the first question with the whole class. 5) Resume the recording and keep monitoring to check if they need to listen again. 6) Play it one more time if I find most of Ss were confusing. 7) Ask them to check in pairs. 8) Provide answer key for feedback.
Elicit the meaning of questions with (like) by asking CCQs: 1) MS (what's she like?) - What's the answer? (She's really friendly and outgoing. And she's really beautiful.) - Do the adjectives (friendly, outgoing and beautiful) describe her character or physical appearance? (Both character and physical appearance) - Does the speaker describe her personal character or her physical appearance? (Her personal character and physical appearance) 2) MS (what does she like doing?) - What's the answer? (She likes dancing and going to the restaurants.) - Does she do these things/interests in her free time? (Yes) - Does the speaker describe her character or her likes and free time interests? (Her free time interests) 3) MS (what does she look like?) - What's the answer? (She's tall and slim. She's got long dark hair.) - What are the things the speaker describes? (Her height, her body and her hair) - Does the speaker describe her character or physical appearance? (Her physical appearance only) Model, drill and highlight (stress and intonation) for pronunciation features. Then I elicit and highlight the grammatical form on the board as a written record.
1) Set the speaking task: - Have Ss work on their own and write names of their friends they want to describe on a piece of paper (blank paper.) - Provide Ss with useful language prompts and information gap cards (questions to answer) - Divide Ss into pairs SA & SB then swap their roles. - Demonstrate the activity myself first by writing my friend's name on the board and invite Ss to ask about my friend. 2) Preparation time - allow 5 minutes for Ss to make notes and prepare what they're going to say (think about their friends' appearance, personality and their free time interests) 3) Task - Ss work in pairs, tell each other about the description of their chosen people then swap their roles.
While Ss are working and preparing for speaking task, I monitor closely, providing assistance if needed and take some notes to give a delayed content/linguistic feedback. I praise good sentences and correct errors anonymously on board.