Unit 7: Family celebrations
Day One: Family album
Students will be able to identify people from a family album and will be able to respond to oral questions about this family.
Setting the Stage
Teacher displays a series of pictures that depict a family tree. These photos can be of famous people or of a famous "family", such as the Simpsons: Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bart and Maggie. The pictures are labeled (in the Target Language, as well as in English or the language that the students use daily) with the person's name and his or her role in the family tree. Teacher encourages students to talk about what they see with a classmate sitting nearby.
Input (20 minutes)
The teacher shows a Powerpoint slide show of a family.
With each slide, teacher asks students to name each person being shown and tell the age of that person as well. Teacher also prompts students to include vocabulary that describes a characteristic of the person: intelligent, nice, friendly, adorable, hard to get along with, shy, funny, cute, tall, short. Teacher writes each word as it comes up in the presentation, both in the TL and in a comprehensible translation.
Teacher recycles the vocabulary of each slide, specifically name, age, family role, and characteristic with yes/no, either/or, who/what questions. Students respond to teacher's questions as a class, not individually. (Teacher has spoken with a specific student ahead of time to ask that he/she give an agreed-upon signal if he/she does not understand. Teacher keeps an eye on this student to make sure that all the questions/answers/descriptions, etc., are comprehensible to this "barometer" student.) Teacher points to the English translation of family member terms (the labels of the original photos that students saw at beginning of lesson) whenever he/she uses the term in the TL.
The slide show should include pictures of grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters and pets.
Guided Practice (15 minutes)
Teacher asks class as a whole to respond to a series of general questions about the family Powerpoint.
- What have we been talking about?
- Is there a sister or brother in the family? If yes, what are their names?
- How many aunts, uncles, cousins are there in the family?
- Who are some of the other family members you saw?
- How old is the grandfather? The oldest brother or sister?
Teacher shows specific slides from the Powerpoint and asks students, in pairs, to identify and describe orally each family member in the slide.
Teacher has prepared a short text that describes an imaginary family. Students, in pairs, find and list expressions that:
- Identify a family member
- Describe someone
- Tell someone's age
- Complain about someone
- Pay a compliment about someone
Independent Practice (10 minutes)
Students write a description of a photo that includes at least 8 people. This description must include vocabulary for each person that:
- Identifies family members,
- Gives their names, ages, and
- Describes one or more characteristics
Closure (5 minutes)
Students, in pairs, discuss what they learned today in an ACR (Action-Connection-Reflection) format. After one minute, Teacher asks for volunteers to relate what they talked about with their partner.
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