Describing Physical Appearance

 This is a speaking activity where the students need to create their "cardboard dolls" and describe them using adjectives for describing physical appearance ( tall, short, fat, slim, big eyes, small eyes, long hair etc.) and also using have got / has got . They are expected to say sentences like: He is tall and fat. He has got short, dark hair and big blue eyes. In order to change the atmosphere in the classroom and make the students more comfortable, I asked them to sit in a circle on the floor. I put the props in the center and the students created the "cardboard dolls". This is a great way for the teacher to grade students' speaking abilities and also for the students to listen to their peers first and then provide their own description so that they don't feel insecure and not able to perform the task. 

Revision of adjectives ( follow up on introducing adjectives)

To revise the adjectives that we learnt on the previous lesson with the second grade ( which you can find in the previous post) we did some games and activities that I would like to share.

1. As a warm up activity show students flashcards with animals and ask to name them. Then you can put the adjectives on different places in the classroom and ask students to follow your instructions : Run to the bear/ Jump to the hippo/ Swim to the elephant etc.

2. In the main part of the lesson I had a few activities.
- Divide the board in half. Put the same pictures of animals in both of the halves of the board but make sure they are positioned differently. Invite the students to come to the board in pairs. Give each of them a flyswatter and explain the game. Their task is to hit the animal with their flyswatter once they hear the word. You can turn this into a competition. You can decide who did the exercise faster or who made less mistakes.

- Put some pictures of animals on the floor and play the game "stepping stones". Each student needs to stand on the picture and name it and they should try to do it as fast as possible. In case they make a mistake they should go back and start over.

- To revise the adjectives you can give students cards with the adjectives written in English and in their mother tongue. Ask them to match the word with its translation and then check.

- Finally give them pieces of papers and ask them to work in groups and arrange the pieces of papers into sentences. Check and explain where necessary. 

Introducing family members - Learning can be fun!

This is what I usually do with my students when we learn about family members. We use some pictures and straws to make puppets. Students can even bring their own family photos. We enjoy cutting and making the puppets and then each student should present his or her family. They use personal pronouns, third person singular of the verb to be and possessive adjectives. not bad, ha? :)