Before introducing new words to the students, it's always good to start class with a hello. A longer and more complicated greeting conversation would be even better, with the teacher asking, "How are you?" so that the students respond, "I'm fine, thank you."
Emotional Responses: Mini-Introduction
If the students are used to the "How are you?/I'm fine thank you," pattern, they should be challenged to answer based on how they truly feel. With gestures and translations, as necessary, the students can be introduced to new words including happy, sleepy, and hungry.
- The students should ask the teacher, "How are you?"
- The teacher answers, using appropriate gestures, "I'm happy/sleepy/hungry/etc."
- The students should repeat after the teacher, mimicking the gestures.
- Finally, students volunteers can be called upon.
- The class asks the volunteer, "How are you?" and the volunteer responds based upon his emotional state.
Animals Introduction
The teacher should begin the introduction of the new material so that the students first get familiar with the word "animals." The teacher says, for example: "Today we will learn about animals. Animals. (Repeat after me.) Animals. Ready, go." And the class responds, "Animals."
- With the expectation that the students have never studied animals in English, bringing out the visual aides – large, individual pictures of the animals, laminated and magnet-backed, with the English spellings – will be a good way to explain.
The teacher is advised to introduce the words rabbit, tiger, elephant, snake, horse, bird, mouse, pig, lion, dog, and cat. Depending on the students' native (animal) culture, this set can easily be modified or expanded.
- As a class, students should repeat after the teacher, mimicking native pronunciation.
- A good way to introduce the animals is in sets of 3, holding up the cards one-by-one for the students to see, and afterward placing them on the board.
- After every 3 words, the teacher should review each previously introduced word, grabbing one at random and asking the class, "What's this?" at least once for each word.
Conversation Practice
At this point, students are expected to be able to produce "What (in this category) do you like?" "I like (this)," and "Do you like (this)?" "Yes, I do/No, I don't," conversations. (See ESL Basic Sports Lesson.)
- Responding to the teacher's question "What animal do you like?" students raise their hands to announce their favorite animals.
- A chosen student should stand, and the whole class should ask, "What animal do you like?"
- If the student answers, for example, "I like cat(s)," then the whole class should mimic the student's pronunciation of the sentence.
- As a reward, the student volunteer gets to hold the Cat card.
- The process continues once the teacher returns to the chalkboard, gestures toward the remaining animals, and asks, "What animal do you like?"
- The remaining animals should be distributed to other volunteers; students practice the question and answer patterns in a "real-life" scenario.
Ideally, the students should say "Thank you," upon receiving cards.
- Once all the cards have been distributed, the students holding the cards are given 5 seconds to pass them to students who have not yet had a chance to speak.
- The new card holders are then invited to the front of the class, for an interview.
- The first student is prompted to hold up her card, Dog, for example.
- The teacher says, "Ready, go," and the class asks, "Do you like dog(s)?"
- The card holder responds honestly, "Yes, I do," or "No, I don't," and the class repeats after the card holder.
- The process continues through the remaining cards.
- The cards change hands one more time, and this time the card holders, one by one, interview the class. "Do you like (this animal I'm holding up)?"
- The class is encouraged to respond all at once, but individually based on their personal preferences. They should be loud and emphatic if they really like or dislike a certain sport.
5 Questions Game
- The class is rewarded for participation and concentration with the announcement of a game
- The teacher divides the class in half, into two teams, A and B and calls one volunteer from Team A, and 5 volunteers from Team B.
- The 5 Team B volunteers close their eyes and turn away from the board as the A volunteer picks her favorite animal, and the seated students quietly confirm the choice.
- The 5 Team B volunteers each get one chance to guess the student’s chosen animal, asking, for example, “Do you like snake(s)?”
- If the Team A volunteer has chosen Elephant, for example, her answer should be "No, I don't."
- The Team A volunteer would then remove the Snake card, and the Team B questioner sits down, so that the next B volunteer can ask.
- If the Team B volunteers get 5 No answers, then Team A wins and is awarded 2 points. If Team B gets a Yes, Team B wins and is awarded 2 points.
- Students should always be rewarded for participation: for each round, the losing side should be awarded 1 point for proper English usage.
- After each round, the duty of choosing an animal and the duty of offering 5 guesses are switched between teams.
- The rounds continue until class time expires; the teacher tallies points to determine a winner before the end.
Class ends with the teacher telling the students goodbye, and having the class return the goodbye.
The teacher should then be able to leave the classroom with the satisfaction of thoroughly teaching the students very useful words using simple activities that can be fun for both elementary school students and teachers alike. The animal vocabulary is an excellent base to build from, to be used and expanded upon in subsequent lessons.
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