English Lesson Plans For Grade 6: Lessons in This Section
English Lesson Plans For Grade 6: Lessons in This Section
English Lesson Plans For Grade 6: Lessons in This Section
for Grade 6
Lessons in this section
6.1 Speaking: stating preferences with I’d rather … 158
6.2 Listening: telephone messages 162
6.3 Reading and scanning: The big man 167
6.4 Writing instructions: Making a model volcano 170
Resource sheets for the lessons 173
Presentation
Pyramid
Resources
Tell students the topic is sport vocabulary. In pairs, get students to write down as
OHT 6.1a many names of sports as they can. Put two pairs together and get them to share
Vocabulary their words, adding any from the other’s lists that they didn’t have. Put two groups
(to) go surfing of four into groups of eight and repeat the sharing process. Get representatives
(to) go skiing from each group to put the words on the board. Organise it in such a way as to
(to) play tennis minimize repetitions. Present any of the vocabulary listed on the left that hasn’t
(to) play volleyball already been introduced.
Bingo
Tell students to choose any five words from those on the board and write them
down in a list in their books.
SPORTS WE KNOW
Read the following script aloud. As soon as students hear you say one of their
words they cross it off their list. The first one to cross off all five of their words
shouts ‘Bingo’. Double-check they have won by getting them to read aloud their
winning five words. Declare them the winner and go on reading your list until you
get two or three more winners.
Teacher’s script
swimming, running, racing, sailing, baseball, climbing, football, surfing,
volleyball, skiing, tennis, jogging, hiking, badminton, cricket, riding, skate
boarding, fishing
Predict dialogue
Put the gapped dialogue (OHT 6.1a) on the board or the OHP. Get students to
guess which words go in the gaps by taking it in turns to suggest words until all the
gaps are filled and the dialogue is complete. The more suggestions they make, the
more they practise the new vocabulary.
Add the musical instrument cues to broaden the context from sports to pass-times.
Get students to practise in open pairs first. Then stick the cue cards on the board
and get students to practise in closed pairs, taking it in turns to ask and answer.
Get students to practise the dialogue in pairs as above. Then get them to expand the
dialogue by asking Why? each time the other says I’d rather … so that they have to
come up with a reason for their preferences.
B (Dan): I’d rather go to the cinema
A (Sam): Why?
B (Dan): Because I like seeing films on the big screen.
Production
Board game
Resources
Put students into groups of four and give each group the board game on worksheet
Worksheet 6.1 6.1. Get students to choose a small object like a paperclip or an eraser as their
Dice, counters
counter or give them a button or a coloured counter. The first student to throw a six
starts and the turns go clockwise around the group from that person. To take a turn, a
student throws the dice and moves their counter that number of spaces along the
board. As the student whose turn it is lands on a square, the rest of the group ask
What would you rather be / do / play / learn …? or Where would you rather go / stay
/ visit …? The player replies by stating a preference I’d rather … The group asks
Why? and the player replies Because I like … or Because then I can … etc.
[A throws a two and lands on the rat/snake square]
Group: What would you rather be, a rat or a snake?
A: I’d rather be a rat.
Group: Why?
A: Because rats are more intelligent than snakes.
The first player to get to the end is the winner.
Monitor the students’ utterances and make notes of good ideas and common errors.
Feedback
Nominate certain students who had particularly good ideas and get them to tell the
class what their choice and reason were for a particular square. For example,
‘Hessa, tell the class why you’d rather have a holiday in the mountains.’
Deal with the most common errors orally and/or on the board.
In Arabic
We use ’d rather to talk about preferences and choices especially where there are
two alternatives. We often say what we’d rather do in conversations where our
friends invite us to do something. We can also say I’d prefer to but I’d rather is
more common.
The first to have three noughts or three crosses in a row, wins. To win a square,
students have to say which square they want by calling out the word written there
and then making a tourism request with I’d like … and the word.
8
a vacation
mixture
a booking
0a tour
(to) collect
the summer
period
X
0
a vacation: I’d like to book a
vacation please.’
8
X local: I’d like to take a local
guide.
local a festival international
Tell students these are the key words in the messages left on Jane Wesley’s
answering machine.
While
Get students to listen to tape 6.2 and then answer the pre-questions.
listening
Matching
Resources
Get students to look at exercise 1 on worksheet 6.2a and, working in pairs, match
Tape or tape script 6.2
Worksheet 6.2a
any they can from the first listening. Have students listen a second time and
exercises 1, 2, 3 complete the matching exercise as they listen. Get them to compare answers in
pairs or small groups and check orally with the whole class that they agree on the
answers:
Answer key
Rajaa – airline tickets
Peter – no rooms at the Marriott
Husband – coming home Tuesday
Sarah Dean – information and booking form
Bill Grant – photos
Nayef – return call
Father – no message
John Weeks – new tours
Son – party
Taking notes
Show students the message forms in exercise 2 on worksheet 6.2a. Get them to fill
in the ‘name’ and ‘about’ sections in each form from the information they already
have from doing exercise 1.
Name Rajaa
Action
Contact
Call back You
They
With a partner, have students fill in as much as they can of the rest of the forms
from memory. Then play the tape again, and rewind and replay individual
messages as often as the students require to get everything they need. Explain to
students they can replay the message as many times as they like because in reality
they would also do this – rewind the answering machine and play it back in order
to write down the necessary details correctly.
Post-listening
Roleplay
Resources
Hand out worksheet 6.2b. Tell students they are going to practise leaving
Worksheet 6.2b telephone messages and writing down messages in note form.
exercise 4
Teacher’s script
Callers phone Jane Wesley’s office at East West Tours and leave a message
with her secretary. Secretaries write down the message and check it with the
caller.
Get students to take it in turns to be the caller and the secretary with the situations
on worksheet 6.2b.
Answer key
1 You’d like East West to book three nights at the Marriott Hotel, 2–4 July. You need a
single room. Your name’s John Smith.
Caller: Hi, this is John Smith. I’d like you to book me a single room for three nights at
the Marriott, July second, third and fourth.
Secretary: Could you please spell your name for me?
Caller: Certainly. My last name’s Smith, s-m-i-t-h. Mr John Smith.
Monitor and record written and spoken errors for the feedback session.
Feedback
Deal with most common errors orally or on the board. Elicit from students, in
Arabic, which part of the lesson they found most difficult – listening for details,
taking notes or leaving a message on the phone. Use this information as a needs
analysis for future lessons.
In Arabic
It’s important to have a good telephone manner so that you can leave and take
messages on the phone well. Many people have a very bad telephone manner
because they are not confident or they have problems with their English or because
they haven’t learned how to be polite on the phone. Because the person you’re
talking to can’t see you, it’s important to:
• be extra polite;
• put a ‘smile’ into your voice;
• speak slowly and clearly;
• ask the caller to repeat their message if you don’t understand them the first
time.
When you write down telephone messages you don’t have to write an essay! Just
one word or phrase to say what the call was about. Then, if there is any action to be
taken, write it in the command form – Do this …, Call him back … Send the
information … etc.
When you leave a telephone message with a secretary or on an answering machine,
plan what you are going to say before you call. Don’t be like Jane’s father! Say
your name clearly, why you are calling, what you want them to do and remember
to give your call-back number.
Pre-reading
Pre-teach vocabulary
Resources
Set the scene: tell the class they’re going to read about a man called Walter
Worksheet 6.3a Hudson, who is very, very fat. If you have Lifelines Pre-Intermediate Student’s
Vocabulary Book get them to look at the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of Walter on pages 66–67.
an addiction Get them to discuss the following pre-questions on the board before reading.
enormous
an accident
Why did he get so fat?
stuck Why did he decide to lose weight?
a diet
(to) cut down on Use the pictures and the discussion to pre-teach the vocabulary. Also revise relevant
vocabulary that students should already know (weight, to lose/put on weight, etc.).
Slap the board
Put the new vocabulary randomly all over the board at different heights. Choose
two teams of five students. Draw a ‘starting line’ on the floor about two metres
from the board. Get the first member of each team to approach the line. Call out, in
Arabic, the equivalent of one of the words or phrases on the board. The first person
to slap the correct English word on the board wins a point for their team. The loser
goes back to his or her seat. Get the next pair to come to the line and call out a
different word or phrase in Arabic. Continue to play until everyone has had a go or
the words have been learned or one of the teams is ‘out’.
Remind students to focus on the questions you discussed before when they read the
text the first time.
While reading
Reading comprehension
Resources
Hand out the text on worksheet 6.3a. Give students five minutes to read the text.
Worksheets 6.3a and Then get them to answer the pre-questions.
6.3b exercise 1
Answer key
Why did he get so fat? He ate far too much. / He had a food addiction.
Why did he decide to lose weight? He got stuck in a doorway and needed eight people to
get him out.
Then ask the following questions orally to see if they have understood the main ideas.
• Who is the man? Walter Hudson.
• Where does he live? In the USA / near New York.
• What is he doing about his problem? He’s on a diet. He stopped eating.
• Is he successful? Yes. (He’s losing nine kilos a week.)
• How can a picture of him help fat children? They see how bad he looks so
they stop eating so much.
Answers given
Put the following numbers on the board.
10 630 12 6
12–15 96 302 8
95 9 43 25
Tell students to find the numbers in the text and then write a question for each
number. The number is the answer. Do the first one together.
10 → How many packets of crisps did he eat every afternoon?
Put students into groups of three. Each student has to find four of the numbers (one
row each) and write the questions for them. It’s a race, so that students speed up
their scanning skills. Once they’ve got all four of their questions written, get them
to share them as a group. The first group with 12 questions is the winner.
Answer key
If students include used to in the questions, all the better but they don’t have to.
How many packets of crisps did he eat?
How many kilos did he weigh?
How many doughnuts did he eat every morning?
How many Danish pastries did he eat every morning?
How many hours of TV did he watch a day?
How many cans a day did he drink?
How many centimetres was his waist?
How many people did it take to free him?
How many kilos does he want to weigh?
How many kilos is he losing a week?
How old is he?
How old was he when he last went outside?
In Arabic
The purpose of today’s reading was to find and pull out of the text lots of bits of
specific information. You were practising so that you can do this more quickly in
future: finding out what all the numbers meant, finding all the words for size,
quantity, and weight, and finding all the sentences with used to. There were some
other words in the text that you didn’t understand but you didn’t have to
understand them to find the information you needed. When you read, you don’t
have to understand every word to understand the whole thing. When you read for a
purpose, you focus in on specific bits of information and you forget about the rest.
Substitution drill
Underline the two phrases in instructions 1 and 4 above which contain the construction
‘Do X before doing Y’. Get students to practise the construction with this drill.
In Arabic
Look again at your two sets of instructions for making a dice and making a volcano
from a paper pattern.
When you write instructions like this, it’s like writing a cooking recipe. First
there’s the title, then there’s a list of things you will need. Then come the steps,
which are often numbered, to tell you what to do.
The steps use the command (imperative) form. This makes the instructions short,
clear and direct.
Sometimes steps are connected with words like before, after that, finally. If the set
of steps are not numbered, then these connecting words become more important.
There are usually some diagrams to show you what to do and the text refers to
them, using a phrase like ‘… as shown in diagram B’.