Lesson 1: Describing People

The class started with a short welcoming speech, where the guidelines for the rest of the classes were given: mainly that the students should strive to speak English at all times, unless they ask permission in English to speak their native language.

I began by showing them this video from Youtube: The Adjectives Song

Ask the class: So what do we use to describe people?
By this point they will recognize adjectives as traits that aid in describing people.

To find out where they stand in vocabulary, I handed out the following worksheet, where they were required to fill in the blank with an appropriate word.

Warm-up Exercise

Then I gave them these hand-outs, with vocabulary used for describing peoples' appearance (age-height-body-hair-skin-eyes-face-clothes & accessories) and character.

Describing people- Vocabulary

When we had finished discussing the vocabulary hand-outs together, we played a short Guess-Who? game:
I printed pictures of five famous people (Gandhi- Mona Lisa-Obama- Queen Elizabeth- Shakespeare). One of the students was seated far off with a copy of one of the pictures of the five people. The student had to describe the picture in his hand and have the others guess which of the five people he was describing.

The game is a fun way for children to practise adjectives. Any pictures can be used (not necessarily famous people!)

After the game, we had a fun listening exercise, where the students had to listen to three different people describing their looks, and draw them. Make sure you have crayons on hand.

Mr Graham

Miss Bell

Jade

Apologies for the abruptness of the speakers' voices. I used a text-to-voice website to produce them. If you could get different voices to speak for you, the better :) The kids had a lot of fun in this exercise with their exaggerated drawings!

Finally I gave them their homework for the day, which was to describe five pictures of peoples' faces using words from the box.

Homework- describe the faces

Lesson 2: Emotions and Feelings

The class began with a revision of the previous lesson by testing the childrens' memory of character traits, appearance adjectives and clothes vocabulary:

Using two empty tissue boxes, I labeled one box 'POSITIVE' and the other 'NEGATIVE'. I then handed each of them flashcards with the words:
[intelligent-stupid-wise-foolish-interesting-boring-hopeful-desperate-happy-depressed-patient-impatient-hard working-lazy-neat-messy-clean-dirty]
The kids had to put the flashcards in the right box (To keep track of who was doing what, each student had a unique colour of flashcards).

In the next revision task, I again handed each of the students a set of flashcards carrying the words:
[old-bald- ginger- glasses- beard- moustache- blond- teenager- adult- average height- muscled- stout- thin- wavy- hazel- braces]
Their task was to match the flashcards with the following pictures (cut separately, of course):
Pictures to match with the flashcards

In the last revision task, I gave each student a different worksheet with people describing what they usually wear in various situations (Example: When I go out for a walk, I wear shorts with a t-shirt and sports shoes.)
I had pictures of clothes cut up in front of them (unlabeled), and the students' task was to stick the outfits under their descriptions.
Pictures of clothes

When we were done with revision and they had taken a short break, we were ready to start with the day's lesson.

I first showed them this video from Youtube, a song from the classic Sesame Street on emotions:

The children were given these hand-outs, where I asked them to read through the questions, and answer the questions by drawing face expressions. The questions asked them how they feel in different situations.
How do you feel when....?

Once they were done, I handed out the lesson's vocabulary sheet, and we discussed them together:
(The students find it helpful to write down the meaning of each word in their native language).
Vocabulary hand out- Describing feelings

Now that the students had an idea on how to express their feelings in English, I asked them to go back to the "How do you feel when...?" worksheet and substitute their face expressions for words.

Finally, the class ended with a short listening exercise, where the students were required to listen to four situations and choose the emotion prevalent in each situation:
Listen for the emotion
I haven't uploaded the audio for the situations for privacy reasons, as my cousin and I recorded them. The situations were: a little girl scared of going to the dentist; a mother sad about a broken vase; a friend's surprise arrival; and two people jealously gossiping about a third person.

The homework was for each student to spell their name vertically, writing an adjective that describes themselves for each letter of their name.

Lesson 3: Family

Before we started the class, I handed out these Word Search worksheets, where I had hidden six family-related words [mother- father- brother- sister- baby]. The idea was to let the kids guess what the class was going to be about.

Word Search family worksheet

I showed them this cute video on Youtube- The Family Song:

We discussed main vocabulary related to family with these hand-outs:

Vocabulary- Family

I had a short Speaking exercise where I asked each of the students a question about their family:

-How big is your family? Do you have any pets?

-How does everyone in your family look like? Who do you resemble the most?

-Describe your family members' personalities. Who are you most like?

The next exercise was a Crossword on family relations. I tried to make it personal by using names related to the students as the hints, hence I haven't uploaded it. I used one of the many websites available online for creating Crosswords. 

Finally, they had some Listening Exercises:

Listening Exercises

The first audio they heard is from Randall's ESL Listening Lab: Phone Message

The second audio is again from Randall's ESL Listening Lab: Family Relations

The third audio is from Ello's ESL Listening: How big is your family and where are they now?

Their homework was to draw family trees based on three different descriptions of peoples' families:

Family Tree Worksheet

Lesson 4: Cultures

This proved to be a very fun class.

It started off with revision of the first three previous classes, testing the childrens' memory of vocabulary on adjectives, character traits, emotions and family. The worksheet had ten fill-in-the-blank sentences, where they had to complete the sentences with words from the box.
Revision worksheet

We watched a Youtube song video about the different continents and their cultures:

I handed out a worksheet that introduced the concept of culture, and had the children brainstorm on their own culture. In the blank space on the worksheet, they drew a large flower, with each petal representing an aspect of their culture [e.g. Food, Dress, Buildings]
Your Culture

When they were done thinking about their own culture, we had a short test on how well the kids know other cultures.
On the table before them were cut-out labeled pictures of food, clothes, monuments and so on from six different cultures: Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, Morrocon, Italian and Australian:
Pictures from different cultures

Each of the three students were handed a worksheet with two cultures names on them, and the students had to stick the relevant pictures under the culture they were assigned.
How well do you know other cultures?

After that activity, I handed out the regular vocabulary hand-outs:
Vocabulary- Cultures

And we ended the class with Listening Exercises
Two audios from Randall's ESL Listening Lab, Where are you from? and Vacation Plans

Their homework for the day was to write a paragraph about the culture they picked from a handful of chits (the chits gave them the option of French, Turkish, German, Japanese, Afghani, Yemeni, Pakistani or Scottish cultures).

Lesson 5: Food and Drink

The most exciting class for the kids!

I began by blindfolding the three children, and giving each of them something to taste. Chocolate sauce (for a sweet taste), a few drops of lemon (for a sour taste), and a few drops of chili sauce (for a spicy taste).

Then I removed their blindfolds and asked each of them to fill in the worksheet, circling the sort of taste they had experienced. From many cut-up pictures in front of them, they had to pick the foods that share the same taste as the one they tried, and stick them on their worksheets.

Blindfolding exercise Worksheet
Pictures of food for the exercise

They solved a crossword puzzle, which I easily created online.
Food crossword puzzle

[The solution is simple: Across 2.Icecream 5.Rice 7.Strawberry Down 1.Banana 3.Chocolate 4.Burger 6.Corn 8.Tea]

We discussed vocabulary related to Food & Drink (names of food categories and what they include, names of drinks, names of meals, verbs of preparing food, and other vocabulary) from these hand-outs:
Food and Drink Vocabulary hand-out

I wanted them to know what sort of containers suit different kinds of food (e.g. a bar of chocolate, a jar of jam, etc.). They did the following exercise where they had to choose the right word from the box for each picture of food:
Food Containers exercise

We ended with Listening exercises: each student had a different copy, all with the same first two questions but a different third question.

The first listening set of questions is based on this Youtube Sesame Street video: More Spaghetti

The second set of listening questions is based on a Randall's ESL Listening Audio: Heavenly Pies Restaurant

And the last question, which each student had a different version of, was based on the Sally and Robert's description of their everyday meals. The kids had crayons on hand and had to draw and colour Sally's breakfast, Sally's dessert or Robert's dinner, as they heard their descriptions.

Their homework for the day was to write a recipe for a dish with the taste of what they had tasted as they were blindfolded.

Lesson 6: Hobbies & Daily Activities

I had several chits with names of activities on them [playing the piano; playing tennis; painting, etc]. At the start of the class, each student picked a chit and acted out their activity, with the others having to guess the activity. This is a good warm-up and also gives you an idea of where they stand in terms of vocabulary.

After the activity, we discussed vocabulary from the vocabulary worksheets I handed out:
Vocabulary handout: Hobbies and Daily Activities

I made a short exercise about household chores, assuming they make a part of daily activities. The kids had to write the number of the relevant picture in the blanks:
Household Chores exercise

The next exercise was fun: together, we read a conversation between three friends discussing week-end plans, each student acting as one of the friends. Then they had five minutes to draw and colour in the boxes below what was happening at specific times and places. As the friends kept changing plans during the conversation, it proved to be somewhat challenging for the students.
Activity: Dialogue and Draw/Colour

Ending with Listening Exercises, we listened to two audios from Randall's ESL Listening Lab- Night-life and Weekly Activities

Their homework for the day was a short Revision Exercise with fill-in-the-blank sentences to test their memory of vocabulary from all the previous classes (related to Food and Drink, Character traits, Cultures and Family)

Lesson 7: School life

As this is a subject that has alot of content to cover, the class went on for longer than usual (2 hours instead of the usual 1 and a half hours).

I started the class by testing their vocabulary memory. Before them were many cut-up pictures, unlabeled:
Pictures for vocabulary revision

Each of the students had a copy of this worksheet, with a different version of words written on the top of the empty boxes. They had to stick the matching picture in their boxes.
[I wrote the following words in the boxes: depressed- slippers- bracelet- ginger- cuisine-wealth- anxious- cheerful- boil- lettuce- peaches- cultures- mowing the lawn- vacuuming the floor- cook- cooker- carrots- snacks- traveling- camping- married- butter- rowing- knitting- sisters- necklace- pour- religion] All the words were from their previous classes' vocabulary hand-outs.

Once the revision was done, we started with our class on school.

I showed them this cute video on school from Sesame Street:

We discussed school-related vocabulary:
Vocabulary handout- School life

And played some games- each student had a turn at playing Hangman with words from the vocabulary hand-out, and then they un-scrambled words
Game worksheet- School life

The Listening Exercises were based on one audio from Randall's ESL Listening Lab- A Day at School, and three videos from Sesame Street:

Professor Grover

The Count's first day of school

Lauren goes to school

Sesame Street is an excellent resource for education!

Lesson 8: Jobs & Professions

We started by watching a video on different children's plans for their future:

Using these vocabulary hand-outs, we discussed the different jobs there are and what they basically do:
Vocabulary hand-out: Jobs

I gave them an exercise where three children talked about what they were good at, asking the students to advise them on their future profession. (Of course, there is no specific correct answer)
What do you advise them to be? Exercise

Then we had a Writing session. For second language students, writing is the most daunting task because there is a lot to worry about (sentence formation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling..). To make it less stressful, I assured them not to worry about making spelling or grammar mistakes and to just go along with whatever comes to their head.

They wrote very impressive paragraphs on their dream jobs. It helps to put useful phrases that they could use in their writing.
Writing Exercise: Your dream job

The class ended with the usual Listening Exercises- with three audios from Randall's ESL Listening Lab- Train tickets, Lost in the Crowd and Saturday's Chores.

Their homework had a list of work places and pictures of work places, which they had to match, and write down who works there (one profession). Each student had a slightly different version - I have uploaded one version
Homework- Who works here?

Lesson 9: Body and Health

To test the students' vocabulary from the previous lesson on Jobs, I gave each of the three children a colour, and they had one minute to fill a single paper with all the jobs and professions they can think of.

I tested their memory from two of the first lessons on describing people and emotions through a Mr. Men exercise- where the students were required to read the short character descriptions and guess which Mr. Men it is.
Mr. Men Exercise

As it was a class on fitness, (and also because the class timing was late and the students were abit drowsy!), we geared up with a five-minute work-out by watching and following this video:

I handed out this worksheet to the students: each of them had a sheet with different names of body parts, and what they had to do was stick the matching picture.
Parts of the body- Worksheet
Parts of the body- Pictures for matching

The students were surprised to see many new words of their body parts!

We discussed vocabulary related to body parts, verbs on how the body is moved (stretch, bend, etc.) and aches of the body.
Vocabulary handout: Body and Health

The listening exercises were exceptionally fun, because it was based upon a short film that my sisters and I acted and filmed on Helen Keller. I can't upload it here unfortunately due to privacy concerns.

Each of the students had a different task for homework, all in the following file. The youngest student was asked to sort out healthy foods from unhealthy ones, and the other two were required to respond to requests for advice on skin, hair and weight concerns.
Homework- Body and Health

Lesson 10: Telling the Time

Since teaching time-telling is simple and takes little time, most of this class was revision of all the previous classes.

We began with revision of their lesson on Food and Drink. I handed out three different versions of the following worksheet, showing a kitchen in which they had to fill with the named food items, choosing the correct pictures.
Revision worksheet: In my kitchen
Pictures of food for matching

For revision on their School Life lesson, I handed out three versions of another worksheet, showing a large school bag which they had to pack with the named stationery, choosing the correct pictures again.
Revision worksheet: Inside my school bag
Pictures of stationery for matching

Then I grouped revision of all the other lessons into one word-with-meaning matching exercise:
Match word with meaning- exercise

When the revision was done and their memories refreshed, we got on with the class, starting it with a funny short video from Sesame Street:

What time is it?

We discussed vocabulary related to time, how to tell the time, the days of the week and months of the year, and what prepositions to use when:
Handout- Time

And their homework was to write down the time on different clock-faces, and to draw clock hands for different times
Homework- Telling the Time

Lesson 11: At Home

A very fun class!

I began with handing out a short quiz, where the students had to choose their responses in different situations and find out whether they were a polite guest or not. (Of course, the responses were fairly obvious- the point of the quiz was to familiarize them with language surrounding the home).
Are you a polite guest? Quiz

We discussed vocabulary relating to furniture and things around the house, prepositions and colours:
Vocabulary hand-out: At Home

Then, with crayons on hand, we read two letters from pen-pals to each other, describing their houses. They had three minutes to sketch the two houses:
Sketch the described houses- Worksheet

Together we worked on the next exercise- a story of a journalist's studio being broken into- and their task was to spot the differences before she left home and when she got back, writing the differences in short sentences. (I thought this was the best way to test their use of prepositions alongwith the vocabulary they just learned).
Spot the differences- Worksheet

The Listening Exercise was alot of fun, because it was based on an Arthur's episode that we watched together while they answered the questions:
Listening Exercise

Arthur and D.W. clean up

Their homework for the day was to write about their dream-home (They are permitted to use the internet or dictionaries to help them in their writing).
Homework- Your dream home

Lesson 12: Vacations

Before the main class began, the students had a Word Search sheet to look up words related to Holidays. I didn't want to waste too much time on that so I gave them five minutes to look up as many words as they can and they were impressive.
Word Search- Holidays

We discussed words related to vacations- things you can do during the holiday, places to go, and ways to plan:
Vocabulary handout- Vacations

For the next exercise, you need a die and three different coloured player pieces. We played a board game that I made very easily on Word: the rules of the game were simple:
The first player moves the number on the die. They ask the next player in turn a question based on the picture they've landed on (e.g. Did you go swimming this holiday?) If the next player answers Yes, they move forward once, otherwise they move backward once. The student that reaches the Finish square first wins.
At the end of the game, the winning student received an English-Arabic dictionary.

I have tried uploading the Board Game to Google Docs, but the pictures are getting messed up during the upload. I expect it has something to do with a change in format. For now, I've attached a picture of the board game. If you want the bigger version, don't hesitate to contact me, it is available upon request.

The listening exercises were based on three audios from Randall's ESL Listening Lab: Hotel Reservations, Immigration and Customs, and Sightseeing in Town
Listening Exercises

The class had fewer exercises than usual because the board game took a while to play.

For homework, the students read two examples of holiday descriptions, one positive and the other negative, and were asked to write their own holiday description.
Homework- Vacations

Lesson 13: Transportation

We started by figuring out three secret messages using an alphabet code. The secret messages were all related to transport:
Secret Message: Worksheet

I showed them a Sesame Street video "Meet me at the bus-stop":

We discussed vocabulary related to transportation: the different means of transport, verbs you use in relation and other related words:
Vocabulary hand-out: Transportation

To test if the students can give directions in English, we did an activity where they had to give directions to a figure in a town to different places:
Giving directions- Worksheet

Then we worked on another activity where they had to tell the story of a car accident in order, by matching the phrases to pictures of the accident:
Car Accident- Worksheet

Finally, for our Listening Exercises, we heard two audios from Randall's ESL Listening Lab: Taxi Ride and Traffic Ticket

For homework, the students received a Word Search with words related to transportation to look up, and a Bus Safety worksheet were they had to pick out the wrong behaviour of children on a school bus.
Homework- Transportation

Revision Class

It had been a while since we had any revision, so this class was dedicated to brushing up what we had already learned.

After a five minute quick workout, we began with a short quiz to find out whether the students were good citizens or not. (Again, the answers is deliberately obvious and the point of the quiz was the vocabulary involved)
Quiz- Are you a good citizen?

Then choosing from a set of twenty cut pictures, the students had to stick the relevant picture under the words given to them. All the words were from the previous lessons on Home, Vacations and Transport.
Pictures for matching
Worksheets

We played a vocabulary board game- the player can move forward once if they correctly translate the word they land on, otherwise moving backward once. You will need a dice and player pieces. The words used in the board game came from previous lessons on Time, Health and Body, Jobs, School life, Food and Drink, Cultures, Family, Feelings and Describing People.
Again, formatting issues prevent me from uploading the Board Game- here is a preview and the original is available upon request:

Next, we revised vocabulary of Hobbies and Daily Activities through this exercise. The worksheets showed a series of pictures describing three peoples' weekends, and the students' task was to write down as a paragraph how they spent the weekend.
Exercise- What they did last weekend

Finally, for our Listening Exercise, we watched an Arthur episode- Arthur Writes a Story- and answered questions based on it.

A task

Dear students,

We are nearing the end of our lessons as you will soon go back to school and get busy.
I hope you have learned alot this summer!

On Thursday, instead of me teaching, it will be you three presenting.
For Thursday, I would like each of you to prepare presentations on these topics:

Z: Prepare a presentation on Holidays and Transportation.
M: Prepare a presentation on Food and Drink and Health and Body
B: Prepare a presentation on Describing yourself and Feelings

For your presentations, you can use Powerpoint or whatever you find useful. It is important that you talk in English as you present!

Comment below if you have any questions

See you on Thursday!

A good ending

After each of the students' beautiful presentations that demonstrated this summer's classes effectiveness, we had a short certificate-awarding ceremony, followed by a movie sit-down, watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as we sipped chocolate milkshakes.

Until next summer :)