Aim of the Game
Learners describe themselves in terms of physical characteristics and personality.
Concept
Describing people’s personalities and our impressions of them is a very important and common social skill. In this task vocabulary and structures are pre-taught through matching activities, then a listening will provide a model. Finally learners will personalize by describing themselves and then interact by finding out about each other.
Suggested Procedure
- Learners match the words to the pictures individually. Learners check their answers in pairs and then feedback as a class. Check the learners can pronounce the phrases correctly, drilling as appropriate.
- Write extremely/very/quite/not very/a bit on the board and check meaning. Model use by describing yourself using the adverbs and adjectives. Then ask the learners to describe themselves.
- Show learners the letter and explain it is a letter from a penfriend describing themselves. Get learners to predict what kind of words might go in each gap.
- Model the text by creating a description and reading it out to the learners. They listen and complete the letter. Learners check their answers in pairs and then feedback as a class.
- Give learners a fresh copy of the gapped letter. Learners fill out the letters describing themselves but don’t sign the letter. Monitor, helping with vocabulary questions and pointing out errors for learners to self-correct where possible.
- Learners get into groups and try to identify the writers using the descriptions.
- Learners check who wrote which letter by asking questions: Are you a doctor? Do you look like your dad? Etc.
Extentions
Learners write descriptions of family members and bring in photos for next class. Their partners guess which photo is which person.
Learners write descriptions of celebrities and then guess the identities based on the information.