ESL Lesson Plan - Theme Parks - Intermediate - Lexis

  Here's a fun original lesson that you can use with intermediates and above dealing with theme/amusement parks. Depending on the level you can simplify the lexis or make it more difficult.


Introduction (2-3 minutes) (Use any of the below suggestions)

 a. Post some pictures of rides or amusement parks on the wall.
 b. Come in dressed as Mickey Mouse or have a picture of him (elicit Disney Land).
 c. Role play being on a roller coaster and have students guess where you are.
 d. Show a video of a roller coaster from 1st person perspective .

  The key is to try to elicit the word/idea 'amusement park'. Your students might not know what that word is in English, but they will all understand the concept.

Lead in (about 5-10 minutes)
Have these questions up pre written on the board or as a handout. With a 45 minute class you probably won't need 5 questions.

1. Do you like amusement parks? When was the last time you went to one?
2. Is there an amusement park in your city/town/country?
3. Name 3 famous amusement parks in the world. Do they have a theme?
  (Make sure you know three and try to have pictures of them )
4. Name 3 rides that you can find in an amusement park?
5. Name 3 other things that you can do in an amusement park?

Demo these out with the students and then put them in pairs or groups to discuss. You don't have to name all of the examples, just give them a good example to work with.  Monitor and error correct as needed. Break the activity and get some quick feedback.

Target Language (lexis based 5 minutes or so)
Elicit and CCQ these out. Make sure to go over pronunciation as well.
1. a roller coaster
2. a ferris wheel
3. a haunted house
4. a concession stand
5. a fun house
6. a water slide
7. a carousel
8. bumper cars
9. a scrambler
10 a bounce/moon house
11.  a petting zoo
12.  a kiddy ride
13. a concession stand

(About 10 of these should work and remember that you can switch these out for rides that you feel are more appropriate for your students)

Study 1. (about 3 minutes)
(groups or pairs)
Students match the word with the picture. Alternatively if you want some more vocal output, students can say the word while they are matching it.

Study 2 (5 minutes)
Students in groups or pairs
One student describes the ride and the other students have to guess what it is.

Tip: Make it a competition and put a time limit on it. This will increase student output. Also remember to always be monitoring. Circle the different groups and correct for grammatical/pronunciation mistakes and other errors.


Activation
 Set up
 - Create your theme park (20 minutes or more depending on your class)
 You should have your own theme park preplanned out. Show drawn layout of your amusement park that shows the location of all of your rides. The following questions should be on the board.

1. What is the name of your amusement park?
2. Where's it located?
3. What's your theme?
4. How much do you charge for admission (use ticket if admission is a hard word)
5. What is special about your amusement park
6. Do you have _____________ (insert ride name)
  a. What's it called ?
  b. Where is it located in the park?
  c. What's special about it?

 (You'll notice that some of the questions are in contractions. In general for speaking activities it's a good idea to get your students to use contractions. It will make their speaking sound a lot more natural and more native speaker like.)

 As a full class, students ask you these questions to further practice the target language and grammatical forms. Go through it with them until they are able to ask the questions with ease. Once you feel they have the hang of it, but them into groups/pairs and have them create their own amusement park. Make sure to have some paper handy so they can draw out a map and label the park with the different rides. Monitoring is crucial during this part. Make sure that you are interacting with the groups and asking these questions to them during the creation of their parks. This will allow them to get a bit of practice answering the questions. Correct the mistakes you hear and work on the fluidity of speaking (e.g. having students use contractions, speed, volume, tone...etc.) Don't settle for mediocrity. Push your students to be creative and add details to their rides. If their parks are boring or basic then the final activation is going to be boring or basic. Have some cool examples of rides around the world (pictures) to help them come up with interesting ideas. However, don't make them linger too much on one ride or one idea.

 When the students are finished with their amusement parks, break the class and go into your activation. Tell the students that they are at a conference for new amusement parks and they need to find out about all of the other parks being presented. Give them the task of learning about the other parks, but also have them think of a few positive things that they like about the others parks and a few negative things.

Activation 
Main Activity 
Get the students on their feet and have them ask answer to the different groups about their parks. Make sure to ERASE  the questions or the majority of the question so students are not just reading them. If you've done a good demo for this, the students should feel more than comfortable asking these questions without the use of the board or their notes.  Yell out switch every 4 minutes or so, so that the students will interact with different groups. Monitor the entire activity and correct for mistakes. Try to get your students to use natural language. It should sound like a real conversation.

Feedback  (5 minutes with error correction)
Each group comments about a park that they learned  about what they liked, disliked about it. Have them vote as a class on the best park in the class and why. Make sure to board any errors you wrote down and go over them before ending the class.

Tips: This lesson is geared for a 45-60 minute class. If you are teaching a longer class, you can supplement the lesson with an article about amusement parks. Perhaps new technology or a new ride...etc. There's a lot of ways to go about this. You could for example have the students create an advertisement for their park and present it to the class. Or, you could do writing (a formal letter) where you have each group write a letter of complaint about another group's park from an upset customer. These are just some ideas and no one way is necessarily the correct way. If your students are engaged, using the target language and there's a lot of output overall, then you're doing it right.


 Cheers,
Westergaard