Don't Be A One- Upper!
Here's a grammar/communicative lesson with a New Year's Eve theme. Students will be attending extravagant New Year's parties. They will try to one-up each other on their past experiences using the present perfect and past simple. Ideally, this lesson is suitable for Upper Intermediates, but can probably be used for a strong intermediate class.
Intro: a minute or two
Come to class with some kind of New Year's paraphernalia. You can also play Auld Lang Syne and enter into the classroom while it's playing. Here's a link to the song if you need it. Elicit the concept of New Year's and tell them that you have to decide on a party. Offer the class a couple of different scenarios with pictures of different people/parties that you are thinking of attending. The class can vote on which one they would like the most e.g. spending time with a small group of friends or going to a fancy party.
Lead In: 5 minutes or so
Have the students ask and answer the following questions in pairs/groups.
Do you have any plans for New Year's Eve?
What do you normally do? list 3 things.
What would be your ideal New Year's Eve Party? Give about 4 things
What's the wildest New Year's party that you've ever been to? What made it special?
Grammar/Target Language Intro: 5-10 minutes
Review Present Perfect and Past Simple tenses.
An easy way to do this is to keep the last question boarded. Underline 'that you've been to' and 'made it special' and ask them what these two tenses are. Elicit out present perfect for the first one and past simple for the second. From there, get the structure, examples and functions of each. CCQ all of this and then move into your first study. Here's a link of some eliciting and CCQing of this grammar point that you can watch - grammar demo
Note: At this level, even intermediates should have a solid grasp of both of these tenses and it should mostly be a review for them.
Study 1: Worksheet 5 minutes with review
Students work in groups correcting the following errors in each sentence. Copy and paste the list to a doc and print. I've got 7 here. You can add more as needed. This should all be review still for them.
1. Have you been ever really drunk on New Years?
2. Yes, I have been ever. I have been drunk last year.
3. Who have you been with last New Year's?
4. I been with my some friends of mine.
5. What's the best party you were ever to?
6. Have you had a good time there?
7. My favorite party has been when I was in college.
.....
Study 2: I've never... game 5-10 minutes
Have students form a circle. One student stands in the center. Students in the center are instructed to say extravagant New Year's activities that they've never done before - "I have never partied with celebrities on New Year's." If students in the circle have done these things, they have to get up and change seats quickly. The last student without a seat stands in the middle and students ask them questions e.g. 'When did you do this?' 'What was it like?' etc. After a few questions, the process repeats with the middle student saying something they have never done on New Year's. Do this until the class has this down. They should be using both Present Perfect and Past simple tenses quite easily now. Have them switch up their questions and use contractions to make it more difficult for them.
Activation Setup: 5 minutes
Write 'One-Upper' on the board. Elicit what this means and what it means to one-up someone. Tell the class that you're a professional one-upper and and ask them about their plans. Whatever they say, tell them that you've already done it before and give details on the experience. Brag about your experience as much as possible. One up them :)
Tell students that you want them to be One-uppers as well.
Have them first create extravagant and very specific New Year's Eve plans for themselves. This might take a few minutes.
Then start the mingle
Activation: Mingle and Feedback 10 minutes
Students mingle with each other trying to one-up the other with their New Year's party experience.
Have them
1. Greet each other.
2. Ask each other about their potential New Year's plans.
3. Each person should have a few extravagant New Year's plans that they are thinking about attending.
4. Have them try to one-up each other by proclaiming that they've already done all of the other pair's plans.
5. Pairs ask and answer questions about the specifics of when they did these extravagant party things.
6. After the exchange, pairs vote on which person was the better one-upper. Then they switch partners and do it again.
7. The student with the most One-ups wins.
Monitor, correct mistakes when necessary. Push speed, contractions and fluidity. Students should be using a lot of Present Perfect and Past Simple all while mixing it up with each other. Push them to sound natural and not too drilly. Board mistakes and end the class with a joke.
Comments
Post a Comment