New Vocabulary
Verbs:
listen (to music), drink (water), eat (dinner), play (the guitar), read (a book),
write (a letter), watch (TV), dance, sing (a song), sleep, draw (a picture)
Target Structure
Example:
What’s he doing? He’s drawing.
Teaching the Class (before the handouts)
What are you doing?
Basic Grammar Sentences
After you’ve gone through all the cards, re-elicit the question and have the students listen and repeat a few times.
Finally, hand out pages 1 and 2 to the students so they can begin writing the new language down. Put all the flashcards the right way on the board, and write the corresponding word under each. Students should copy the words beneath each image on page 1. Then re-elicit the target structures and write them on the board as well. Students should copy them down on page 2.
Work in Pairs
Have your students work in pairs to complete the information gap.
Now Work Alone
When they are finished the pair work, have your students try the follow-up activity to review their writing skills for this structure. (Make sure they are not doing the follow-up activity and pair work activity at the same time. These are meant to be done separately.)
Listening
For this task you’ll need to decide what each character is doing. Tell the class what each person is doing and have them draw a
line from the person to the correct verb. As a follow-up, you could ask the students what each person is doing, or have them write sentences in their notebooks. You could also have them draw each person doing their action.
Board Game
Put students in groups of 2, 3, or 4. Have them use a coin to determine how many spaces to move. Heads moves 1 square, and tails moves two squares. When students land on a space they need to say what the person in the picture is doing. You could also have the other student ask the question each time. E.g., “What is she doing? ”
As a warm-up, ask one of the students to come up to the front of the class. Show the student a flashcard with one of the action verbs, and ask them to mime the card. Then ask the other students what he/ she is doing. Have a few students come up and try different verbs. You don’t have to correct them much at this point. The idea is just to get them thinking about the present progressive form.
After the students are aware that you are talking about actions in progress, go through the flashcards, eliciting each verb in the present progressive form. You may want to review the simple present form first if these verbs are quite new to them.
Next, put all the flashcards up on the board, and write names under each card, such as Ben, Amy, Pierre, Kenji, etc. Ask your students what some of them are doing. “What’s Ben doing?” Then tell them to remember what each person is doing, and turn all the flashcards over or cover them up so that they can’t see them.
Begin asking what some of the people on the cards are doing. If a student answers correctly, turn the card around to reveal the image. If not, leave it as is. You should also get some students to try asking other students questions across the class in open pairs, and follow the same procedure.
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