Lesson 3-3 The Third lesson - Consolidating: How to say your birthday in English...

Can you remember your own birthday?

How to practice saying your birthday in English by playing the Stereo Game and the Keyword Game.

Today was very different from last week and 'pool' (swimming class) was not cancelled so we did our classes after pool. The students seemed to be fine but were a little dull for the intro and review practice. Review was done on the 12 months and the ordinals only since it was a little hot and muggy... We spent less than 10 minutes on it including a short intro that today was Canada Day and a little discussion about it. To sharpen things up a bit, we set the lesson blasting off with a revised Key Word Game.

 

 

This time students had to listen for the ordinals from their fellow students as we did a chain game of each student saying their birthdays. Students had to listen carefull because if the "keyword" was said out loud because of a birthday, only then could they grab that eraser and get on with their bragging rights. They really enjoyed that part. We set the key words in sets of numbers such as 1, 11, 21, 31 so the key number was of course, "1". The kids understood the rules well enough and we were able to do a lot of repeating practice as well without too much pain. It was also fortunate that the kids did not know each others birthdays so well. Those that did know one or two of the "keyword" birthdays were lucky enough to get that eraser.

Next we got into the Stereo Game and as that went off the kids had gotten into their lunch groups of 5 students and the leader of each group would come to the front together and say their birthdays in unison. To give those leaders a sense of accomplishment the kids listening in the back were told to listen for which birthdays they could hear. As they answered/confirmed the first birthdays of the leaders, that student whose birthday was answered first could go back to their seats and the students who weren't heard had to stay up at the front until their birthdays were figured out. It proved to be quite fun and kind of settled the kids down so this game would not just become a yelling contest.

The last part was spent on a quiz of family member's birthdays (Ken's family and they sound a bit strange on the audio CD but I guess good actors or just more people for the job are hard to come by in the ESL world in Japan.) The kids did laugh a bit which is normal, but they did take the quiz seriously. A review on the family member names and the birthdays in the textbook helps the kids lower any nervous feeling they have. Also with the ALT giving an example like, "Hi, my name is Ken...My birthday is on ...la la la..." and then letting the kids work it out helps too. After the kids did the quiz, they were asked what they thought of it and about only 3 kids thought it was difficult. And over half the class thought it was really easy. So, good for the kids! Most of them are getting used to the lessons and the listening exercises. Perhaps, they will grow up to to develop a good ear for English.

Eigo Note Book 2 Unit 3 Lesson 4 ...is ready!...

Hope your lessons went well!

The ENB

Eigo Note Book 2 Unit 4 Lesson 3...