Julia Sánchez

Aspectos prácticos I - 2018

A story in the EFL classroom
The lesson planned takes into account the national curriculum and considers the communication
contents’1 expected in a 4th form [Primary School] which are the following:

 Telling about past events.

 Describing actions in the past, finding out what happened, explaining how something
happened (cause - effect).
 Describing a historical event giving dates, expressing sequential order.
 Making future plans (going to).
 Making comparisons.

The story selected from freekidsbooks.org is ’’The Pumpkin Chase’’ by the South-African non-
profit organization BookDash.
Rather than ’’included’’ in the lesson, the story is the protagonist of it, as I find it extremely
appropriate for students’ needs in that particular grade.

The following lesson should take approx. 60 minutes.

Content’s context: Students have been working with the topic of food, including vocabulary,
recipes, likes and dislikes.

Sequential order:

 Warm-up/pre-reading activity.

Ask students: What is your favourite food?

Make a diagram on the board: write or draw [if possible] some students’ favourite food and
include your own (teacher’s favorite food).

 Reading time.

1
Apart from considering, as well, reading, writing and speaking development of skills.
 Julia Sánchez
Aspectos prácticos I - 2018
Link it to the warm-up; tell students they are going to listen to the story of a girl flower and the
theft of her favourite food: a pumpkin pie. Ask students if they have tried pumpkin pie [make a
drawing on the board], if not, ask them if they will like to try it.
Read the story out loud, expressively, with mimics and gestures. Also, show the picture to the
students at the same time.

Pity stop in pg 2, imaginary situation [mimicking]: Isn’t Miss Sunflower very very sad? OMG!
Imagine you are about to eat your favorite delicious meal and somebody… BANG! steals it from
you! You are very hungry but you don’t have any food to eat now! You are very sad, aren’t you?
Pity stop in pg 5: Oh, who is this rose? Is it good or is it evil?
Pity stop in pg 6: Who are running after the rose?

 Post-reading activities.

Introducing the characters.

Who is Miss Sunflower? Who are Zig and Zag? Who is the crook, the pumpkin pie thief?
Ask some students to draw the characters on the board; the other students will draw them on
their notebooks.

Telling about past events, expressing sequential order and describing actions in the past, finding
out what happened, explaining how something happened (cause - effect).

Tentative questions2:
What was Miss Sunflower doing at the beginning of the story?
What was Miss Sunflower having for dinner?
What happened to her pumpkin pie?
Who stole her pumpkin pie?
What did she decided to do?
Who helped her?
How did Zig and Zag catch the crook?

 Closure.

Making future plans (going to).

Imagine you are Miss Sunflower and you don’t have your pumpkin pie anymore… What are you
going to do? Are you going to run after3 the thief? Are you going to call4 your parents?

Making comparisons.

Who is the best character of the story? Why?

Who is the worst character of the story? Why?
Who is your favorite one?

2
All questions in this lesson plan are tentative; they should be adapted/personalized to students’ needs.
3
Do mimics here as well.
4
Do mimics here as well.