Natalia López

Methods II-2008

Level: Beginners II
Aim: That students can talk about future actions using Going to
Topic aim: Planning a party
Friends United III by Ana Mónica Altamirano
Publishing house: Macmillan 2005
Number of students: 25
Students’ age: 12-13
Teaching period: 40’
Assumed knowledge:
Present Simple; Like, love, hate +ing; comparative and superlative adjectives; adverbs and
expressions of frequency; present continuous; should and shouldn’t; must and mustn’t; past
simple-to be; prepositions of place; can and could; much, many and a lot of; past simple; past
continuous; too and enough
Vocabulary on music, activities, adjectives to describe people, clothes and appearance, daily
activities, verbs of movement, food and drink, going out, places in town, countries, animals,
communication activities, things in town, communication verbs, injuries, the sea, verbs,
adjectives to describe people.

Materials: Students’ book, Unit 5 page 52-53

Warm-up (3’)
HANGMAN:

Students are asked to provide letters from the alphabet to guess each word. They play as one big
group

Today I feel _ _ _ _ _ because I _ _ _ _ _ _ _ to have a big _ _ _ _ _ with my friends!!

Once they get the words I will ask my students the time reference of I’m going to have a big
party with my friends.

Teaching moment (Presentation of the topic): (3’)

(Page 52)Tell me, when you are in a party, is it very important the music? What kind of music do you
like? What about dancing?
Ok! As you remember Holly and Michael planned to be djs at a party but now Holly and Michael made
important decisions(as they have been following the story from the very beginning they know about
what is going with the characters and the different events). Let’s speculate…what do you think they
are going to do to do?
Global task: (5’)

Once they tell me their ideas I will ask them to read the story and check if what they say was correct.
After having checked if their speculations were correct or not we will get down to work with the
reading.
Specific task: (7’)

Do activity 3 (page 53)

I will divide the class in 3 groups and I will secretly assign each team two questions to be answered.
Once each group is ready, they will have to answer the question given (either a, b or c ) and the
other groups will have to guess which question they are answering. The group that guesses at least 3
is the winner.
(I think that in this way I’m giving them a purpose to listen, because if they don’t do so then they
don’t guess )

3. Answer the questions

a) What’s the problem with Laura?

b) What’s the suggestion that Kim makes to Laura about diets?
c) What does Archie think about dance music ?
d) What’s Robert’s opinion about Michael?
e) What is Michael’s job in the party?
f) What’s Holly’s decision?

Natalia López

Post-reading: (5’)
Coming back to the topic of ‘party’ I will ask my students to imagine that they are djs and that today
they have a big party …… what kind of music are you going to play?

Isolation of the teaching point (3’)

Students will be asked to underline the decisions that Michael and Holly made

Student’s awareness and verbalization (5’)

Now they will tell me if the decisions are about the present or the future. Once they say ‘future’ I’ll
elicit the rules from the future with going to from them. We’ll check page 54 (the grammar table) so
that they can have the formula. And then ask them about personal plans for tomorrow.

Practice (4) (Grammar aims/Fluency is also present)

My students will be fortune tellers, so they will have to work in pairs (switching roles)using the
pattern You are going to……
with some phrases given:
 -have a blue car
 -be a doctor
 -have children
 -have two pet
 -buy a big house
It is going to be more realistic if we ask students to take the hand of their classmates and look at
their palm!

Round-off (5) (Discourse competence/Function aims/communicative aims / fluency is also

present)
Tell your students that they are going to organize a party (they already have their invitations) and
ask them to plan what they are going to do for it! They will write it down. For example : I’m going to
go to the supermarket, I’m going to buy chips, etc. Then, in pairs, ask them to find the differences
and similarities that they have in their ideas for their parties!

Homework:
Ask each student to bring pictures with people doing actions (possible to mime) and tell them not to
miss the next class since they are going to play a miming game!
The idea would be to use those pictures as actions taking place in the future and so a student will
mime the action and the rest will try to guess it, using the following pattern
Tomorrow ………

I think that it is possible to consider this, a communicative plan, because its aim is to get students
ready to talk about their future plans.

Competences:
 Linguistic competence
 Discourse competence
 Fluency competence
 Strategic competence

Aims:
 Topic aims: Students read about a party
 Grammar aims: Students practise going to by playing the role of fortune tellers
 Communication aims: when students have to answer a question given and the rest have to
guess that question. Also, when writing their plans for a party, because they have to share it
with their partner and look for differences and similarities.
 Vocabulary aims: Students are exposed to vocabulary related to party, so the book, in fact the
story presented in each unit is related to the new topic to be taught.
 Function aims: Students learn how to talk about future plans
 Skill aims; Students write a plan of their parties
 Pronunciation aims: This aim is not included in the plan, however, two pages ahead there is a
section devoted to intonation of questions and wh questions that could be taken into account
later on.