6.1 My family

Level *

Language focus Vocabulary: family members, adjectives

Skills focus Listening for details, pronunciation: stress and rhythm

Thinking focus Recalling

Teaching approach Promote accuracy – correct errors

Interaction Whole class work, suitable for large classes

Note: Do not write the chant on the board. You want the children to listen

carefully and repeat the chant and copy the hand movements.

Procedure

1 Ask the children to stand up and shake their hands. This is to loosen up

their finger muscles for a finger play. Finger plays not only tap into a

kinaesthetic style of learning, but also help to develop the children’s fine

motor skills.

2 Tell them that you are going to teach them a finger play about families.

3 Read out the first line of the finger play and demonstrate the

accompanying actions. See Box 111.

4 The children repeat the first line with the actions. The stressed syllables

are in bold.

5 Check pronunciation, stress and rhythm. Pay attention to the schwa / ə/

sound on the weak syllables.

6 Now read out lines 2 and 3 and ask the children to listen and repeat while

following your hand actions.

7 Repeat lines 1, 2 and 3 until you are satisfied that the children are saying

the chant correctly and doing the hand actions.

8 Now introduce lines 4, 5 and 6 and ask the children to repeat and copy

the hand actions.

9 Finally, perform the complete finger play together.