This lesson is designed to follow other sessions you run about rooms and items in the house. It introduces new vocabulary but draws on previously held knowledge, with speaking as the main skill.

Lesson overview

Doing a warmer activity

  5 minutes

Play a game of ‘I Spy’. Someone says ‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with … ’ followed by the first letter of something in the room, like ‘b’ for board. The students have to guess what the challenger is thinking of, and the winner then starts a new round. This activity helps students practise the names of items in the room in addition to the alphabet. You should begin the game as the challenger but once the students have correctly guessed the first word, they can play it without you as a whole class.

Introducing the topic

  10 minutes

Students have already learnt words for basic furniture items such as table and chair. Now cut pictures out of a magazine and stick them to cards to show these nouns:

wardrobe  chest of drawers  rug  curtains  duvet   bed  pillow

Draw the basic outline of a bedroom on the board but omit the items that comprise the target vocabulary on the flashcards. As you gradually teach the vocabulary, show each flashcard, drill the word and stick the card to the board. So step by step, you complete your bedroom picture.

Keep pointing to the flashcards to test that students know the word for each item. When they can remember the vocabulary, write the words on the board below each flashcard.

Playing silent bingo

  10 minutes

Prepare bingo cards for the students, but instead of numbers, show six words for household items on each card, including some bedroom vocabulary. Use all the vocabulary for house and home that your class know. Also prepare flashcards of pictures for all the household items on the cards. These you’ll use instead of the traditional numbers called out in a bingo game. I show examples of some bingo cards and flashcards in Figure 6-2.

Hand out the bingo cards. No more than two students should have the same card. Then silently hold up a flashcard. The students must recall the word for the picture and cross it off in its written form on their bingo card if it’s there. The winner is the student who’s first to cross out all six words on her card. Play four or five rounds of the game.

Doing a bedroom makeover

  10 minutes

Tell the class you don’t like your bedroom because everything in it is old, and you want the students to help you change your room. Introduce old catalogues or online ones (such as Argos and IKEA websites) to the class. Point to each bedroom flashcard and ask students how much they think the item shown costs.

Next, prompt a student to look up a price and help her to do so. For example:

• Teacher: How much is a nice, new wardrobe, Miyuki? Find the wardrobes in this book.
• Student: A nice, new wardrobe costs £300.

Divide the students into small groups and allocate each one a catalogue or website to check. Give each group a few flashcards for bedroom furniture and set the task of checking the price of an item like the one shown on the card. They must write the price on the back of the flashcard.

This activity helps students become accustomed to authentic material from the real world outside the classroom, which increases their confidence.

  5-10 minutes

The groups quiz each other by holding up their flashcard and saying, ‘How much is this? What do you think?’ (You may need to review these questions first.) The other groups then guess. Finally, the group holding the flashcard turns it over to reveal the price. Each group has a turn at quizzing the others.

Let each group have a turn at guessing the price of an item before the true price is revealed. The holder of the flashcard can gesture to make the guesses higher or lower, and build up some anticipation like the old game show Play Your Cards Right (which is a nice game for students to play along with on YouTube, by the way).

Discussing design

  3 minutes

Ask students to prepare a drawing of their ideal bedroom in their notebooks. They may also check in the dictionary for particular vocabulary they need to describe their picture which is required in the next exercise.

  8 minutes

Put the students in pairs. They must describe their picture to their partner. Put these conversation questions on the board to help the students fuel their discussions:

• Which colours do you like?
• Do you prefer this item of furniture to be big or small?
• How much does this cost?
• Would you like a TV/fire/desk/big window in your bedroom?

  4 minutes

Get feedback from the students by holding up a flashcard, eliciting the name of the item shown and asking a student whether this item appears in their partner’s ideal room. Elicit sentences about the partners of a few of the students like this:

• Teacher: Is there a rug in Charlotte’s room? Tell me about it.
• Student: Yes, there’s a big white rug near the bed and the fire.

Extension activities

Lay out all the flashcards for things in the house. Put the students in pairs. Take the first pair, and arrange one student standing in front of the flashcards and the other with her back to them. State the name of a room in the house. The student near the flashcards must listen to her partner call out the names of things that may be in that particular room. The other student responds by finding the flashcards to match her partner’s words. When the first pair have had a two-minute turn, start again with another pair and a new room.