Topic: Speaking Skills - Festivals

Goal: to encourage speaking skills through discussions on the topic of festivals, cultures and traditions. Through this, students will
learn to respond to questions and have discussions using helpful communication strategies.
Aims:
1. Students will identify main festivals of a specific country and compile this information using digital tools and resources to
prepare for an oral presentation
2. Work in groups for discussions an collecting information, practicing paraphrasing
3. Describing festivals using on-level vocabulary and grammatical structures

Session Time Topics/activities Resources

Lesson 1 25 minutes Activity 1: Warm-Up Generating interest https://photos.google.c

Speaking 1. Teacher shows students pictures of a specific festival. She uses questions to om/
1 hour 50 elicit conversation, making a mental note on any vocabulary or grammatical
minutes (1 structures that we are covering this week. Students are encouraged to speak
session) freely without vocabulary or grammatical worry at this stage. Questions
include: What do you see in the picture? Why do you think this celebration
takes place? Do you have a similar celebration or festival in your country?
 2. Group work: students are asked to search for pictures of unique celebrations
around the world (1 picture only). They are to share this picture with the class
on google photos, and say something about it. This activity is quite informal
and is basically a way for the teacher to gather information about the
communication skills she needs to focus on next. Every student has to
contribute at least one comment or answer one question in the group.

25 minutes Activity 2: Making connections with vocabulary words Vocabulary words on

1. Partner work: students work with partners to match words on index cards to index cards
images of festivals. Pictures that may be
2. Students then need to explain to their class why they thing that vocabulary matched with the
word suits the picture they chose. The focus would be in them explaining vocabulary words
what the vocabulary word means to them. Students may paraphrase until they
are understood.
3. Other partners have to vote whether they agree with the explanation or not,
and explain why not. Students may not just say: Because thats what it
means. They need to try an elaborate I think the word fireworks matches
 this picture because of all the lights and fire that people are using in the
picture.

40 minutes Activity 3: Preparing for a presentation Google slides:

(excluding 1. Students in groups are asked to prepare a 5 minute presentation about https://www.google.co
prep time, this festivals from a certain country. They may use google slides, Prezi, Canva or m/slides/about/
will be done in any other presentation tool they would like. They can choose to dress in
ILC or at similar costumes or colors for that country. They may bring a dish to match Prezi:
home) that countrys celebration food. They need to show and explain at least one https://prezi.com/
activity that happens during their chosen celebration. They also need to Canva:
explain why they chose that celebration, and what they appreciate/like about https://www.canva.co
it. m/
2. Students in other group have to fill in a peer-feedback form about the
presentations they watched. peer feedback
3. They also need to fill in a short group-work feedback form about their group form/notes
members. This will be shared with the teacher in quick 5 minute one-on-one
discussions. group member
feedback form/notes
20 minutes Activity 4: Wrap-Up and Reflection Voice recording tool:
1. Students are asked to think about the presentations they listened to. They http://vocaroo.com/
need to choose one festival that they learned about that they can link to their screencast:
own culture and traditions. https://screencast-o-
2. They need to make a short audio (on vocaroo or a similar app/website) or matic.com/account
screencast with their chosen presentation as their background that explains
what the points of similarities and differences are.