Teacher’s Notes for IELTS Speaking Unit 5: Food

The materials for the following activities include:

1) IELTS Speaking Task Sheet Week 5
2) Worksheet 1: Vocabulary and pronunciation
3) Worksheet 2: Speaking practice test
4) Audio file
5) Worksheet 3 (Audio transcripts and activities)
6) Roadmap to IELTS Speaking Success

Pre-Lesson Activities

The following pre-lesson activity will give students the opportunity to learn or revise topic
vocabulary on the subject of ‘Food’. Prior to the lesson, as a homework activity, ask students to do
the following:

• Study the vocabulary exercises on this web page:


http://www.ieltsspeaking.co.uk/ielts-food-vocabulary/

Lesson Activities

It is not suggested that you carry out the following activities in the order they are listed - nor that
you use all of them in your next lesson! However, think about how you might use any of the
suggestions or worksheets to support your lesson objectives. 


1. Worksheet 1



a) The vocabulary activity focuses on revising and practising ‘food’ vocabulary. Give students
Worksheet 1. If space permits, this activity would work well as a whole-class activity. Students
mingle and try to obtain a positive response for all the points in the list - a different person for
each point! If you feel students need the chance to confirm the meaning of any words or
expressions first they could check the definitions on the ieltsspeaking website using their
mobile phone. Students may also need a few minutes to formulate the questions before
beginning the activity.



b) The pronunciation activity looks at sentence stress. Begin by modelling the example
statement 

i TRY to EAT a BALanced DIet, 

emphasising the rhythm of the statement. Have the whole class chant the statement after you. If
students have trouble emphasising the stressed syllables, encourage them to click their fingers,
clap their hands or tap the table on each stressed syllable. 



Ask students to count how many syllables there are in each of the statements (1-6). This will
help them to match each statement with a stress pattern (a-e) Then tell students they should read
the statements out loud and try to identify the stress patterns. One pattern is used twice.
Alternatively, read the statements out yourself to model the sentence stress for the students
first. The answers appear at the end of this document. Once all the correct matches have been

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 made, do some whole class chanting practice to help students mimic the correct pronunciation. 



Before moving on you could point out that the stress patterns in these statements are not fixed.
Certain words within the statement could take added stress if a particular point is being
emphasised. For example, in the statement ‘My sister always plays with her food’, ‘sister’
would carry extra stress in answer to the question ‘Who plays with their food?’. Or in response
to the question ‘Does your sister always eat all her food?’ the response would probably stress
the word ‘plays’ as in ‘No, my sister always PLAYS with her food.’


2. IELTS Speaking Task Sheet Week 5 and Worksheet 2




Tell the students they are going to talk about a restaurant they enjoy using. Hand out the IELTS
Speaking Task Sheet 5 and draw their attention to the Part 2 task:




Describe a restaurant you like to use. You should say: 


- where this restaurant is

- what kind of food it serves

- how often you go there

and say why you like eating there so much.


Tell students the focus in this task is on signposting their long turn clearly using words and
expressions to help the listener follow their talk. To help them identify the kind of signposting
words they might use write up the following on the board:



Addition Contrast Example 



1) Ask students to list the kind of words or expressions they could use in each case. Point out
that some words such as ‘furthermore’ or ‘moreover’ would be deemed rather too formal for a
talk of this kind and are more appropriate in written work. Examples they could use in their talk
include:



Addition: And/Also/What’s more/Plus/First … Secondly … Finally

Contrast: But/However/Although/On the one hand … On the other hand/Having said that

Example: For example/By way of example/For instance/Take … for example



2) Give students Worksheet 2. They should read the transcript of the sample answer to this
question and identify the signposting words. Explain that the talk has been transcribed exactly
as it was delivered and that false starts, mistakes and repetitions have been retained.



3) Students can then be asked to prepare their own talk, paying attention to the use of
signposting words.


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Post Lesson Activities

Additional Activity: Worksheet 3 and Audio File

There is a recording of this student’s answer to this task on the IELTS Speaking website and
is included in this week’s downloads. Having identified the signposting words students could
be given Worksheet 3, listen to the recording and read the feedback.
a) You can play the recording through a central computer using an Internet connection or you
can download the audio file and play it locally on the PC. The audio file and transcript are
available from this week’s Teacher’s Toolkit homepage.

b) Students can listen to the recording on their phone or at workstations if you are using a
computer room. 


1. Ask students to complete Step 6 of our Roadmap to IELTS Speaking Success:


http://www.ieltsspeaking.co.uk/ebook/getieltsspeakingroadmap.html
2. Ask students to prepare for the following lesson on the subject of education by visiting this
page:

http://www.ieltsspeaking.co.uk/ielts-education-vocabulary/

Answers

Worksheet 1: Pronunciation

1e
2d
3e
4a
5c
6b

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