Task: Describing a room
Student Level: Beginner, Lower intermediate
Target Language Skills: prepositions of place, articles (a, an, the), using adjectives, long turn speaking practice
Lesson Time: 50 minutes
Now that the students have studied how to use nouns and adjectives, it’s time to combine these concepts into a longer speaking task: describing a room. The teacher first models the task by describing their living room and then asks the students to do the same. An additional teaching target of this lesson is to introduce the simple use of prepositions of place. This speaking exercise can be quite a challenge for students. However, if the task is gently scaffolded, they will surprise themselves. Below are two audio clips of students describing their rooms to me. Please listen to them while looking at their room plans. Even though they aren’t perfect (they still have a few developmental errors), you will agree that they aren’t doing too badly. They have practiced for their speaking turn but are not completely memorizing their speech because they use their room plan to help them remember what they want to say.
The Lesson Plan: Teaching prepositions of place
👨🏫As I work through the lesson, rather than just having the students watch me sketch out my living room passively, I involve them in building target sentences to describe each item in my room. This is achieved through my outstanding drawing skills (cough!) or by telling the students an interesting backstory. I am constantly asking them questions and having them help me build a description of my room. The students already know some nouns, adjectives, and prepositions to use, so I am working with them to combine all parts of the sentences.
👨🏫Note: For ease of readability in this lesson plan, the teacher’s voice will be in this color, and the students’ responses (hopefully!) will be in this color.
1) To start the lesson, the teacher explains that they will sketch out their living room as it looked this morning.
-The teacher draws out a square room plan on the board and writes, ‘This is my living room’
Next, the teacher indicates the door, window, and the four corners of the room.
2) The teacher then begins to fill in the room plan with objects. First, they draw a big circle in the center of the room and ask the students:
What do you think this is? It’s a rug.
-The teacher elicits two adjectives from the students to help describe the rug.
Is it large or small? It’s large
What shape is the rug? It’s round
Ok…and is it? It’s in the center.
So in the first sentence, we can say ‘There’s a large, round rug in the center of the room.’ The teacher writes the first target sentence on the board.
3) The teacher sketches a sleeping, oversized cat on the rug. The teacher explains:
This is my cat. His name is Malfoy, and every day, he only does two things. He sleeps and he eats. So, how can we describe Malfoy? He’s lazy /He’s fat.
Where is he? He’s on the rug.
-The teacher writes the second target sentence on the board.
‘There’s a fat, lazy cat on the rug.’
The teacher highlights the first use of ‘the’ after the noun (a rug) has been introduced in the opening sentence.
4) Next to the cat, the teacher draws a sock.
-What’s this? It’s a sock
-The teacher points to the green haze coming from the sock and asks:
What do you think about my sock? It’s smelly
And.. where is it? It’s next to the cat
So, how can we say that? There’s a smelly sock next to the cat
5) The teacher sketches a lamp in the corner.
What is it? It’s a lamp.
Is it short? No, it’s tall.
Where is the lamp? It’s in the corner
Is it in the top corner or the bottom corner? Bottom corner
Left or right? Right
So, can you make a complete sentence?
There’s a tall lamp in the bottom right corner.
6) In the opposite corner, the teacher sketches a flower.
What is it? It’s a flower.
Is it pretty? Yes
Yes, it is!…. It’s a gorgeous flower.
Where is it? In the corner.
Which corner? The top right corner.
So, how can we say that? There’s a gorgeous flower in the top right corner.
7) The teacher draws an armchair over on the other side of the room.
This is my armchair. As soon as I get home, I sit in it, and it feels SO good.
How can you describe my armchair? It’s comfortable.
And where is it? It’s in the top left corner.
So?
There’s a comfortable armchair in the top left corner.
8) The teacher then sketches a sofa.
This is my sofa. I bought it fifteen years ago. The teacher indicates old food stains, dust, etc., on the couch.
How would you describe my sofa? It’s dirty / It’s old.
Good…and can you make a sentence?
There’s a dirty old sofa between the armchair and the flower.
9) In the last corner, the teacher sketches a TV.
So what do you think this is? It’s a TV.
Right…and it cost me $2,000! How can you describe it? It’s expensive!
… And where is it? It’s in the bottom left corner.
So, can you make a sentence?
There’s an expensive TV in the bottom left corner.
10) Behind the TV, the teacher sketches some dust.
What is it? It’s some dust.
Is it a little dust? No.. a lot of dust.
…..and where’s the dust? Behind the TV.
So, how can we say that in one sentence?
There’s a lot of dust behind the TV.
11) The teacher sketches a table.
This is a table. How can we describe it? It’s long.
Correct …So, can you make a sentence?
There’s a long table between the armchair and the TV.
12) Now, the teacher sketches two keys on the table with a pair of slippers poking out from under it.
What are these? They’re keys.
How many can you see? Two.
Can you remember how we describe two objects together? A couple.
That’s right….so? There are a couple of keys on the table.
-The teacher points to the slippers under the table. Does anyone know what these are? They’re slippers… Right, my girlfriend bought them for me as a birthday gift. They are made of wool and they feel very soft. We can describe them as ‘fluffy’. Can you remember how we describe two things that are the same? A pair… Right, and where are they? Under the table…Correct.. so in a sentence, please…
There’s a pair of fluffy slippers under the table.
13) For the next sentence, the teacher sketches out four cans.
What do you think these are? Beer/ Soda cans.
Right…. I drank them last night. How can you describe them? Empty.
Right …and where are they? In front of the armchair.
So the sentence is? There are a few empty beer cans/ soda cans in front of the armchair.
14) To complete the sketch, the teacher draws a fish tank.
Does anybody know what this is? It’s a fish tank.
Right. Is it small? No, it’s big. Right …is it big or very big? It’s very big. Right… if something is very big, we say it’s ‘huge’. So, can you make a sentence?
There’s a huge fish tank between the TV and the lamp.
15) Lastly, the teacher sketches a fish upside down in the tank.
This is my fish. His name is Hagrid. This morning, when I looked in the fish tank, poor Hagrid was dead!. (the teacher pretends to be sad)…Anyway… sniff… can someone give me a sentence, please?
There’s a dead fish in the tank.
Correct. Poor Hagrid, how do you think he died? There’s a hint in the picture somewhere.
The students then get to work shouting reasons for Hagrid’s demise. Usually, guesses like:
The water is dirty. The teacher refutes each guess….No, I clean it every week!
He’s lonely … He has an expensive TV to watch!
Malfroy killed him…Malfroy is so lazy. The fish tank is too far for Malfroy to walk!!
Eventually, one student will guess that it has something to do with the smelly sock. It is time for the teacher to end the mystery…..
So, when I came home last night, I was so thirsty. I sat in my armchair and started to drink four cans of beer, but I couldn’t relax because Malfroy kept meowing at me. So I took off one of my smelly socks …..”Shut up, Malfroy,” I said (a Harry Potter line) and threw the sock, but it missed and dropped into the fish tank. It was so smelly that it killed Hagrid. The teacher draws in the other smelly sock next to the unfortunate fish as a cause of death.
👨🏫Now it is the students’ turn. This can be done in an in-class session. However, I find that better results are produced by setting it as a homework task. This gives the students more time to draw a cool room plan and, more importantly, to practice for their long speaking turn that the teacher can check in the next class.
Instructions for students
-Draw a plan of your room on a sheet of paper. It can be your living room or your bedroom.
-Tell me about your room
-Try to use different prepositions of place (eg, on, under, between, in front of)
-Try to use interesting adjectives
One last thing
👨🏫Consistency is the key to success in this lesson. The more you teach it, the more you will adapt it and add your improvements. One way to quickly improve the effectiveness of the lesson is to keep examples of the room plans that students complete and save them for future reference. Then, I show them to the next class of students so they can see what they have to do. I usually display all the plans (good and bad) across several desks. The students always gravitate to the best-drawn and most colorful plans. It is often (not always) the case that the better the plan, the more effective the students’ speaking descriptions of their room are. Some students also like to improve on the example plans. Keep those plans, too!
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After all that speaking, I think your students deserve a game. Check out my ESL games and activity book here. With a copy of this by your side, you will NEVER run out of fun things to do to liven up your classroom again.
