A  fun conversation lesson that targets language related to the demographics of a country, it's cultures and lets the students invent a country of their own.

Level: All
Objective: To target demographic terms, describing countries and culture, forming questions
Target Language: Capital, Population, Language, Culture, Geography, Climate, Government, Head of State, Religion.

Procedure

1. Draw an outline of your own country on half the board, featuring the capital city, some roads, mountains, lakes etc. Don’t take any longer than a couple of minutes. Ask the students what you have drawn and which country it is,write this down on the board.

2. Next attempt a very bad outline of the students’ country. Put in the wrong cities and generally make a mess of it. You should get a laugh at this. When the students object at your attempt, rub it out and try again, this time making it even worse. By this time, the students should be fighting to draw the map for you. Get the students to finish it off.

3. Using the two maps, elicit the target vocabulary (What’s the capital of Scotland? What’s the main religion? etc), and have a brief discussion on your two countries filling in the relevant information onto the board.

4. Tell students they’re now going to create their own country. To give them an example, draw your own country Beerland (a country in the form of a beer bottle). Elicit or provide some of the demographics of the country ie.

Capital: Beerville
Language: Beerish
Religion: Alcoholism
Head of State: Homer Simpson

5. Split students into pairs, and give them a couple of minutes to come up with some ideas. Get them to draw an outline to their country and write a name at the top of the sheet. Check that all the groups have understood the task. Have the students, fill in the outline with cities, roads, mountains, lakes etc and put in some demographic information down the right hand side of the page. This should take them about 15 mins. Help out any groups that are struggling with ideas.

6. Once each group has created their country, have them present it with questions from the other groups. With lower level classes you’ll need to elicit questions and provide the structures on the board. With higher level classes allow their imaginations to run free. Possible questions could be: Where do alcoholics go to pray? What’s the main employment in Beerland? What do Beerlanders do for fun? What are typical Beerish names? Are there any special holidays?

7. Follow ups could include, voting which country the students would most like to visit on holiday, writing a brief history of the country. Talking about cultures, do’s and don’ts etc. Inventing a national hero, flag, anthem etc. Anything you can think of.