Pet mania

• Start a word snake on the board using animals. To continue the snake you must use the last letter of the following word. For example:
  
  CAT – TIGER – RABBIT – TURTLE – ELEPHANT – etc. etc.

• Draw some big circles on the board labelled, FARM, ZOO, WILD, HOME.
• Put learners in pairs and ask learners to discuss where they’d be most likely to see these animals.
• Get feedback and write answers on the board.
• Point at the HOME circle and  ask your learners the name for animals we keep at home, to introduce the word ‘pets’

Differentiation

Stronger learners could take turns to be the teacher’s scribe. During the pair work you could ask stronger learners to share anything else they know about the animals.

• This is a simple speaking activity for low levels.
• Select a few learners to stand up to take part in the task demonstration. Give each of them a Worksheet and ask them to look at Task 1 and to have a pen ready
• Demonstrate by asking  learners, ‘have you got a pet?’ and then ask a follow up question.
• For learners who haven’t got a pet, ask them ‘would you like to have a pet? If so, what pet would you like?’ or ‘have you ever had a pet?’ Even learners who say no should have some extra information.
• For learners who do have pets the follow up questions can be, ‘what’s its name?’ or ‘how old is it?’ For very low levels leave these questions written up on the
• board to support the learners throughout.
• When learners have the idea, get them all to stand up and walk around the room to carry out the survey. Monitor and support

Differentiation

• For weaker learners leave the questions written up on the board to support the learners throughout.
• For stronger learners encourage them to ask more questions. You could make the task even more challenging by asking them to find out any funny stories about pets. Most children have some stories to tell about having pets. 

Note: If you have a large class create 2 or 3 survey groups

• Ask learners to open their notebooks and to have a ruler or straight edge to use
• Tell learners this is a listen and do activity. So, they listen to your instructions and follow them
• Monitor and check learners are following the instructions

Instructions

• Write ‘Have you got a pet?’ at the top of your page
• Use  the ruler to draw a horizontal line going down. You need space to write on the left side of the line. This is the Y-axis.
• Draw a line going across at the bottom. You need space to write below the line. This is the X-axis.
• Write ‘Yes’ on the left side of the X axis and ‘No’ on the right side of the X axis
• Look at the line going up. The Y-axis
• Write numbers going up the line. Start with 0 at the bottom.
• Go up by 2. So 2, 4, .. (elicit the rest)
• Check how many people said ‘yes’ to your pet question and how many said ‘no’.
• Draw a bar going up from ‘Yes’ on the bottom line (X-axis)
• Make the bar go up to the correct number on the side line (Y-axis).
• Draw a bar going up from ‘No’ on ther bottom line (X-axis)
• Make the bar go up to the correct number on the side line (Y-axis).

Differentiation

• Give weaker learners a buddy to copy or draw each stage on the board, step by step and note which learners can follow by listening only.

• Divide the class into two
• Tell one half they will play a parent. Tell the other half they will play a child
• If there is an odd number of learners make one extra parent
• Divide each half into smaller groups (3/4 learners) and give them a role each. All learners in the group will have the same role.
• Tell all learners to do the matching activity and check the answers

Answers

1. bowl 2. Box  3. Cage  4. clean up after (a pet) 5. take (a pet) for a walk

• Ask groups with the child role to decide on a pet and practice their reasons for wanting a pet. They should add to the ideas on their paper together
• Ask groups with the parent role to practice their reasons for not wanting a pet. They should add to the ideas on their paper.
• Monitor and support with language
• Once groups are prepared, put learners into pairs so there is one parent and one child.
• The pairs do the role-play
• Monitor and support

Note: For additional practice you can ask learners to change partners. Or ask a few pairs to demonstrate their role-play

Differentiation

The collaborative nature of the preparation supports weaker learners and allows stronger learners to prepare more language.

Lower level – Extension ideas

• Pictionary – divide your group in two teams and get one member of each team up to the board to be the ‘artist’. Divide the board in two and give each artist a word card or a flash card. They must draw the animal for their team to guess what it is. First team to guess correctly wins a point.
• Bingo – Get learners to draw a three x two square bingo board and write six animals in it from the flashcards or word cards you are using. Randomly pick out animals and learners cross them off when they hear them. The first to cross all out calls ‘bingo’ and takes the role of bingo caller for the next round. For higher levels, instead of calling out the name of the animal, describe it instead!
• Guess the pet – Put learners in pairs and give each pair a bunch of word cards or flashcards. Set a time limit of one minute for learners to define as many as they can for their partner to guess in one minute. The winning pair has guessed the most correctly from their partner’s definitions.

Higher level – Extension ideas

• Reading task - This is on the worksheet. It's about the trend of having dogs as a type of fashion accessory! Put learners into groups of four to read the text together. Give each learner a number, 1 to 4, and they should read just that paragraph and then tell the rest of the group about it.
• Discussion statements - Put learners into groups and give each group a set of discussion statements. Add some more statements to personalise the topic to where you live depending on the general attitude towards dogs. Get whole class feedback from the discussion