Aims and objectives:
• introducing the aims and objectives for the current academic year
• revising the vocabulary
• revising and brushing up basic skills
introducing the topic "Autobiography"
Equipment: writing paper, handouts for the games
Sequence I. Warming-up
1. The teacher greets the students with the beginning of the new academic
year and sets the goals for the course of studying in the 9th grade paying
special attention to the examination and the ways of preparing for it.
2. The class is divided into 2-3 groups. The teacher asks the groups to
share their opinions about how they have spent their summer holidays by finding
the greatest number of adjectives to complete the sentence "My summer
holidays were...". (Time — 2 minutes.) After that the groups share their
variants.
3. Most probably, the students have changed in some way. The teacher
asks the students to have a close look at each other and write a sentence,
describing what exactly has changed. If the number of students is even, the
activity can be performed in pairs.
II. Main part
1. Revising the structure of the
English sentences
The teacher reminds (or elicits from the students) the word order in
affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences. After this is done, the
class is given a task to accomplish.
Task. You will have a chance to check how well you remember the English
grammar. Each of you will be given a piece of paper with a few jumbled
sentences. Put the words in the correct order. If you do it correctly, reading
every third word you will find a message.
1) class / will / you / to / and / tomorrow / come / I. (You and I will come
to class tomorrow.)
2) travelling / I / on / not / am / usually / keen. (Usually, I am not
keen on travelling.)
3) to / give / chance / never / a / despair! (Never give a chance to
despair!)
4) person / a / you sociable / are / very ? (Are you a very sociable
person?)
5) the / it / in / to / was / sail / interesting / ocean? (Was it
interesting to sail in the ocean?)
6) for / this / work / person / does / Microsoft? (Does this person work
for Microsoft?)
Message: I am a very interesting person.
This can be done in pairs or groups to save the time. In this case, it
is not bad to think of a small prize for the winner.
2. The game "My Word"
This is a competition, in which students try to score as many points as
possible by continuing a story started by the teacher using a given set of
words.
The teacher gives the handout to each student and checks if all the
words are familiar. After that, the rules are explained: the teacher starts
telling the story, and the students must continue it when the teacher stops
using as many words from the list in their sentences as possible. Each word is
assigned a certain number of points, and it may be used only once. The student
who gets the highest score wins.
The beginning of the story may be as follows (depends on the teacher):
I've had a wonderful summer this year. First, I...
After the player is chosen (or appointed), he / she contributes a
sentence to the story using as many words from the list as possible. Other
students may question the suggested vocabulary. If the suggested words are
agreed upon, the student's score is counted, and another student takes the
turn.
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1
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2
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3
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Purple —
3
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Destroy
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— 3
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Computer — 1
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Unhappy — 2
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Prevent
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— 3
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Bus driver — 2
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Square —
3
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Enjoy —
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1
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Kettle —
3
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First semester
7
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1
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2
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3
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Seventy-five — 2
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Drop — 2
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Swan — 2
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Pretty — 1
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Snooze — 3
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Film star — 1
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Plastic — 2
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Prefer — 2
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Queen — 2
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Noisy — 2
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Stammer — 3
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Football pitch — 3
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Expensive — 1
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Swim — 1
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Shirt — 1
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Striped — 3
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Forget — 1
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Camel — 2
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Ugly-1
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Whistle — 3
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Frying pan — 3
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Independent — 3
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Show — 1
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Fish — 1
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Hard-working — 3
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Hide — 2
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Overcoat — 2
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Fat — 1
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Build — 1
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Bridge — 2
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Japanese — 2
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Sneeze — 3
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Cave — 3
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Prehistoric — 3
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Miss — 2
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Glasses — 1
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Flat — 2
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Smash — 2
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Detective — 2
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Mad — 1
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Explain — 2
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Bucket — 2
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Open — 1
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Apologize — 3
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Monster — 1
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Cruel — 2
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Kick — 1
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Grand piano — 3
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Accidental — 3
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Smell — 2
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Violinist — 2
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Extraordinary — 2
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Take after — 2
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Key-1
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Final — 3
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Scream — 1
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Wheel — 1
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Pink — 2
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Chase — 3
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Telescope — 2
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Scientific — 2
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Put up with — 3
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Pudding — 3
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Sour — 1
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Long for — 3
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Acrobat — 3
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Musical — 3
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Regret — 2
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Chimney — 2
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Greedy — 1
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Fondle — 3
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Waterfall — 3
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Muscular — 3
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Investigate — 3
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Bottle opener — 2
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Northern — 2
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Giggle — 2
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Volcano — 2
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After the game is over and the scores are counted, the students are
divided into 3 or 6 groups depending on the total number of students in the
class. Groups 1 and 4 work with the list of adjectives (the first column),
groups 2 and 5 work with the list of verbs (the second column), and groups 3
and 6 work with the list of nouns (the third column). If there are not many
students in the class or little time available, the work may be limited to
10-12 words from the list.
Task. Describe your classmate (friend, teacher etc.) using the words
from the list.
3. Introducing the
topic
After the groups have produced their sentences, the teacher draws the
students' attention to the fact that not only adjectives (which is quite
common) but also other parts of speech can be used for describing both people's
appearance and character.
T. You have just used a great variety of words to describe mostly
appearance and character. There is one more way of describing people but it mainly
deals with telling the facts from people's history and background. Such way of
describing is called "biography", and you know it quite well.
We are going to start this year with telling not about other people but
about ourselves, and this is called "autobiography".
Before writing autobiographies let's practice describing biographies of
other people by playing a game.
Game "Lifeswap"
The students are given the cards (one for each student). The teacher
asks to imagine that they are the people in the cards and think a while how old
they are, what their education and occupation may be, what they do every day,
where they work, what their hobbies are, etc. There may be a need to prepare a
certain questionnaire for the students to note down the answers. Then the
students are told they would like to change their lifestyle. They have to think
of what they really dislike about their present lifestyle, and what they are
looking for. Then the students go round the class and talk to the others in
search for the person with whom they would like to swap lifestyles.
See cards on the pages 9,10.
III. Summary
IV. Homework
Use 12 words (4 adjectives, 4 verbs and 4 nouns) not used in the class
from the table to the game "My Word" to describe yourself.
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