GESE 5 Festivals
Even though the GESE exams assess only speaking and listening and not reading and writing, it’s often a good idea to include reading and writing in the GESE classes as well – writing about a topic can help to consolidate the language and vocabulary the students have learnt and this will help with their speaking and listening. Furthermore, if the students are going to do an ISE exam at a later date, it’s important to build up the habit of writing so they are not overwhelmed when they suddenly have to start writing later. In this download, you can find a guided writing task to help students with Trinity’s GESE 5 Festivals conversation area. Students read an informal letter about a festival and then reply about their experiences of a festival of their own.
Here is a simple lesson plan to use the resource:
- Introduce the GESE 5 Festivals topic. You can play hangman using the names of festivals and words associated with them (fireworks, decorations, gifts, etc.). Or you could perhaps put the names of festivals on sticky notes and stick one on the forehead of each student. They have to mingle in the class and ask yes/no questions to try and find out which is their festival (e.g. Do I celebrate this festival? Is it a religious festival? etc).
- Tell students they are going to read an informal letter from someone. Ask students to read the letter quickly in 2 minutes and then turn it over. They then tell their partner what they remember about the letter – this helps students to understand the general meaning of the text (reading for gist).
- Put the class into small groups and ask the following questions orally. The students have to read the text, find the answers and write them on a piece of paper for the group. Move through the questions quite quickly to encourage the students to scan the letter to find the information quickly (reading for specific information). Once you have finished the questions, the groups swap papers and you go through the answers as a class to see which group is the winner. You can clarify any comprehension problems here.
Who wrote the letter?
What festival have they just celebrated?
When was it?
Why is the festival celebrated?
What did the person eat?
What gifts did they receive?
- Tell students they are going to write a reply to the letter. Quickly brainstorm the format of an informal letter to remind students about greetings, ending, etc.
- Go through the instructions orally with the students to make sure they understand what they have to do. Ask for suggestions about what they could include in each paragraph.
- Students can write the letter either in class or at home.
- Make sure you encourage students to check their own work for spelling and grammatical errors. You can also ask them to swap writing texts with a partner so that they have peer feedback before teacher feedback. Encourage students to correct their own mistakes if possible by underlining problem areas and then asking them to rewrite.
We hope you like this resource. Let us know in the comments below :)