House and Furniture: A Speaking Activity

Anila R. Scott-Monkhouse and José Luis Sañudo Hernandez, Spain

Anila Scott-Monkhouse has been a teacher of English since 1991 and has taught both children and adults. She now teaches at Parma University (Italy) and is also involved in training primary school teachers. She is an oral examiner for YLE, KET, PET and FCE. She has written articles and given talks on learner training, and together with M. Mezzadri and P. Taylor she has published two books on Italian grammar for English speaking learners. Email: anila@unipr.it

Jose Luis Sañudo Hernandez has been a teacher of English since 1992. He has taught young students up to 18 years of age. He now teaches in Avila, Spain. He and Anila met and worked together in Canterbury (UK) in August 2008 when they were both attending a teacher training course.

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Introduction
Lesson Plan
Acknowledgements

Introduction

The idea for this activity came out during the course “NLP for Teachers” at the Pilgrims’ School, Canterbury in August 2008. At the end of the course all participants produced some class material which included some of the principles from NLP which we had learnt and practised over the two weeks.

It is aimed at teenage/young adult students (SS) at a lower intermediate level of English (B1), but it can be adapted to different levels and ages. As it is, the whole activity should last approx 45 mins.

The objectives are to:

• revise and recycle vocabulary related to house and furniture
• make the vocabulary meaningful to the students through personalisation
• develop sensory acuity (NLP) and communicative skills

Lesson Plan

Materials:

• pictures of items of furniture on small, hand-sized cards (one card per pair of students) and corresponding names written on small, hand-sized cards (one card per pair of students)
• big pictures (A4) of an eye, an ear, a nose, a heart and an arrow to put up on the board
• the same pictures as in point 2 but in smaller size, and copied together on one A4 sized sheet (one sheet per pair of students)

Part 1: Making up pairs by using visual (V), kinaesthetic (K) and Auditory (A) stimuli (5 mins)

The Teacher (T) divides the class into group A and group B.
In group A each student is given a card with a picture showing an item of furniture, in group B each student is given a corresponding card with the name of an item of furniture. The Students (SS) mingle to find a partner by saying the name of what they have on their card without showing it, so each S with a picture will find their partner with the corresponding name.
Each pair of SS sit down together.

[The above method is used as an alternative way of making up pairs in order to avoid having the same two people always working together, and at the same time making sure the SS do not think that the T is imposing the partner they have to work with, which may create negative feelings.]

Part 2: Create a positive atmosphere by using the SS’ imagination and providing multi-sensory stimuli (10 mins)

The T asks SS to each think of the house of their dreams. It can be as outrageous as they want, but they must think of the following:

The T writes the above questions on the board, puts up pictures of the eye, ear, etc. next to each question, and gives examples by pointing at each picture [i.e. modelling, e.g. there is a garden. It’s near the sea. The furniture is modern. (V) Birds are singing. The kettle is boiling. (A) There is a vanilla scented air refresher in the bedroom. (O) I feel relaxed. It feels warm and cosy. (K) I do some gardening and play with my dog. I sit on the veranda. (K)]

The SS can make notes or drawings if they want, but must not write a full description.

[The idea of using the house of their dreams helps create a positive atmosphere and is not as predictable as describing the place they actually live in. At the same time, it allows SS to use their own imagination and in a way reveal their own inner self, which can be useful for the T in order to learn more about his/her SS (NLP logical levels: beliefs, values and identity). It is important that SS are left free to either write or draw, depending on what they prefer, i.e. favour their own personal learning/working style. However, they must bear in mind that it is not a writing activity]

Part 3: Developing fluency and awareness: The listener is in charge (V, A, O, K) (25 mins)

In their pairs, the SS take turns to describe their house to each other.
However, they each have a role to play.
Student A is the TV with 5 channels, all showing the same documentary “The House of my Dreams”, but each focusing on a different aspect corresponding to the questions on the board. Students B is the viewer who has the remote control and changes channel. The remote control is a handout with small pictures of an eye, an ear, a nose, a heart and an arrow to represent each of the 5 questions above. The listener therefore can ‘control’ the speaker but must pay attention to when the speaker needs to ‘change channel’.

The T models with a S pressing the buttons (i.e. pictures) on the board.

After 10 mins, the SS swap roles.

The T monitors, listens for interesting descriptions, makes a note of mistakes, and checks that SS are really listening to each other. One way of making sure this happens is telling them that at the end they will each have to write one sentence about their partner’s house [e.g. I like his house because…, but I would prefer… (try to keep it positive)] and report to the rest of the class.

In this activity it is important that the T helps the SS develop sensitivity to the speaker’s needs, e.g. when s/he is running out of things to say, must change focus, etc., which is what happens in ordinary communication. The T could also point out that most of the time effective communication takes place when it is actually the listener who is in charge, as the speaker will usually feel obliged to change something (speed, pace, topic, etc.) if s/he feels that s/he is losing the listener’s attention or the listener is uninterested, bored, confused, upset, etc.

If-time activity (logical levels: capabilities, values and beliefs, identity)

Class discussion: Do you think this house represents you? Why / why not?

Alternative: the T reads the description of someone’s ideal house (or the house of some celebrity without revealing who it is) and the class tries to decide what kind of person it is who has this as their dream house (or who the celebrity is). This is a reverse activity to what has been done together, i.e. from the person to the house, then from the house to the person.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Bonnie Tsai for all her precious teaching in the course at Pilgrims, and Paul Davis for his advice. Thank you both for encouraging us to publish on HLT.

Please check the NLP for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.