Lesson Plan - Book 1 Unit 1

AAS Level 1 – Book 1 – A New Place

Unit 1 – We’re Moving
TL 1
yard bedroom big kitchen house

I like it. new town We’re moving.

TL 2
open the door What do we see? bathroom living room

Get back in the car. check nice It has (a dining room).

Basic Aims:
By the end of the unit the learners will:
BA1: be able to sing the song ‘We’re Moving’.
BA2: be able to use words and phrases from the song ‘We’re Moving’.
BA3: have practiced matching colors, sizes and rooms.

Advanced Aims:
By the end of the unit the learners will:
AA1: be able to describe a room using colors and sizes.
AA2: be able to say when something matches what they want.

Materials
• Textbook • ‘A New Home’ cut-outs
• Audio device to play the song • Paper and spare pencils
• ‘Song Summary’ - A3 laminated VA (see
glossary)
• ‘A New Home’ activity - A3 laminated VA

Lyrics, Games, Glossary

Many of the things referenced in this plan can be found on the latter pages such as the song lyrics, TPR actions,
descriptions of games and a glossary of any initializations/abbreviations/terms that are used throughout.

About This Unit

This unit is based around the song ‘We’re Moving’, which sets the scene and gives some hints about the story
to come in Unit 2. Catchy and enjoyable songs like this are a great way for learners to practice new language.
The melody and interesting theme help for the language learned to be retained long term. Songs also help
learners to become familiar with the rhythm of English, which will help them to develop their listening skills
and pronunciation. As a teacher, it is paramount that you make this first unit as fun and engaging as possible
with actions and appropriate progression.

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 Week 1

Before Have the song ‘We’re Moving’ playing when the students (Ss) enter. This is the song they will be
class learning in this unit, so this helps develop instant familiarity.

Icebreaker ✓ Play Freeze (see games). This should help new or nervous Ss to overcome their affective
barriers (see glossary) a little faster. Make sure you award lots of points and keep this very
light and fun.
Theme ✓ Show some pictures of people moving house to raise schemata (see glossary).
✓ On the board draw two houses and a moving truck.
✓ Tell them the song you just played during the game is about moving house. Act out putting
things into boxes and putting them into the truck. Ask the Ss to help you out. If the Ss in your
class are around 4-7 years old, this kind of dramatic play will resonate with them and you can
all pretend as a classes to be doing the process of moving house.
Lexis Start with TL1.
(see Show your pile of flashcards and tell Ss the words are from the song too.
glossary)
The outline below provides receptive to productive staging/progression (see glossary). When
introducing new vocabulary throughout the course, you should use this staging to introduce and
work on new target language (TL). You may not get through the entire receptive to productive
stages within one week. Depending on how quickly your class pick up new language, their
confidence, and their retention, you may speed up or slow down progression through these
stages. As a general rule though, if a class is struggling, it is because this progression has not
been followed.

1. Show/Model/Present  Go through TL1 and pronounce it clearly. Make sure you have
silence and make sure students are listening closely and not repeating after you (ICQ
this). This is important, as more nervous or more inexperienced Ss need to tune their
ears to the intonation and sounds of English without the pressure of production. Some
schools/teachers will immediately go into drilling, however, this should be avoided. Don’t
go with the pace of your strongest and most confident S. Go at the right pace for the
whole group.
2. Identify (Group) Point (see games section of plan)
We will introduce a series of different games you can play throughout this course. As you
and your Ss become familiar with them, feel free to substitute games as you see fit.
3. Identify (Individual)  Hands on Heads
4. Choral Drill  Call and Repeat - Don’t hone in on individual errors at this time.
5. Drill Game  Target Game
6. Language Clarification  see language clarification section of the plan
7. Produce (Team)  Higher or Lower
8. Produce (Individual)  Take a Walk

Note: Unless you have a long class, it is unlikely you will be able to get through this whole
process in one week. We have assumed classes are between 45-60 minutes and that you will
work on TL1 over two weeks. Even if your classes are longer than 60 minutes, covering this over
two weeks is ideal.

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Song Setting Context:
Give the Ss a minute to look at the images of the comic lyrics sheet on p.6-7 of the textbook. Ask
the learners some questions to help raise schemata (see glossary) and prepare them to better
understand the song.

Receptive Activity 1: Listen and Touch

Have the Ss follow along the song with the VA or with their textbooks and touch the images as
they listen. Play the song the whole way through the first time without stopping so the Ss can
become familiar with the tune.

Receptive Activity 2: TPR Actions (see glossary)

Teach the actions to the song (see TPR page).
You can gamify this element if you wish; call out some of the lines and have the Ss race to do the
action. Award lots of points and speed up/chain as your Ss get better throughout this unit.

Productive Activity 1: Drill

Drill the first lines of the song. Do the actions as you drill the lines. Focus on quality rather than
quantity. Make sure that the learners are saying the lines clearly. Drill chorally and move to some
individual drills. Be strict on pronunciation to an extent but be sensitive. Remember that this is
the first lesson of the course. (See the lyrics page in this plan or look in the textbook on p.25)

Productive Activity 2: Perform

Simply play the song this time. Encourage them to sing and do the TPR for the bits they can do,
and award points based on effort for the individual, not their ability to ‘be the best’. When it gets
to parts of the song they don’t know yet, with actions they don’t know, as the T you can just do
the actions and sing anyway. If you’ve done a good job of bringing a sense of levity and fun to the
class, they should be pretty relaxed now and Ss may just start giving the lines/unintroduced TPR
and attempt without prompting.

Tell the Ss you’ll learn those new lines and TPR next week. Don’t introduce too much, always
keep the challenge level optimal.

Homework Show the Ss the textbook and direct them to the TL on p.5 and song summary on p.6-7. Tell
them to listen to these at home using the QR code on p.3.

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 Week 2

Before Have the song ‘We’re Moving’ playing when the Ss enter.
class
Lexis Review TL1.
Go through the cards and check what the Ss have retained.

Continue through the progression below using appropriate games to work on their retention,
accuracy and pronunciation.

1. Show/Model/Present
2. Identify (Group) Point
3. Identify (Individual)  Hands on Heads
4. Choral Drill  Call and Repeat - Don’t hone in on individual errors at this time.
5. Drill Game  Target Game
6. Language Clarification  see language clarification section of the plan
7. Produce (Team)  Higher or Lower
8. Produce (Individual)  Take a Walk

It’s a good idea to introduce the names of games. As Ss build familiarity with them so you can
build up a bank of fun things the Ss can request throughout the year.
Song Receptive Activity 1: TPR Actions
Do a quick review of the TPR you introduced last time. Do this as a quick and fast first game.

Receptive Activity 2: New TPR Actions

Add in some new actions from where you were last week.

Productive Activity 1: Drill

Drill some new lines, same procedure as last week.

Productive Activity 2: Perform

Same procedure as last week. You should see them gain confidence. You can stop the song in
certain places as well and ask them, ‘What’s next?’

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 Week 3

Before Have the song ‘We’re Moving’ playing when the Ss enter.
class
Lexis Start with TL2.
In week 3 of each unit, we will introduce some alternative games from weeks 1 and 2. Feel free to
continue with the previous games, or use these at a later time.
1. Show/Model/Present  Go through TL2 as you did in the first week.
2. Identify (Group) Call the Number
3. Identify (Individual)  Swat
4. Choral Drill
5. Drill Game  Pairs
6. Language Clarification  see language clarification section of the plan
7. Produce (Team)  Wheel of Misfortune
8. Produce (Individual)  Take Away
Song Receptive Activity 1: TPR Actions
Review again.

Receptive Activity 2: New TPR Actions

Add in more new actions, hopefully you should have covered the whole song after this week.

Productive Activity 1: Drill

Drill some new lines with the same procedure as the previous week.

Productive Activity 2: Perform

This section should go a lot faster as the routine is established. In addition, they should be very
comfortable with a lot of the song now, especially if you’ve been asking them to listen to the song
at home and they’ve been doing it.
Role play Instead of focusing on grammar rules like we may do with adults, it’s beneficial to make younger
learners begin to understand the genuine communicative application of the language that has
featured in the song.

 Place room cards from TL1 and TL2 at different places around the room.

 Model the following role-play for the Ss with a puppet playing one of the roles:
A: We’re moving. Get in the car.
B: OK!
A+B: (Pretend to drive around).
B: Let’s stop here!
A: It has (a bedroom).
B: I don’t like it!
(Repeat the process until both say they like the house.)

 After acting this out, you can get an eager S and do it with them.

 Drill the lines with the class.

 Put them in pairs and have them act it out.

Note: Keep this fast paced, light heart and fun. You can also explore ways to gamify it by racing to
different houses and getting points. Or turning it into a time limit game.

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 Week 4

Before Have the song ‘We’re Moving’ playing when the Ss enter.
class
Review ✓ Do a quick productive review of TL1 and TL2.
✓ Pick out the 6-8 most difficult cards and hone in some of their difficulties. Is it pronunciation?
Remembering the TL? Depending on the situation, you can do a quick drilling/productive
game to improve their ability with the TL.
✓ If they do really well with all of TL1 and TL2 at this stage, simply move on to the song.
Song ✓ They should be pretty confident with this now, so just do a quick review game for the TPR
actions and award points.
✓ Chain TPR actions together really quickly and see how fast they can do them. This should
create a lot of energy in the room.
✓ Perform the song.
Activity A New Home

This is the first textbook activity of the course. When setting up activities, our ultimate aim is to
have the Ss perform the activity independent of the T’s guidance. We want to create a student-
centered classroom where Ss feel confidence in what is being asked of them. The T can then
stand back and observe their performance and language abilities to determine if Ss can
independently complete the task. This is tough to get right and even with these plans,

Description:
This activity has the Ss play the role of people looking for a new home to move into. The images
on p.8-9 are of four houses. The Ss should choose a house they want, then they play a ‘Go Fish’
style game to collect the cards that meet their house criteria. The difference is, there are two
different types of cards (colors/determiners/adjectives and rooms).

Set Up:
1. Draw a house on the board with three rooms.
2. Tell the Ss you’re moving house.
3. Draw a checklist next to your house.
4. Write the following with check boxes next to each item:
- pink bathroom
- two kitchens
- nice garden
5. Use your teacher copy of the cards and put them into different piles.
6. Deal yourself one of each card and hold it in your hands. Show the Ss like you’re letting
them in on the secret.
7. If the cards match, you can say, “Yay! It has a pink bathroom! Check!”
8. Drill this with the Ss.
9. Shuffle the two cards back into the different piles and mark off your check box on the board.
10. If the cards don’t match (which is likely), keep drawing cards (you choose the pile) until you
get a match.
11. Ss should now understand the concept of finding the cards that allow them to check off
their rooms.

Model:
1. With two of your more confident Ss have them open their books to the activity page.
2. Assign house A to yourself, houses B and C to the Ss. Have them take out their pencils.

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 3. Shuffle the two sets of cards and keep them in separate piles.
4. Deal yourself and the Ss 1 card from each pile. Tell them to keep their cards secret and ICQ.
5. Write “Do you have…?” on the board and drill.
6. Ask the S to your left, “Do you have (two)?” Help them check their cards.
- If the S has the card, they give it to you. The S takes a card to keep them at a minimum
of 2 cards.
- If you S does not have the card you choose a card from one of the two piles. ICQ that
both piles are OK to take from. “Are these cards OK?” (Yes.)
7. Repeat this process going around clockwise, check that all Ss understand how the game
words.

Running the Activity:

1. Place the Ss into groups of 2-4 and have them cut out one set of cards per group.
2. You may wish to play the game with the group yourself if you have a very small class.
3. Monitor the groups and help them get going.
4. When you hear Ss using language independently, provide plenty of praise and give them
points on the board.
5. Make notes, written or mental, on errors and good things you heard.
6. As the game starts to run more independently, step back more and more and don’t involve
yourself.
7. Stop the activity after some time and provide feedback and praise, helping them with
chunks of language and pronunciation.
8. Repeat this process and feed in new language you think would be beneficial for playing the
game if your Ss are flying.

Extension You can have the Ss draw their own houses with their own check lists. They can present their
houses to the class, then the previous activity can be played using their own drawings.

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 Games Glossary

Point
Put the cards up on the walls. Have the Ss stay in a designated area in the middle of the room. Call the cards
and have the Ss point at the correct image. Award points for either the fastest S or you could give points to
whomever gets it right. You could also run it as a game where the slowest has to sit down.

Freeze
This is a good, high-energy way to review different actions and also expose Ss to a new piece of music for the
first time. Have all the Ss do an action together (run, jump, jumping jacks, wiggle, swim, fly, dance etc.) while
the music is playing. When the music stops, they must freeze. ICQ (see glossary) that low energy actions are not
OK. As Ss do the actions and survive, award plenty of points and praise them.

Hands on Heads
Have the cards in the middle of the group. Have the Ss put their hands on their heads. Call out a card and have
them touch. You can award points for the fastest or you can have a time limit and when your mini countdown
ends, the Ss with their hands on the correct card get points.

Target Game
Simply assign a target in the classroom. You can draw a target on the board which is worth different points like
darts. Alternatively, you could have Ss choose their own target before the drill and you can determine how
many points hitting it is worth. As a drill game this is quite easy to run.
T: What’s your target?
S: That!
T: This? (indicate)
S: Yes!
T: Hmmm, it’s far away and small… 5 points!
(T does drill)

Higher or Lower
If this is the first time you are doing this game, set it up as follows:
1. Go through all the values of the cards from 1-10
2. Lay out 5 cards face down
3. Turn over the first card
4. Ask them if the next one is higher or lower
5. If it’s wrong – game over

For a productive activity, you can set this up as a team game. If they produce the language for the flashcard
correctly, they get to decide ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ on their row of cards. If they don’t produce it correctly, give the
team the card and have them go practice it together while you quiz the other team. You can also do this game
as individuals and have them quiz each other to keep it more student-centered. There are many variations!

Take a Walk
Have Ss line up beside the table in front of a sitting teacher. You can use tokens or award points on the board.
Flash the vocab card to the first S. If the student answers correctly, give a point or token. Ss walk around the
table to back of line. Repeat the process. If a student cannot say the card, give them that card and tell them,
“Take a walk!” Have them walk through a set long course around back to the back of the line. When they come
to the T for a second time, they must say their card to receive a token.

Call the Number

Put between 3-6 cards on the whiteboard and assign numbers to them. Call out a card’s target language and
have the Ss hold up the number of fingers or call out the correct number.

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Swat
This is a simple ‘identify game’. Use batons made of rolled up card. Lay out the cards. Have the learners make a
circle around the cards. Call on of the vocabulary items, then say, “One, two, three, go!” They have to wait for
“Go!” before they try to hit the card. Take away points for jumping the gun.

Pairs (Pelmanism/Concentration)
A very well-known memory game where two sets of cards are placed face down and the player must match
them. Turn over two cards and match them. To win the cards when they match, for language learning
purposes, the Ss must produce language. This can either be a drilling or productive game. It can also be run as a
team or individual game.

Wheel of Misfortune
Draw a circle and cut the circle into eighths. Choose 3 of the spaces and mark them as safe spaces to land on, 4
of the spaces as bad spaces, and 1 space with a heart/+1 point. Give each team 5 points to start with. Teams
take turns rolling a die and going around the circle. This can be run as a drill game or a productive game. If it is a
productive game, if they can’t produce on their turn, drill and give them the card to remember. If they can
produce the card give them extra rewards.

Take Away
Put 4 cards on the board and give the learners 10 seconds to remember them. Have them close their eyes and
remove one of the cards. When they open their eyes, they have to race to say the card that is missing. Increase
the number of cards and reduce the amount of time they have to see the cards for each successive round to
increase the difficulty.

Note: A note on points awarded for flashcard games. The points are for the game, not for general participation.
Your overall points system for the class should encourage effort in English, not excessive competitiveness in
games. If someone has 2 points from the game, but another has 10 and you feel they both tried hard, on your
main points system, they both get the same number of points.

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 Glossary of Terms

Affective barrier: The idea of the affective barrier is that stress, anxiety or other negative emotions can be a barrier
to learning.

CCQ: Concept Checking Question. Usually a simple yes/no question designed for the teacher to check Ss
understanding of an idea, e.g.
T: Is a dolphin a mammal?
Ss: Yes.
T: Yes, it is a mammal.

Cline: A cline is a continuum with an infinite number of gradations from one extreme to the other. It can be used
in language teaching to demonstrate the intensity of words.

ICQ: Instruction Checking Question. Usually a simple yes/no question designed for the T to check Ss understanding
of the instructions given, e.g.
T: Do we run in this game?
Ss: Yes.
T: No. No running, please.

Lexis: Sometimes misconstrued as meaning ‘vocabulary’. However, vocabulary is the individual words that make
up a language, whereas lexis is also how those words fit together into a system and collocate. Lexis is a more
accurate term when we are referring to ‘chunks’ of language or phases.

Productive Skills: Speaking and writing

Receptive Skills: Listening and reading

Receptive to Productive Staging/Progression: This staging is used to introduce and eventually have Ss produce
new target language in a way that maximizes the likelihood of retention, understanding of meaning, pronunciation
and independent use.

1. Show/Model/Present: We do this first so the Ss gain familiarity with the sounds of the
language and have time to process the images on the flashcards.
2. Identify (Group): This is a receptive stage based on listening. This stage is about making sure
what they hear matches the appropriate meaning on the card. We start with some kind of
group game because it takes the pressure off the Ss to get it right first time.
3. Identify (Individual): This is a receptive stage based on listening. Once your Ss have more
confidence with identifying, you can challenge them more and make it competitive.
4. Choral Drill: This is a group form of pronunciation practice. You can hone in on individual
pronunciation issues after Ss have had a chance to practice saying it as a group. Keep your
pronunciation natural, but not excessively fast.
5. Drill Game: This will give you a further chance to hone in on individual difficulties with
pronunciation. This stage is different from ‘produce’ in that the Ss is repeating after the T.
6. Language Clarification: This stage can be done earlier, but it’s beneficial for Ss to be able to say
the TL before you talk with them about the meaning. See the language clarification section for
guidance on how to deliver this section.
7. Produce (Team): This is productive stage and has the Ss produce the language independently
of the T. Again, we start with teams as not to put too much pressure on weaker Ss.
8. Produce (Individual): Now the Ss have gained confidence they can produce individually and be
more competitive.

Schemata: This refers to how knowledge of a topic or concept is organized in our minds. Raising schemata helps
learners to use their world knowledge to make sense of what we hear and read.
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(The) Silent Way: The Silent Way is a language teaching methodology based on the idea that teachers should be
as silent as possible during a class but learners should be encouraged to speak as much as possible.

T: Teacher

TL: Target Language that we aim for the Ss to have learned through our lessons.

TPR: Total Physical Response. A method of teaching a foreign language in which the teacher asks the students to
do something in the foreign language, and they must react with a body movement or action.

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 TPR Staging for Songs

Tip: This will have the best chance of running well if you have practiced the actions by yourself beforehand to
make sure it goes smoothly. Come up with your own actions or crowd source them from your Ss. As a group of
teachers, you can also have a pre-unit meeting and decide the actions together as a team and practice.

The following sequence should help you gradually introduce and practice the actions to the song. Gradually
increase the pace as the learners gain confidence. The Show and Call stages should be kept short. The Mix
stages should gradually get longer.

1) Show the actions for the first 3 lines of the song.

2) Call the lines from 1. Have the learners respond by doing the actions.
3) Show the actions for the next 3 lines of the song.
4) Call the lines from 3. Have the learners respond by doing the actions.
5) Mix 1 and 3. Call all the lines in random order.
6) Show the actions for the next 3 lines of the song.
7) Call the lines from 6. Have the learners respond by doing the actions.
8) Mix 1, 3 and 6. Call all the lines in random order. Gradually increase the pace.
9) Show the actions for the
10) Call the lines from 9. Have the learners respond by doing the actions.
11) Mix all lines introduced up to now.

Try to do all of the actions for the song in order.

This will probably take 1 or 2 weeks, 3 maximum, depending on the song and your individual Ss.

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 Language Clarification

General Guidance:

The purpose of this section is to aid you in clarifying the meaning of each piece of TL. The card will probably
provide the Ss with a decent idea of most meanings, but it’s beneficial to check. This is primarily achieved by
either providing additional context for the language and/or asking CCQs (see glossary) to gauge their level of
understanding.

Depending on the time you have in class, going through all this TL clarification can be time consuming. If you have
time constraints in the class, don’t worry about getting through all of these in the first week of introducing them.
You can also just focus on the items you think your Ss are struggling to grasp.

TL 1

yard Use the flashcard and point to the house, tree and the yard itself. Ask, “Is this
the yard?”
Additionally, you can show some different pictures of yards on a device and ask
Ss which one they like.

bedroom Point to the bed and ask, “Is this the bedroom?”
Clarify that it’s the whole room. Draw a tent with a sleeping bag inside and ask
if that is a bedroom too.

big kitchen Clarify big by drawing some different sizes of circle on the board. You can
additionally clarify ‘small’ and ‘medium’ if you want. You can also show some
different images of different size kitchens and if they define them as small,
medium or big.

house Draw a tent, apartment building and a house. Ask, “Is this a house?” for each.

I like it. It’s good to contrast this one with, “I don’t like it.” Draw a cute animal on the
board and say you like it. Ask the Ss if they like it or not. Continue this with a
series of things.

new Contrast this with old and use items in the room; “Is this new or old?”

town On the flashcard, point to the big city and ask if that is the town. Ask Ss, “Is a
town small or big?” Use a device and show cities and towns and ask, “Is this a
town?” You can also use the names of places they may be familiar with in the
local area to clarify.

We’re moving. Use the card. Ask, “Which is the old house?” and “Which is the new house?”
Tell your Ss one of your experiences of moving house and show them with
maps. Ask the Ss if they have ever moved; “Did you move house?” Don’t worry
too much if they can’t communicate this.

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TL 2

open the door Use the flashcard and the door you have in the classroom. You could request
that your Ss open the door for you. Contrast with ‘close’.

What do we see? First, clarify ‘we’. Tell the Ss you like cake. Ask them if they like cake. Hopefully
you can find something everyone agrees they like. Then clarify that when it’s
more than one person, it’s ‘we’. Drill the line, “We like cake.”
Now ask the Ss, “What do we see?” Use the card first, then move on to objects
visible in the room.

bathroom Use the flashcard and point to various things and ask if they are the bathroom.
Demonstrate that the whole room is the bathroom.

living room Ask the Ss, “Do we go to the toilet in the living room? Do we watch TV?” You
can also ask them CCQs about what they would find in a living room. Use a
device to show them different examples of living rooms too.

Get back in the car. Run this as a little role play or TPR game and have them act out getting into the
car, and then getting back in. Race to do the actions.

check Quickly draw a checklist of things on a piece of paper or the white board.
Model checking things off as you find them or see them. Draw an ‘X’ on the
board and a check mark. Ask which one is a ‘check mark’.

nice Draw a cline (see glossary) on the board and put the following words on it:
great, good/nice, bad
Put a happy face at the top and a sad face at the bottom.
Ask them if the weather today is great, good/nice or bad?

It has (a dining room). Draw a house on the board and draw 3 rooms. Draw a toilet in one, a dining
table in one and a sofa in another. Model the TL using this has.
Draw another house on the board and ask the Ss what it has.
You can also show them that it has a broader use; draw a rabbit on the board,
holding a cake. Tell them it has a cake.

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 Song Lyrics -- We’re Moving

Chorus Verse 2
We’re moving. This one’s nice.
We’re moving. Let’s stop here.
We’re moving to a new house. Open the door.
What do we see?
We’re moving.
We’re moving. It has three bedrooms.
We’re moving to a new town. It has a big bathroom.
I like it.
Verse 1 I like it.
This one’s nice. I like it.
Let’s stop here.
Open the door. Bridge 2
What do we see? Three bedrooms
Check
It has a big kitchen. Big bathroom
It has a big yard. Check
I like it. Nice living room
I like it. No! Get back in the car.
I like it.
Chorus
Bridge 1
Big kitchen Verse 3
Check This one’s nice.
Big Yard Let’s stop here.
Check Open the door.
Three bedrooms What do we see?
No! Get back in the car.
It has three bedrooms.
Chorus The living room’s nice.
I like it.
I like it.
I like it.

Chorus

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