ALT Lesson Plans with Eigo Note, 5th grade. Lesson 6 What do you want?

Hmmm...this is a difficult one. The target language is "what do you want?" but I tried to explain that a waiter is more likely to ask "What would you like?" as its more polite than "what do you want?". I then thought that people do ask "what do you want" but its generally kept to friends and family members otherwise it comes across as a bit curt.

So for the first lesson we just practiced foreign words and I had the kids work in groups to think of foreign words in a few categories (i.e classroom, games, food/drink etc) Hilarious when I asked one group they came up with "Pocket monster next generation"! Well I guess they are foreign words..I also had Mr Donut..ok fair enough. Second lesson it was Christmas so I had them work in groups asking each other "What do you want for Christmas?" (although I still don't quite agree with them saying "I want an ipod"- not polite! but I let it pass)


Then I decided to do something totally different than Eigo Note since the rest of the lesson seemed to be based on ordering parfaits and I just didn't think it was an effective way of learning "I want...." (Also it seems that in Eigo Note they only really practice the question but not the answer- i.e "What do you want?" and then the response is just "peach, pineapple and melon please")

So I found a fantastic learning English website though a teacher run by NHK, a TV station in Japan. It's basically a robot called Gabby and a family. They produce short video clips that concentrate on a specific language per clip and my kids find them really funny (especially 5th and 6th graders- the 10/11/12 year olds who can be so difficult sometimes) See http://www.nhk.or.jp/gabby/ja/frame.html (wait for Gabby to load and then hit "watch" button at the bottom)


One of the scenes (episode 09-1 is "I want") features a character called Jack who eats loads (I want pizza! I want chicken! I want....I want.....) but he then gets a bit chubby and has to exercise. So I had the kids watch it and then they had to act it out as a drama in groups. They really loved it. I've posted a video above of one of the performances.

Download my lesson plans below for more detail (if you want):

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (5.24) What do you want? part 1

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (5.25)- What do you want? part 2

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (5.26)- What do you want? part 3

Grade 5 Lesson Eigo Note Lesson 6- (5.27)- What do you want? part 4

Hope your 5th graders enjoy making the dramas as much as mine did. Thanks NHK and Gabby the robot!

Jess