Theme: Housing

Topic: Talking to a landlord / enquiring about a property

Students: There are 20 students in my special language class. All of them are aged between 20 to 30 years. They have some previous exposure to English and can communicate using limited vocabulary about things they are familiar with. They can introduce themselves and greet. They may be uncomfortable asking questions and making enquiries. They are in this class to improve their ability to converse in English. They hope to talk to foreigners, tourists and expats living in Thailand. Some of them have part-time jobs in retail and hotel businesses, where they come across foreigners who cannot speak Thai.

Unit context: In earlier classes the students have learned to

• Introduce themselves and others.
• Describe things using adjectives
• Rooms and furniture in a house
• Use the verb to be (is/are/was/were)

They have attended classes on tenses – simple present/Simple past/ simple future.

Objectives:

• Students will be able to make simple enquiries using “do/does” and -wh questions.
• Answer yes / no questions
• Students will be able to enquire about a house or an apartment.
• Ask and answer simple questions about a rental unit.

CLB evidence:

Stage 1 – learners can create simple spoken communication in routine, non-demanding contexts of language use within the four competency areas

Skills: Speaking / Listening

Proof of ability: They can understand key words, formulaic phrases and most short sentences on topics of immediate personal relevance (CLB 28). at CLB Level 3, learners can communicate basic information using simple sentences and question formations about immediate needs and for getting things done (CLB: 38).

Competency area for speaking / listening:

Interacting with others (listening) (CLB 34) – Understand simple social exchanges, including styles of greetings, introductions and leave-taking. [Communication is brief, about 5 turns.] − Identifies a range of

common courtesy expressions in discourse. − Begins to identify formal and casual style and register. − Identifies participant roles and relationships based on courtesy formulas and introductions. − Identifies common basic conversational openings and closings.

Sharing information (speaking) (CLB 71):

• Ask for and give information about immediate needs and some feelings related to common everyday activities. − Asks and answers simple, factual questions. − Follows conventions for providing personal information such as addresses and phone numbers. − Expresses some feelings. − Expresses very simple immediate and future needs, wants and plans.
• Give simple descriptions of concrete objects, people or experiences in a few short sentences.

[Descriptions are an attempt at taking a longer turn within an interaction with one person at a time.] −

Sustains about 4 or 5 sentences, which may not be adequately connected as discourse.

Materials:

Whiteboard, markers, projector, video, worksheets, thick chart paper and pens

Procedure:

Presentation/ Awareness raising (30 min):

• 1. Warm up activity: (5 min) Name chain – Students would have to write their name on a paper and display the paper on their desk like a label. Then the teacher writes

A house / apartment / dormitory / condominium on the board. Student 1 would say “hi I’m Jack, I live in an apartment”

Student 2 who is next to student 1 would say “Hi I’m Jill, I live in a condo”, then says “this is jack, and he lives in an apartment”

Each student would introduce themselves and their neighbor.

• 1. Hook: (5 min): Teacher narrates a short story about a student (John Doe) in another class who recently got a small dog and how his condo is too small and inconvenient for a pet. John is now looking for a pet friendly house or an apartment with 3 km radius of the school. Let’s help John doe find a house / apartment. In order to help John, we must come up with a list of features the house must have. Elicit features of the house/ apartment such as open space / park for the pet owners to take the dog for a walk, 2 or more bedrooms and so on.

Ask the students “does it have _ ?”

Write the features of the house that students come up with on the board.

• 1. Inductive rule explanation: (10 min).

After eliciting the features of a pet friendly house, list them on the board

• • • 3 bedrooms
    • 1 kitchen
    • 1 car port
    • Front yard
    • Tree lined fence
    • Lawn
    • 2 floors
    • 2.5 km away from the school
    • 5 min walk to the nearest bus stop.

Ask students to think of words to the make questions to find if the house has these features. Elicit does the house have _ ?

Ask what other question words can be used to ask for it’s distance from the school. Elicit is it close to ?

What words could be used to ask for services in the area (e.g. 7-eleven or a supermarket, bank etc.)

Elicit Is there near the house?

Teacher then presents the question and the answer

Example: Is there a metro station near the house? Yes, there is.

Rule comprehension (10 min)

Ask students to match the questions with the features. They would have to use appropriate question to enquire about features of the house, facilities in the area and services available near the house / apartment.

Match the following:

Does the house have ? Is it close to _?

Is there a near the house?

• furniture
• metro station
• 7-11

Elicit replies to the questions. State that the reply to all three questions is a simple “yes /no” followed by any further information. Write this example on the board.

Question: Does the house have furniture?

Answer: Yes, (it has a couch and a coffee table.) additional information is optional.

Question: Is it close to a metro station?

Answer: no, it isn’t. (it’s a 10 min walk to the metro)

Question: Is there a 7-11 nearby? Answer: Yes. (Across the street)

Skill building receptive: (10 min)

Instruct the students to work on the worksheet (below). They should look at the pictures and fill in the blanks.

WORKSHEET 1

The house has

• • Furniture
  • Wooden floor
  • Large windows
  • A large tv
  • Kitchen

Make three questions to find out what this house has.

1. _ _?

2. _ _?

3. _ _?

Look at the map and fill in the blanks

hospital near Baan Thai house? (Is there a / Does it have)

(Yes/no)

a Tesco lotus? (Is it close to / Is there a)

(yes/no)

a metro station? (Is it close to / Is there a)

(yes/no)

Skill building productive: (15min):

Students work in pairs. Instruct them to come with 10 (Yes/no) questions about the house for rent. Students must write these 10 questions and answers on a sheet of paper.

The teacher would walk around the classroom and listen to the students. Provide feedback where needed.

Corrective feedback: At this stage immediate corrective feedback is provided as the skills of using the rule are being built

Skill using activity: Role play (10)

Students use the questions from the previous activity to roleplay. Students work in pairs. They take turns to play landlord/agent and renter.

The renter asks the 10 questions and the landlord answers with yes/no and some additional information (optional). Students must use all the questions discussed in the class.

After the first round, Ss switch roles and role play once again. Corrective feedback is given after this activity.

Concluding: Ask the students

• to highlight new words or sentence structure they may have learned in the class today.
• If they can make a basic enquiry about a rental property