Aims: Giving advice

Level: Intermediate

Target Language:
You should + verb, Why don’t you + verb, Try + …ing, If I were you, I’d + verb


Analysis: As you can see, there are many ways of fulfilling this function, so asking even intermediate learners to remember them all accurately would be too much, even though they would be familiar with some of the structures. The best thing to do is to get them on the board and provide situations/problems for the learners to practise using them. When teaching a function, focus on the use of the language rather than its structure.


Lead in

  1. Use mime, visuals etc to explain / elicit a situation/problem e.g. I am going on holiday to Africa and I have no idea what to take with me.

  2. Elicit advice/ideas.

Presentation

  1. Use the ideas to elicit the target language by asking for phrases to express the advice.

  2. Model and drill each structure as it arises, and then write it on the board. You may be given quite a variety of phrases other than your target language ,so just ask for other ones and write up only your target language, you may need to tell them or give them hints.

Controlled practice

  1. Hand out (or display) a matching exercise. Do one or two with the whole class, then get learners to work individually, matching the problems and solutions.

Free practice

  1. Give students problems! (My car won’t start etc) You may want to keep the same theme of holiday (or whatever your initial problem was) running through the lesson, but only if it’s practical to do so. Student 1 explains their problem, Student 2 gives advice, then change roles.

  2. Feedback.

You can vary the activities to have a bit more fun by giving students characters from history and making one student in each pair an agony aunt. You can also swap problems around pairs so they have something new to talk about, if you have time.



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