Festivals Around the World — Teaching Guide

Festivals Around the World — Teaching Guide

How to use this guide

Answers are given in full so you never have to work them out mid-lesson. Timings are a guide — if the grammar discussion is going well, take the minutes from the writing block.

Before the lesson

• Divide the board in half. Head the left side every year and the right side right now. Do this before learners arrive; the two-column board is the whole lesson in one picture.
• Write the five comprehension questions on the board, or have the handout ready.
• Have the passage read once yourself, at a normal speaking pace, so you know where the hard words are.
• Board space reserved for: the comparison table (middle), signal words (bottom left), learner sentences (bottom right).

Reading (10 min)

Read the passage aloud once while learners follow. Read it at a natural pace — do not slow down for every unknown word or the passage stops sounding like language.

Then let them read it silently and underline every verb. They will find around twenty. That is fine.

Three words are worth pre-teaching, because the passage does not explain them: lantern (a light inside a paper cover, carried at night), organisers (the people who arrange an event), picnic (a meal you take outside to eat).

Let these go — learners will work them out from context, and stopping for them costs more than it gains: stage, sweets.

Do not tell learners which tense is which yet. Ask only: which verbs describe something that happens every year? Note their answers on the left of the board, unedited.

Comprehension (5 min)

Learners answer in pairs. Then take one question per pair, from five different pairs.

1. What do Yusuf's family do on the first warm day of spring?
   Answer: They eat a huge meal in the garden — ["His grandmother cooks a huge meal, and everyone gathers in the garden"].
   Accept also: They gather in the garden for a big meal; they have a picnic in the city.
2. When does Ana's street festival happen, and what does every family bring?
   Answer: Every October — and every family brings a chair outside — ["Her street closes for one evening, and every family brings a chair outside"].
   Accept also: In October; they bring chairs into the street.
3. What is Dan's family waiting for, and what do they do with the lantern?
   Answer: They wait for the first snow, then make a paper lantern and walk around the block with it — ["they make a paper lantern and walk around the block with it"].
   Accept also: The first snow; they walk around the block with a lantern.
4. What are the organisers doing right now?
   Answer: They are setting up the stage — ["right now, the organisers are setting up the stage"].
   Accept also: Setting up the stage; they are preparing the stage.
5. How often does the writer's band play at the festival?
   Answer: Every year — ["we play there every year"].
   Accept also: Once a year; each August.

Speaking (15 min)

Pairs work through the four questions. Circulate with a pencil and note one good sentence per pair — you will read them out at the end. Do not interrupt to correct; note and move on.

1. What festivals or celebrations does your family have? Describe what people do every year, and what people are doing right now.

• Listening for: the contrast itself — a routine in Present Simple, followed by something in progress in Present Continuous.
• Follow-up: "And what is happening right now — this week, this month?"
• Include quiet learners: ask them for the every year half only; one sentence is enough.

2. Invent a new festival for your town. What happens at it every year?

• Listening for: a routine form, and one thing happening at the moment.
• Follow-up: "It is the first day of your festival — what are people doing right now?"
• Include quiet learners: let them answer with a single word — food, music, rain — then ask them to build one sentence around it.

3. Why do you think humans love celebrating things?

• Listening for: an opinion with a reason, not the tense.
• Follow-up: "Is it the food, the people, the colours — or something else?"
• Include quiet learners: ask them to choose one of the three offered options and say why.

4. Do festivals change as we get older?

• Listening for: past-versus-now contrast. They will reach for "when I was younger I used to..." — accept it and praise it.
• Follow-up: "How is celebrating as a teenager different from celebrating as a child?"
• Include quiet learners: ask for one difference only, not an opinion.

Grammar (20 min)

Do not open with the rule. Elicit it.

Step 1 — find the pairs. Ask learners to find two sentences about Ana's street festival: one about every October, one about right now. They will produce her street closes for one evening and right now, her cousins are building a stage. Write both, one in each board column.

Step 2 — name it. Label the left column Present Simple and the right Present Continuous. Ask what the second one always needs that the first one does not: am / is / are. Underline it.

Step 3 — board the rule.

Step 4 — signal words, bottom left of the board. Point at a signal word, ask which column it belongs to. Fast, whole-class, no hands up — everyone answers together.

Step 5 — Exercise 1, in books, then checked. Every answer and its reason is in the Answer key below; say the reason aloud as you check it, because the reason is the lesson.

Step 6 — Exercise 2, in pairs, then aloud.

• Scene A: are dancing — the photo captures an action in progress. are holding — same reason. looks — a fact about how it appears, not something happening.
• Scene B: have — every year, a routine. organise — the teachers do it every year. enjoys — everyone, every year. Note the -s.

Writing (10 min)

Success criteria — read these out before they start:

• exactly six sentences
• three of them describe what happens every year, in Present Simple
• three of them describe what is happening right now, in Present Continuous

Model answer to read aloud:

Mark only those six sentences. Do not correct anything else on the page.

Answer key

Numbered to match the handout. The reason in brackets is the part worth saying aloud.

Exercise 1

1. holds — every spring, a routine.
2. is starting — "Shh!" plus right now, so in progress.
3. don't celebrate — they takes don't, and it is a fact about them, not a moment.
4. am learning — true this year, and still going on.
5. begins — every Sunday, a timetable.
6. are lighting — "Look!", happening now.
7. wear — every year, a habit.
8. is dancing — today, and she is in the middle of it.

Exercise 2 — Scene A (a photograph, so the action is happening inside the picture: Present Continuous)

• are dancing
• are holding
• looks — a state verb. "It looks amazing" describes how it appears, not an action in progress, so it stays in the simple form. This is the trap worth flagging to the class.

Exercise 2 — Scene B (what happens every year: Present Simple)

• have
• organise
• enjoys

Writing and Homework are open tasks — mark them against the model answer in the Writing section above.

Anticipated problems

You say: "Good sentence, wrong job for that verb. Does it happen every year? Then use the every-year form — people celebrate."

You say: "Right now is the clue. What does the right-now form always need? Am, is or are — so, are celebrating."

You say: "Two forms have got mixed together. Pick one. Every Friday is a habit, so — he plays."

You say: "Some verbs describe states, not actions — know, like, want, understand. They stay in the simple form. So, I know."

You say: "Children is plural, so it takes are. The children are dancing."

You say: "Third person, present simple — the verb needs its s. My sister dances."

Wrap-up and homework

Close in two minutes: ask one learner to state the rule in one sentence, and one to give a signal word for each column.

Set the homework: find or remember a festival photograph, write a paragraph on what people do every year and what the people in the photo are doing right now. Bring it to the next lesson — you will use these as the starting point for Week 2.