Festivals Around the World — Lesson Plan

Lesson plan Classy Tutoring

Week	Level	Theme	Grammar focus	Duration
1	B1 Intermediate	Culture and celebrations	Present Simple vs Present Continuous	60 minutes

Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson, learners can:

name three festivals and say what happens at each one.
choose correctly between Present Simple and Present Continuous in a written sentence.
explain, in their own words, why one form is used instead of the other.
describe a celebration they know using both forms in the same paragraph.

The core idea

English uses two present tenses for two different jobs. Present Simple is for what happens again and again. Present Continuous is for what is happening now, or around now. The choice is never about time alone — it is about whether the speaker sees the action as a habit or as in progress.

Prior knowledge

Learners already form both tenses in isolation: they can add -s in the third person, and they can build am/is/are + -ing. What they do not yet control is the choice between them, and they tend to overuse Present Continuous once they have learned it. The signal words in this lesson are what make the choice manageable.

Materials

Chalkboard and chalk. Divide the board in half, headed every year and right now.
Exercise books and pencils for every learner.
Handout (supplied separately) — one per learner.
Three festival photographs if available; if not, describe the scenes aloud and let learners picture them.

Lesson outline

Reading (10 min)

Teacher reads the passage aloud once while learners follow on the handout.
Learners read it a second time silently and underline every verb they find.
Teacher asks: which verbs describe something that happens every year? Bullets on the board as answers come in; do not correct the tense choice yet.

Comprehension (5 min)

Learners answer the five questions in pairs, in their books.
Teacher takes answers from four different pairs, one question each.
Correct answers are confirmed on the board; wrong answers are noted, not judged.

Speaking (15 min)

Pairs work through the four discussion questions.
Teacher circulates and listens for the target forms rather than interrupting.
Whole-class share-back: two or three pairs report, teacher feeds back on one good sentence per pair.

Grammar (20 min)

Teacher elicits the two forms from the reading passage before naming the rule.
Board work: the comparison table, then the signal words.
Exercise 1 (eight sentences) written in books, then checked as a class with reasons.
Exercise 2 (two scenes) in pairs, then shared aloud.

Writing (10 min)

Learners write six sentences about a celebration they know: three in each form.
Teacher circulates and marks the six sentences only — no full correction.
Two volunteers read theirs out if time allows.

Grammar focus

	Present Simple	Present Continuous
Does what	routines, facts, habits	happening now, or around now
Signal words	every day, usually, always, never, on Fridays, in summer	right now, at the moment, today, this week, currently
Form	I/You/We/They play, He/She/It plays	I am playing, He/She/It is playing

Assessment

During the lesson: thumbs-up check after the board work; a quick oral round where each learner gives one signal-word sentence; circulation during writing to spot tense errors at source.
Exit task: on a slip of paper, learners write one sentence about every August and one about right now, hand it in at the door. Read them before the next lesson to decide whether the grammar point needs a five-minute revisit.

Differentiation

Stretch: ask stronger learners to write a sentence where both forms appear together and the contrast is the point — My band plays there every year, and right now we are practising for it.
Support: give weaker learners the signal words on a slip of paper and have them match each word to a form before writing anything. Accept a correct two-sentence answer where four were asked.

Homework

Find a photograph of a festival, or remember one. Write a short paragraph answering two questions: what do people do at this festival every year, and what are the people in the photograph doing right now? Bring it to the next lesson.

Links

Builds on: none — this is the first lesson of the term. Feeds into: Week 2, where the same contrast is applied to describing animals and their abilities, and the writing task lengthens to a full paragraph.