Teacher’s Guide 

The intended audience for these activities is adult immigrant students, ranging in age from 18 to over 60 years.  The students attend a non-credit English as a Second Language class in the School of Continuing Education of a community college in California.  The proficiency level of the students is Beginning-High. Students will have access to computers located at the perimeters of the classroom.  Students will have adequate worktable or desk spaces in addition to the computers for group and whole class work.  Students will typically work in pairs or small groups, sharing computers to enhance communicative interaction.  Internet access is required. 

Performance Objectives: In order to demonstrate knowledge of the vocabulary related to family relationships, subject-verb agreement using present tense of the Be verb, and proper use of possessive nouns and pronouns, students will write a short paragraph describing their own family. 
Satisfactory performance includes accurate use of five vocabulary words, correct subject-verb agreement.  Paragraphs should be a minimum of five sentences in length.  

Introduction and Warm-up:  Teacher reviews vocabulary related to family relationships using a chart or family tree from a textbook or source such as an ESL picture dictionary.  Teacher emphasizes the present tense of the Be verb and reviews possessive nouns and pronouns.  For example, George is Susan’s father.  George is David’s father.  Susan and David are his children. 
Students take the Unit Pretest, working individually.  Students are given the following instructions:
1)	Go to the website http://www.geocities.com/fled532 and click on “Take a fun family quiz”.
2)	Click on “start”.
3)	Read each question (20 questions total), type the answer, press “enter” or click on “submit”.
4)	If answer is incorrect, choose from multiple-choice options to try the question again.
5)	Print a copy of the last page with final score to submit to Teacher.  Write any vocabulary words that were difficult on that page.

A Practice Quiz Activity is available on the “Make and Take Quizzes” page.  Students can work in pairs or small groups to create vocabulary-matching quizzes based on a vocabulary word bank provided by the Teacher.   

Pair Activity:  The teacher groups the students in pairs as Student A and Student B, two to a computer.  Students click on “Pair Practice” on the website or http://esl-lounge.com/level1a/lev1awhoisyour.html and read the “Who Is Your Aunt?” information gap activity.  The teacher models the example with the whole class.  Part One: Pairs are instructed to orally pose the questions and respond to their partners in complete sentences, using the proper pronoun, “His name is Joseph”; lower level learners could respond with the name only, “Joseph”.  More advanced students should be encouraged to provide additional information, “His name is Joseph, he lives in Long Beach, and he is a mechanic”.  Further expansion of the activity could be question formation, such as “How many brothers do you have? What are their names?” Part Two:  Students print out a copy of the activity and find another partner.  Students interview their new partner, and write in the information on the form.  The teacher forms small groups of 4 or 6 students and has the students introduce their partner in the group, and report information gathered from the interview.  For example, “This is Luisa, her father is Martin and her sister is Lupe”.  

Communication Activity: The linked page lists numerous questions about family life and biographical information.  The teacher can use one or more of these or similar questions as prompts for conversation practice in whole group or small group settings.  As a follow-up activity, have the students go to:  http://iteslj.org/questions/family.html and read the questions.  Students will choose a minimum of four questions from the list to ask another student in the class via e-mail.  Upon completion of the activity, students print out a copy of their e-mail correspondence to submit to the teacher. Note:  if students have difficulty in generating ideas for the culminating exercise, these questions may be helpful. 

Dictation Activity:  Students listen and complete a cloze-dictation describing a family.  The dictation includes the present tense of the Be verb as well as possessive nouns and pronouns.  

Family Tree Activities: As a communicative warm-up activity, students bring a photograph or draw a picture of their family. In small groups, students describe their family members and share information about their family with their classmates. 
The website provides a three part activity.  Students work in pairs or groups of three at the computer.  
Part One:  Students click on “Make a Family Tree” on the website.  Students click on “see a sample family tree” to look at Bart Simpson’s family tree. 
Part Two: Students click on “Family Tree Activity”, http://esl-lounge.com/level1a/lev1afamilytree.doc This activity requires students to read “clues” in order to complete the missing spaces on the family tree. The answer key is provided from this link, but not available on the webpage.
Part Three: As the final activity, students click on “Fill in your own Family Tree”.  This page provides a sample family tree with the family relationships filled into the appropriate spots, such as “My father’s mother”; each student then prints out a blank family tree and works to complete the page with personal biographical information.  

Writing Assignments: There are two activities in this section.
Family Poems – this selection on the website provides four poems related to the theme of family.  The first two poems express a broad, inclusive view of families, which include people from many places with different skin colors.  Teachers could use these poems to generate discussion of what defines a family in different cultures, or at different phases of life.  The other poems highlight the special relationships between grandparents and grandchildren and between cousins.  The level of this authentic literature may be challenging for High-Beginning ESL learners, but if presented effectively, could stimulate great discussion or serve as a model for personal expression.  
Students can review the anagram poem and create their own poems, submitting them via the guest book. 

Final Assessment:  Students click on “Writing Assignment” on the website for instructions for the written paragraph.  Students work individually to write a minimum of five sentences in paragraph form describing their family, using five or more vocabulary words from the unit.