Low Level

Topic: House and Home

Some preparation is required. See: Materials needed.

Target Grammar: singular, plural, there is, there are

Example Phrases:

There is a table in the room.	There are two windows in the room.
There is no TV in the room.	There are no chairs in the room.
There isn’t TV in the room.	There aren’t any chairs in the room.
Is there a refrigerator in the kitchen?	Are there any chairs in the room?
What floor is the apartment on?	How many windows are there in the room?
It’s on the 3^rd floor.	How many floors are there in the building?
There is a large window in the kitchen.
There is a lot of counter space.

Vocabulary

table	cabinet	furniture
chair	closet	furnished apartment
desk	shelf	unfurnished apartment
bed	floor	wall
living room	dining room	bedroom
wardrobe	chest of drawers	dressing table
sofa	couch	armchair
drapes	bedside lamp	stool
vertical / horizontal blinds	curtains	breakfast bar
shutters	porch	balcony
lamp	light switch	sink
window	faucet	bathtub
sliding glass door	room divider	TV stand
counter	roof	bookshelves
stairs	attic	parking space
air conditioner	basement	loft
coat rack	two story townhouse	studio apartment
dresser	ceiling	floor (as in a building)

Materials needed:

large room layouts of various apartments with varying number of rooms and sizes (like what you’d see at real-estate agencies) the more the better.
smaller(must be able to fit within the room layouts and still be recognizable) flash cards with pictures of different furniture. (enough for 5 pairs)
side view pictures of houses and apartment buildings. Any size OK, again the more the better.

Lesson Plan:

Introduce vocabulary using flash cards and pictures of the apartments. Try to elicit answers from the students.
Next introduce singular and plural by describing what you see in the room and school using there is, there are i.e.

There are ten chairs in the room.
There is one door in the room.
There are no desks in the room.
There is no TV in the classroom.
Get progressively more difficult and start asking questions like:

How many chairs are there in the room?
Are there any tables in the room?
Is there a TV in the room?

Call on some of the stronger students first to give an example for the weaker students.
Pair off the students and give them one of the apartment pictures with a set of furniture flash cards. Place some of the furniture cards on the apartment layout in some of the rooms. Students take turns making sentences like:

There is a bed in the bedroom.
There is no TV in the living room.
Change partners and do the same again, but practice question and answers like:

Is there a bed in the bedroom?
Are there any windows in the bathroom?
How many rooms are there in the apartment?
Students can now talk and ask questions about each others’ apartments.
Role play ideas: (dialogues can be made into handouts)

Student 1 is a real-estate agent, student 2 is looking for a new apartment.

Example dialogue:

Student 2: Are there any empty apartments in this area?

Student 1: Yes, there are. There are 4 empty apartments.

Student 2: Are they furnished or unfurnished apartments?

Student 1: One is furnished and three are unfurnished apartments. Would you like to see them?

Student 2: Yes, please.

Student 1: Which one would you like to see first?

Student 2: Could I see the furnished apartment, first?

Student 1: Sure. Here you are. (and shows a layout of an apartment)

Student 2: How many rooms are there in the apartment?

---Continue along those lines ---

Role play idea 2:

Student 1 is a university student living away from home and doesn’t like his dormitory room. Student 2 is one of student 1’s parents. Student 1 wants to move into an apartment with a friend. Student 2 doesn’t want student 1 to move because it is too expensive.

Example dialogue:

Student 1: I want to move out of the dormitory and move into a new apartment with my friend.

Student 2: Why do you want to do that?

Student 1: My dorm room is too small. There is only one room and there is no private bathroom.

---Continue along those ideas---

Role play idea 3:

You can also show pictures of famous people and have students imagine what they have in their houses. For example, student 1 brags about being in Tom Cruise’s house and student 2 asks questions about it.

Student 1: I went to Tom Cruise’s house last week!

Student 2: Really? How many rooms are there in his house?

Student 1: There are 15 rooms in his house.

Continue along with that idea. Let the students go at it!

Role play idea 4:

Two thieves are planning to rob a house and they have to discuss what they see and what they are going to steal. For example:

Student 1: There are some expensive dishes in the cabinet. We should take them.

Student 2: There is a large TV in the living room. It is more expensive than the dishes.

Student 1: There are some nice antique chairs in the living room. I want them.

Continue like so.

Role play idea 5: (if the students are fairly strong, you can introduce the past tenses like this)

Student 1 is reporting a robbery to student 2 who is a policeman.

Student 1: There was a TV in the room on the TV stand.

Student 2: Was there a VCR under the TV?

Student 1: No there wasn’t. There was a DVD player.

It is a good idea to make up the dialogues before class and maybe type them up so that the students can hold it in their hands and use them as examples. Full dialogues are not provided in this lesson plan to allow instructors to make up their own using language they feel most natural for the situation.

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